To Publish or Not

Since the announcement that Pill Hill Press was closing, Sarah and I have been giving serious thought to starting a small press. The discussions have been centered around the kind of books Pill Hill loved most, anthology publishing. Yes, the two of us write novels, but our first love was short fiction. Our first publishing credits were in anthologies. Since then, we have both been in a number of anthologies. We love the form and are keenly aware of the declining number of short story markets.

The loss of short story markets is a personal loss for us. Our next publishing credit will be for a short story we wrote together. I'll write more about that closer to the time that book is released. In the meantime, we are thinking of what to do about another press that mentored and published short fiction writers closing its doors.

Do we stand by and watch the short fiction market continue to contract, or do we step in and try our hand at filling the gap? Is there enough of a market for short fiction to make a living publishing? Do we have the combined skills to run a small press? These are some of the questions we are exploring.

We are also looking at the issue of how much of our time will be eaten up on other people's writing. Will the demands of running a press stop us from working on our own writing? I have just finished my second novel. Sarah and I are a third of the way through a novel we are writing together. She also has a work in progress of her own to consider.

We've spoken to friends who self-publish their own novels and/or run a small press, read articles on the subject, looked at the costs of publishing a book, and judged enough writing competitions to trust our judgment of writing skills.

Half of the process is completed. Last year, Sarah and I asked our attorney to help us set up a Limited Liability Company to protect our interest in each other's work. The structure of our company allows us the ability to extend into publishing. Should we publish or not?