Yesterday, my distributor Pronoun announced that they’re shutting down. Which means that the 31 books I’ve published through them (and have been distributed to Amazon, Google, Kobo, B&N, and Apple) will all vanish from the retailers at the end of the year. And along with them will go my book pages and my author page, all of which I’m currently linking to through hundreds of blog posts, social media links, and ads.

So, I suppose I have my work set out for me. Do I start over and just find a new distributor? Can I trust another company not to go the same way? Should I just sell books directly and say fuck the retailers? Should I try to find a publisher that wants to buy the full collection? Should I quit writing and go get a job on a tugboat?

Last night I was angry, frustrated, and overwhelmed. I’ve spent the last year adding all of my books to Pronoun, updating my author page, creating ads and links, and generally building my entire model around their platform. Which in retrospect feels silly, but also (at least in the moment) makes me feel like I’ve wasted a year’s worth of work.

The reality isn’t quite as dire as all that, although it’s not pretty. I suppose I have a chance to reevaluate my business and my writing, but that silver lining isn’t feeling especially exciting to me.

One nice thing they did do as they’re shutting down was to let me export all of my books into one giant file. Which means I have a zip file of 31 books including .mobi, .epub. and .docx formats for each one.

I’ll probably put together them all together as a package deal in case anyone wants to buy a shit load of my dirty books for less than the $95 it would cost to get them all separately.

So, today I’m going to reassess things, start working out a plan for moving forward and spend a lot of time cuddling Little Z. And tonight I’ll head over to Tableaux and commiserate more with Jack over a strong cocktail.

I hope you’re hanging in there and doing alright. And I hope that whatever adversity you’re dealing with today also inspires you. I think you’re doing great.