I really hadn’t planned on starting a publishing company; at least, not nearly so soon. What I had had in mind was producing Author-it Success in 12 Easy Steps, selling it, making money, and then writing a nonfiction book that I’ve wanted to do for some years, one that also happens to have nothing to do with high-tech, software, computers, or accounting.
But as I was looking at this, I realized that it didn’t make sense to go through all the work of publishing the Author-it book as a one-off and then go through a lot of the effort again with the next book when I set up the publishing company. I’d have to choose cover art again, I’d have to redo the imprint, and (worst) I’d lose the value of pushing my brand that much sooner. And so, reluctantly, I figured that I’d have to set up the publishing company now. (Talking things over with a friend who runs a small press of his own, he said that he backed into setting his company up in much the same way.)
I’ve now got the Double Tall Press website mostly in place. I’m still doing some structural things, but it’s looking pretty close to what I want it to. In the course of things, I’ve chosen a name, gotten a logo, set up the first series of books, selected cover art for the series, and built a page design with icons. I’ve also got bank accounts, tax numbers, licenses, and all sorts of other things. (And lots and lots of bills getting started, but I knew that that was going to happen whenever I did this.) I don’t have custom business cards with the logo yet, but I will soon. (That’ll be another bill, but one that I expected as the cost of doing business, so wotthehell, wotthehell?)
So far, this has been fun. And at the end of the day, I get to publish books, mine and other peoples’. And that’s very cool indeed.