I oftentimes wonder just what goes into the business planning of a small, successful publishing house. Not because I plan on taking them all over eventually (no, of course not, not me…) but because I wonder how they set up their distribution into bookstores. I mean, I know that they have to get in with one of the big distributors (Simon & Scheuster, Ingram, Baker & Taylor), but how does one go about doing this? Can you imagine what sort of letter is sent? I mean, it must be as bad as loan applicants going to the bank, except that the distributors also probably want your soul– no, wait, that’s exactly how a bank works.

Huh.

It makes me wonder if the distributors are the problem the industry is seeing at this time. I mean, look around the book stores. Go to non-indy stores and look around. They all have the same books featured and for sale. But they are from different publishers competing against one another, so how do they all know to flood the market with only certain books? Just how much is in the hands of the distributors? How much control do they have? Who decides which books go out and to where, as well as how many?

Now that I think about it, a certain lack of control could be why distributors hate Amazon and, through them, the publishers hate them as well.

If someone was hurting my checkbook, I’d hate them too. Explains my hatred for a former coworker…

We’ve been bad about reviews over at SBR these past few weeks. It’s what you should expect when two writers (who are both under contract with various publishers) also try to run a book review site. Back when neither of us were doing anything (like, oh, work, writing, work, musical recitals), putting out 3-4 reviews a week was pretty simple. Now we’re struggling to get out more than one a week. I’m not going to stop doing them, just recruit more reviewers. Hey, the siren call of “Free books*!” has worked before. Yeah, the * means “must also review said book, minimum 400 words.”

I’m such a stickler.

Haven’t been writing much this past week. I’ve been lazy. Losing one of my coworkers (he just stopped showing up, no-called, no-showed three straight days, blew us off completely, etc) has really put the entire team in a bind. Granted, I’ve got two of the best people working with me, but having that fourth body really helped. Hopefully they hire a new person to be a new warm body soon. But it is exhausting, which makes me just want to sleep and be lazy on my days off. I have caught up on White Collar, though I’ve pretty much stopped watching Dr. Who. I liked the earlier writing because the clues were subtle. I hate that they now beat me over the head with the obvious “Hey, lookit! Clue!”

I feel that I’ve switched from Dr. Who to Blue’s Clues.

Anyways, my favorite love-to-hate-because-it-makes-little-sense-but-I-watch-it-anyway show is coming back soon. Revolution, which is the power goes out, end of the modern world except that everybody seems to be treating the fourteen years without power as some rough weekend getaway TV show, should be back next week. As evidenced before, I really like to pick on this show. It’s just… so bad… but guilty pleasure… ack. It’s hard to explain.

See, if they hired me, or if Glee ever got back to me about how to fix their show (yeah, I’ve got my eye on you guys too… your plots have sucked for two years now. Be CREATIVE for once, sheesh), I can pay for that big yard I get to mow for over an hour each week. Oh, and get a dog. I want a dog. And another kitty. I’m thinking Siamese.

It’s all part of my master plan.