Fate deals me blow after blow...

I have to smile to myself when I think back to yesterday. As I sat down to read my emails I was so blissfully unaware of the hammer blow that was about to be befall me, it almost seems comical. This happy ignorance lasted approximately three minutes before the sledge fell when I opened up that first email. It was from Chic McSherry, the head honcho at Thorstruck Press.

Basically, in his honest and very direct way, he wrote that as of March 31st , Thorstruck Press, my literary home for just under a year, will stop trading.

I won't lie, I was gutted.
I'd found a publisher I liked and felt at home with, and now they were closing. It took me a while to digest this information properly. However, from a business point of view, they were doing the right thing. They'd also been very upfront about everything, and basically there was nothing I could do to influence the decision anyway, so it wasn't really worth me slashing my wrists about it. Shit happens, as they say in Angola.

It seemed like my luck had finally run out.
You see, I've always been lucky in my dealings with other authors and publishing houses. I stumbled into Struggling Authors at just the right time and made some great friends there. We had no real clue as to how the business worked, we simply learned as we went along; sharing articles among ourselves about the process of writing, marketing, the unwritten laws of submissions, everything. We were avid amateurs, contributing new knowledge to the pool like conspiracy theorists after 9/11, and we loved it. Writing on your own is good, but being spurned on by friends who themselves are in the same process is the best.

Like a grazing herd, we sort of drifted over to Night publishing at the same time. I was sceptical, (for a change) but Tee and Richard dragged me there kicking and screaming, and that led on to my first deal. Night publishing was brilliant. Every month they held a vote to see who would be published. It was like a marketing test. If you made the list, (you had to make the list first), then the onus was on you to garner as many votes as possible. I set up an FB page, "Vote for me", (which despite my efforts to close is still going strong, bloody Facebook), and I canvassed everywhere. I walked the vote and was rewarded a year later with my first book in print.

Next came Taylor Street, which sadly imploded in on itself, and yet I managed to leave there unscarred and without recriminations. It's a long and tragic story, but as things went pear shaped, due to illness and some bad business decisions, the owners became more and more secretive. The FB page became a boiling pot of anger and accusation which was sad as I really liked them.

Then Thorstruck came along. Taylor had shut up shop and Thorstruck offered me a deal. They promised complete transparency, and because I was au fait with most of the other authors already I knew there'd be a great community spirit. I joined Thorstruck gladly and am grateful to them for their support and endeavors on my behalf. Thorstruck released an audiobook of Division, they had merchandise for sale with my work on and were exploring film rights and television productions. The world really seemed to be moving in the right direction, and then it hit a brick wall. The cold financial reality was that targets weren't being met, so the plug was pulled before it went badly wrong. Such is life in an Independent Press.
So peeps, this is the last month of my books being published by Thorstruck Press.

So what's happening now?
Well, a very cool publishing house called Wild Wolf are willing to take my books on when Thorstruck close down. I know quite a few people there and they have a great name, so despite my sadness at Thorstrucks closure, (I even loved the name, FFS. Thorstruck sounds so Viking!), I am chuffed to be going to a publisher run by people who I know are of my ilk. You've probably seen my links on Facebook for a wad of their authors, and so hopefully they'll be sharing my links now as well.

Wild Wolf publish crime, fantasy, horror and sci fi, so I think it's safe to say my work will find a home on their shelves. Here's their website, please have a look:
wildwolfpublishing.com/

So now it only leaves me to say thank you to Thorstruck for their belief in me when the chips were down, and to Poppet and Elaina, the two ladies who worked tirelessly to sort Thorstruck out. There were others running the show, but Poppet and Elaina were the driving force, the bodies who kept it ticking, and I have nothing but love and respect for the pair of them.
And thank you to Rod at Wild Wolf for taking my work on, I hope you won't be disappointed :D

The king is dead, long live the king, as the saying goes.

As you were.
Reggie.