The Life of a Small Publisher

Monday through Friday, I get up at seven, take a shower, eat breakfast, feed the cats. I occasionally brush my teeth.

I arrive at the day job by 8:30, have a coup of coffee and prepare for a busy day. Around 9: am the chaos begins. Students arrive for Experience. Footfalls thunder overhead. The building rings with excited shouts of forty to a hundred children on their field trip. I grab my things and head to class. At lunch, I have a forty minute break and then its off to teach After School. At 5:30 I head home eat dinner and feed the cats.. My work day wraps up about nine, because I don my publishers hat after dinner. I have made commitments to authors and I feel terrible about not having already met those commitments.

Saturday I go horseback riding with a friend, though I have to get up at seven.We have lunch and sometimes I stay at her house for dinner. It's the only social life I have right now.

By Sunday, I'm exhausted.  I procrastinate about donning my publishers hat and half the time end up lounging around the house. Geumbi cuddles every chance she gets. She's a foster cat turned adpotee, and she can't get enough love.

Three days after bringing her home from the shelter, she had her second bout of fatty liver. She was so skinny at the shelter, but I didn't know about the health risks.

She was a sad cat that was (still is to some extent) stressed and anxious. She was abused by the man in her first home, sent to the shelter, sent to a foster who returned her back to the shelter for non-stop mewing and all the while, her real problem, her teeth went untreated.

For our first month I had to tube feed her off and on until she gained enough weight and her liver healed. I developed a strong bond with her through all this and due to her stress, I decided that this would be her last home. It was shortly after this that I learned she was allergic to her teeth. When I say I have to feed the cats, it's not a normal routine. It's trying to medicate and coax one into eating while staving off the the other. Bear loves first, second and third breakfast.

Often, when I sit down to get work done, my cats want my attention. It's hard to say no. Maybe I'm only a cat mom, but I feel the working parent guilt.  Thankfully, fifteen minutes of scratches is about all Bear wants. Geumbi, however, will snuggle for hours if you let her. Everyday she gets a little happier and a little more normal, but we've lost the battle with her teeth. Next Tuesday she's having all but her canines removed.

What's left is an uncertain future for GGP. When I started this company, I thought it would be easy. This was based upon a very limited experience  and a thought. They're doing it, so can I. And it was exciting!

When I look back, I think, how naive.  The summation is, being a small publisher is completely different from being an independent author. Tedious is one word that comes to mind often. Exciting only happens when the project is nearly finished, and then it is fleeting. I have one thousand and one more things to do, and a sad cat sleeping on a blanket next to my computer, patiently waiting for snuggles.