Unlike my personal blog, the Personville Press website does not update that often. That is intentional. My blog is more free-wheeling and informal (and probably prone to grammar and spelling mistakes), while this website is supposed to be more polished and official.
But I have been busier than ever working on writing and publishing stuff. But I avoid mentioning upcoming plans for various reasons: I don’t want to mention anything until I am 100% committed to the project and have a good idea about when things will be ready.
Writers don’t normally like to talk about current projects, and I suppose the same applies to publishers. Things are always competing for my time, and often finances and family matters play a big role in determining my schedule. Also when you have no deadline, you can focus on making something as high-quality as possible. A few years ago, I digitized Robert Hillyer’s lost novel My Heart for Hostage , and once I got into it, I decided to write a comprehensive critical study about the novel even though I had never intended to do so. I’m proud of the final result (and it’s a free download!), but it caused publication of the ebook to be delayed by almost two years! This sort of thing happens a lot.
Sometimes an opportunity comes my way, and I end up delaying all my other plans.
What I’m Working on
- I’m almost finished with a 10 part interview with Clay Reynolds. Will publish soon. Update: Hallelujah, it is done.
- I’ve been making “elevator pitch” videos for some Personville titles and plan to add a few more over the months. (I hope to record 1 or 2 this week!)
- I still plan to publish my Non-Crappy Things from my Blog essay collection, but it now looks that it will be ready in summer 2026 instead of late 2025. But who knows.
- I’ve been helping another author with his website and actually writing some content for his website as well.
- I’d like to publish at least one Personville Modern Classic title ready this year, but I have no idea which title will be next or when it will be ready. (I have one comic novel by a Texan, one literary novel by a midwestern writer and two children’s books which I could consider).
- I am behind on my Personville Press newsletter (and in fact I need to provide an update within a day or so. The last time I took so long to make an update, the email distribution company shut down my account!
- I am also working on an unusual promotional opportunity with a new company which excites me (but requires a lot of work on my end).
- I have dozens of literary friends and acquaintances who I owe a letter to. You would think that it’s easy and relaxing to send book announcements about recent books to these people. But it’s not. It’s really time-consuming, and I am years behind. That’s why I am grateful when people sign up for the Personville Press newsletter; it’s one less person I need to correspond with!
- I’m trying to write a semi-regular column containing book reviews of indie books. Can’t wait to do it, but I have to clear away several other things first. (I am always behind on reading and reviewing ).
- I keep in touch with author estates of several projects and am working on future publishing opportunities.
- I guess I can announce that Personville Press will publish a collection of comic stories by Thurston Borgraves. (and it’s official). But the publication date is up in the air, and Mr. Borgraves has not even settled on a title.
- I actually want to make a 10-15 minute video on a literary topic; it should be fun. I have a script outline, but I can’t start until I have a workable script and schedule some time.
- Finally the Personville Press still has a long way to go. I’m gotten a good front page and book pages But I haven’t included basic content and I haven’t transferred content from author websites onto this site.
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Okay, those are the things I have been working on. Maybe I’m forgetting one or two other things. As described here, many of these things sound sketchy, and perhaps I may end up dropping one or two of the things from my plans. But overall I am committed to doing all these things even though I may have to put things aside temporarily if some new opportunity presents itself.
Truth be told, I could do a lot more things on the promotional end. Also, whenever I make a book deal with someone, it often take time and effort to draft the agreement and then make the book.
Making the book consists of many parts:
- Contacting the author
- Drafting the agreement
- Receiving/selecting the content
- Digitizing and proofing the content
- Hiring an artist and working with the artist
- Doing quality control (editing, testing, etc).
- Writing supplementary material (Preface, Credits, About the Author, etc).
- Writing book descriptions and preparing the book page.
- Devising a strategy for attracting reviews.
- Devising some promotional strategy right for my budget.
- Sending out announcements.
Each of these steps can take up a lot of time and potentially be showstoppers. For every book there is usually at least one thing which completely prevents a project from going ahead. Sometimes it may simply be me. Sometimes I don’t have the time or resources to proceed.
That said, I have produced a lot of books. I know what it takes. There are no short-cuts. AI will not help you with the most critical tasks.
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