It's December... can you believe it?

I can't believe it's the end of the first week of December. Tell me, where did the year go? Seriously. It just seems to have zipped by. And now all you hear is bad stuff. The economy is tanking. We all know that - so we have to look forward with an attitude that says "what do we do to survive and thrive?" For me, it's always been about looking at new ways of doing things. I've tried stuff long before others, done things that people thought were crazy... but why not try? I think 2009 is going to be a struggle for us - publishing news is horrible these days, with layoffs and downsizing - but I also think that it has potential, possibly even great potential. Now's the time to be bold, but smart bold (haha, if I were laying out a book it would semi-bold I think. Bad publisher joke!).

We've signed or are in negotiations for great books. Some from authors we already work with, some new to us. But they've all got something in common. The books are all good solid stories that are great fun to read. AND by great authors. See, that's become my new mantra... Dragon Moon Press is turning good writers into great authors. I firmly believe it. I think our authors are some of the best on the planet, maybe the universe. Why? Because all of them care passionately about the readers' experience. To them, the reader isn't just a person who buys their book, that reader is a valued partner, the reader is family. And that means that we all strive to do the best we can in making the experience an fun, uplifting and positive one. It shouldn't be rocket science, but I think sometimes we get lost in the quest to sell the next copy. Our goal for next year is to make sure we don't get lost, that our message doesn't get lost, and that we weather the storm. I believe that our authors and readers deserve that.

Recently, I added a permanent team member to Dragon Moon. We've now got an Editor in Charge. Gabrielle is keeping our editorial schedule on track (and doing a fab job of it!), which is really important because we've got a huge list for next year. With things going the way they are, we've decided to hit the marketplace with a great big hammer (made out of nice soft foam!) with more titles than we've ever done before. Mitigating risk in some ways.

And we've not even really done a recap of 2008. We have some great books that have come out this year. If you've not read them yet, you really do need to. :) I will recap those in a later post.

So network with us, help us spread the word - in 2009 we're going to rock!