There is new legislation in effect that will make it illegal for me to sell any more printed copies of Hold on to Your Horses unless I pay a lab to do testing to certify that the books do not contain illegal quantities of lead. The expense of this testing would completely destroy any hope of profitability for the book. This new law applies to any products that are intended for children under the age of 12 (so the Schlock books are all safe.) The law is the Consumer Product Safety Commission Act and the effective date on the law is next Tuesday. Fortunately a Stay has been put on the law and theeffective date has been delayed until Feb 10, 2010. I have one year to sell as many copies of the book as I can, because after that it will be illegal for me to sell any more.
Yes I’ll be exploring the option of getting the book picked up by a larger publisher who has the resources to deal with this law, but I don’t have high hopes about that succeeding. One more year, then the project is dead in the water.
EDIT: According to many friends in publishing who have responded to my panic, there is a high probability that this law will the adjusted in such a way that it will not kill my book. This is good. However I want anyone who is ever considering self-publishing to know that this is the 4th or 5th time I have had an “Oh no, I’m completely screwed” panic over this project. It gets harder and harder to pick myself up and continue to believe I can make it all work. It is also easier and easier to forget the moments where I feel like the project has succeeded. The emotional roller coaster is exhausting.