PART I: THE CURRENT SITUATION
I’m creating a separate thread for this because the topic is a little different than how to contribute to the forum running costs going forward, which thread can be found here: Forum running costs
In that thread you will notice that I’ve paid $1399 toward forum migration costs, and as of a few weeks ago also $50 toward ongoing monthly costs. So rounding up handily, $1450.
Over the years I’ve probably contributed as much again in helping pay yearly fees for the original site upkeep (which tended to be $300 a year but I don’t think I paid that every year since 2008. I’m making a conservatively small guess that I paid for five of those years.)
Now, I don’t EVEN SLIGHTLY expect any number of other members to offset that whole cost (although I’ve received some nice offers privately). But another issue has arisen, not directly connected to the forum, which would help offset my financial contributions over the years.
PART II: THE CURRENT (somewhat unrelated) PROBLEM
(…huh, note to self, the new forum hates extra carriage returns as much as the old engine… I did that with a few asterisks instead.)
Before I start let me emphasize that I’m well aware that this is what I like to jokingly call #zerothworldproblems (not even first world problems!) But it’s important to me, and it’s a converging opportunity-crisis that I just learned about yesterday, so, sure, I’ll try taking this as providence. The worst that can happen is nothing.
Back a year before the original site owners started the forum (and I was invited as the first admin), I spent a good chunk of my life savings setting up Bittersea Publications, printing my novel CRY OF JUSTICE, and marketing it. Since then a significant portion of my savings each month (since Sept 2007) has gone to renting professional book-warehouse space and distribution services, plus on occasion more marketing costs.
A few months ago, one of the largest distributors in the world, Baker and Taylor, bought Atlas/Bookmasters, my distributor. None of my business at the time.
Yesterday I received a letter (via snail mail; also one by email a few days earlier that I hadn’t seen yet) telling me that B&T will be liquidating and terminating my account. It isn’t even a question of paying more rent for my books, they’re simply kicking me out. {wry g} I have until the first week in July to find somewhere else for my books, or they will be pulped (for which on the balance I expect I’ll be charged a net fee after receiving credit for the pulp material which won’t be much). They don’t care what I do with them, they’ll help me remainder them off or whatever but that isn’t likely since sales have been almost non-existent. I have nowhere to store more than a few boxes of them, so maybe a hundred copies, maybe more like 40.
Now, I have to accept that all my investment in that project is gone, down the drain, and with it any real chance of being an ongoing publishing author. That’s my problem, not anyone else’s, and it was a risk I accepted when I set up the situation. Honestly, I’m kind of relieved B&T is forcing the issue since paying almost $200 a month rent on the books (there’s a lot of them) has become more difficult for me over the years not to say increasingly pointless. But I have a good job (for now – that’s always potentially in danger of being shut down any day for years, and originally I was hoping to segue into a new career by this method, but that isn’t going to happen so never mind.) So I could afford the risk, and the result is only my own failure. God knows I’m grateful to have been able to even afford to take the risk without crippling myself.
As I said, this has very little to do with the site, other than being a publisher (with an actual physical stock of books) I could be a published author for the site, too; and as you might expect the story of the book (and its unpublished sequels) is a bit of cultural Christian outreach (though in the first book this isn’t very obvious yet). Also I think I’m hosting a free pdf copy of the novel on the forum somewhere, or I was until the migration.
(I should perhaps add here that the new look and navigation of the forum messes with my head rather badly, which isn’t anyone’s fault – the way my brain works, it keeps expecting the old way and trying to process the old way, so I feel confusion and a bit of pain navigating or contributing to the new site. That’s a main reason why I haven’t been doing so since site migration. Other reasons being seasonal ‘work’ work increase, and I have a sort of horror about overwhelming the site or promoting myself too much on the site, which in my head translates over to a feeling that if I paid for the site transfer I shouldn’t benefit from it by using the site! I know that’s not rational, but it isn’t a feeling I can shake easily either.)
PART III: CONVERGING SITUATIONS AND HOW TO HELP OFFSET MY COST FOR SITE MIGRATION
…um, I feel like this post is too long to start with so I’ll break to a second post for the main thing anyway.
but also just mature themes of relationships between people, and when is fighting justified or unjustified, philosophical themes (including from atheists and anti-theists which I’ve intentionally made dramatically important to the characters), tactics and strategies that a younger reader might find boring and/or not understand (logistic problems, why are these people doing this over here or there). Three of the four fictional authors (including the overall narrator) are coming to the material from pretty dark emotional places, and one of them starts his side of the story talking himself out of suicide (using a version of the theistic argument from morality, which sets up a contrast between him and a similar character later who talked himself out with a dangerously different conclusion!)