Some Clichés Are True

“Each closed door leads to the next open one.”

 

One thing I never expected to become is a book publisher. My Pentatonic Press came from a need that I was determined to fill, a frustration with being at the mercy of existing publishing institutions who I had to court and date and just never quite got me. After rejection from three different publishers who held my jazz book manuscript for two years each, I set out into the unknown alone and published my first Pentatonic Press book Now’s the Time in 2004. There was a steep learning curve as I trudged uphill trying to figure out how to get the book in print and then once birthed, how to raise it. Get it out into the marketplace, get it distributed and sold and so on. I learned how to make an invoice on Excel, keep some reasonable facsimile of accounts and much, much more.

 

“Team work makes the dream work.”

 In the course of trying to figure out the basics of the business, I needed to find an editor, a copy editor, a lay-out designer, a cover designer, a printer, a distributor (several), how to register with Bowkerlink and get ISBN numbers, where to store the books, how to get them shipped and again, much, much more. I was fortunate to assemble a solid working team for each of those endeavors, most of whom I continued to use in the next 20 years as I published four more of my books and five books with other authors. 

 

All seemed to be going smoothly until many of the national Orff dealers closed, people post-pandemic started buying less books, printing costs almost doubled, storage costs increased and then what felt like the final blow when my large distributor Independent Publishing Group (IPG) recently sent me a letter that they’d be terminating our 15-year relationship this June because I wasn’t making enough money for them. Slam! went that door, alongside the other doors that were closing more gently, but closing nonetheless.

 

Today I met with my good friend aniDa Chan who so generously made an e-book for me of Teach Like It’s Music and it was the first time I had someone by my side to share all the trials and tribulations of self-publishing. The two of us went in search of a new distributor and we think we found the perfect solution which promises to turn out much, much better than IPG. Fingers crossed, but if it turns out to be true, both statements above will be justified— the open door into a better house made possible by the closed one and the supreme importance of gathering the right people around you to move forward. Further proof that sometimes clichés are true. May it be so!