Another Publisher Bites the Dust

In the effort to get writing and taxes done, my head was buried last week until I got a notice from a Facebook friend Friday afternoon. Samhain, one of the biggest of the small e-publishers, is shutting down.

Samhain is run by Christine Braeshears, formerly of Ellor's Cave. And like her former company, Ms. Braeshears blames the decline of Samhain on Amazon. In her defense, she's trying to guide Samhain into a controlled crash instead of the catastrophic mid-air break-up like so many other small to mid-size publishers have done over the past five years.

Like I said when Dorchester bit the dust, this isn't the first publisher to go down in the upheaval that disruptive technology has spawned on the publishing industry. The sad part is I see so many articles from traditional pundits screaming that we're all going to die of thirst when the rain has simply shifted elsewhere.

The funny thing is that the editors and cover artists that Samhain and others lay off WILL find work elsewhere. It just won't be with a traditional type of publishing company.