Wonderland Press

So yesterday I started a small press, Wonderland Press.  In the age of e-publishing, this is fairly easy to do, although my head is spinning with the worry that I’m forgetting something, or that what I do with it will be less than optimal.

I keep finding reasons to get up and run off…like just now, when it was IMPERATIVE that I put a hairbrush away, dump out an old mug of tea, and clean up some dishes.  I am so wound up that I entered all my receipts from my trip in Quicken rather than do the next thing.  I handled all my rejections and resubmitted.  I answered email.  I built some of my Twitter list for the publisher tweep.  (It’s @wonderlandpress, if you please.)  In fact, I’ve even broken down and started blog rather than finish the cover.  I already have the blurb done.

Nevertheless, the fear is in my stomach, all hair and fingernails and straw.

Another thing I keep noticing is that my marketing persona keeps trying to take over when it’s not appropriate.  If my whole life is going to be about selling books, gotta sell more books, I might as well shoot myself now.  I need that little voice in my head–for the confidence, if nothing else–but I don’t need to act like that all the damned time.  However, that’s the way I am with any new idea, so I’m not surprised:  the idea overwhelms me at first, and it’s only after the new shine wears off a little that I can think rationally about it.

Yes, that’s right.  I fall in love with ideas.  I have idea crushes.

The problem is, I already know this marketing persona is a not entirely trustworthy, gut-honest person who dances to muzak in grocery stores and geeks out over books and says all kinds of idiotic things before she can stop herself, and thus cannot be in charge, so the shine wears off quickly.

No, marketing persona.  You don’t get to go grocery shopping.  (I got mini mochi filled with what tastes like apple jelly yesterday at Asia Market.)  You don’t get to answer emails to my husband.  You don’t get to hang out with my daughter, although I will send you in if the teacher pisses me off.

You’re me.  But you’re not the part of me that spends more time listening than talking, or who reads books for fun, or who literally snorts at funny things.

Now come help me make the cover for this book…I’ll give you a mooooochiiiiiii…