Saturday, July 17, 2010

Who let all this press business pile up?

Oh yeah, that would be me. Sigh...

Grad school has been bad for business.

There is a mountain of Medusa's Muse business that has been needing my attention for at least three months, and now that school is over and I'm supposedly on vacation (what's that?), I am spending all my free time doing really fun things like updating inventories. Plus, it's time to pay sales tax again (before the end of the month, people. Don't forget). But before I can do that I have to finalize all the data on sales from quarter one and two of 2010. I haven't been inputting the sales in the spreadsheets like I should, instead they're written down on bits of paper which have been tossed into the top drawer of my desk. I think. I hope they're all there. And I owe Laura money again, and speaking of money I really wish someone from Gilman or Indy Arts would call me so I can send them their cut of Punk Rock Saved My Ass book sales.

I know being a publisher looks glamorous (well, only when I wear my tiara), but most of the time being a publisher is a real pain in the ass. I did not start a small press so I could spend all my time doing books, I started a press to create books. Actual hands on book creation is only a fraction of what I get to spend my time on, even though it's the only reason I became a publisher. So of course I let the bookkeeping pile up when I get busy. If I have any free time I want to spend it doing something I love, like editing or working on my play.

Even though I researched what is required to start a small business like a publishing company, and even wrote a book about how to do it, I wasn't prepared for the tedium I feel inputting book sales, not to mention marketing the dang things. There are days I think about quitting. What a huge waste of my artistic energy. I should be creating something, not staring at spread sheets trying to remember how to do percentages correctly. But when I ponder never publishing another book, I feel miserable. Never publishing another book? How awful that would be! So I keep at it, but I really wish I was earning enough at Medusa's Muse to hire some help.

Okay, enough whining. Back to crunching those numbers.

2 comments:

ISRAEL CARRASCO said...

Keep it up. Any passion should be worth doing for its own sake.

Rena said...

thanks Israel. you're right, and I will