Business

I've enjoyed building my own publishing business. I've worked hard to bring books back into print that I felt were especially deserving, and I'm proud of what I've accomplished. And the experience stretched my mind in new and unexpected ways. (Business development, expenditures, forecasts — all that stuff looks impressive on a resume, for whatever it's worth. I even researched and wrote my own contracts. Or part of them, anyway.) It's been great fun.

I didn't even much mind what many people would, I'm sure, consider to be the onerous day-to-day responsibilities — paying the bills, balancing the books, and the like. As far as I was concerned, it was all good. (I'm still trying to sort out my accounting software, though.)

But over the past several years, as business interests have had to be put aside (for reasons too complex to explain), I've had less time for it, and a good deal less interest. It seems as though it's taken weeks to get the necessary paperwork together to have my taxes prepared. I've been putting off royalty statements that should have been sent out at the beginning of the year.

Not too long ago, I submitted the paperwork to officially dissolve the LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) I had formed some five years before. (This isn't a formal end to the business, just a change to the legal status.) I should have done this years ago — the only reason I took this step was the hope that I would be able to borrow money to invest in further publishing projects without putting personal assets at risk, but that never quite worked out. (If only I had known I'd I have to pay a very large fee for the privilege the following year.)

I wish my business had been more successful, more self-sustaining than it has been. I'd do it all over again given half the chance. Perhaps one day.