What to do when your publisher goes out of business...

1. Bawl your eyes out into your favorite beer and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

2. Watch your choice of "person overcoming adversity to achieve their dream" movie. (Personally, I'm a sucker for danced-themed dreamers like "Save the Last Dance" or "Flashdance". Alex gets into ballet school and can finally leave the dance club...maybe my dreams can come true, too.)


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3. Close your account with Amazon, feeling betrayed by the crooks that put small publishers out of business.

4. Reopen your account with Amazon. What, you think you can just close an account at Amazon? Laugh ironically at your naivety and helplessness, then cry a little more.


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5. Check your email repeatedly for any sign that this is all a misunderstanding and the off-color possibility that your publisher was playing an early April Fool's prank. Realize you are being ridiculous.

6. Print out copies of old manuscripts and burn them symbolically.

7. Contemplate your purpose on this earth.


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8. Browse the aisles at Barnes & Noble and mock every book in your genre that made it through the big publisher gateway and onto those abnormally tall shelves. Belittle their obscenely glossy covers, overrated plot lines, and transparent characters. Buy one or two that are on sale.

9. Consider clicking on one of those ads that promise instant fame and wealth to all writers who click on it. Stop yourself just in time to avoid downloading what likely would have been a plethora of spam and viruses onto your six-year-old laptop, which would have doubtless caused its inevitable betrayal and violent death.

10. Start to breathe and realize this is not the end. This is just another one of those annoying beginnings.