The Business Rusch: All Good Things

April marks the fifth anniversary of this blog. Not of the Business Rusch, exactly, but of me writing every Thursday about business or writing or something to do with publishing.

Five years at 52 weeks per year at about 3,000 to 4,000 words per blog. That’s damn near a million words about various topics, more than some business writers have written in their entire careers.

This morning, I had no idea what to write about. Oh, there’s this study or that survey; there’s this cool fact or that neat change. I have a list of things to cover that interest me…somewhat. And I’ve said I would redo dealbreakers. I should finish blogging about estates.

I’ve been looking at traditional publishing contracts. They’re so disheartening that I really don’t want to write about them again.

In fact, the word “again” is what keeps cropping up. The publishing industry is stabilizing. We’ve found our future. We’re still not sure how it will go, but it’s pretty clear that e-books are here to stay, traditional publishing will continue (although maybe not at the heights it reached decades ago), and writers finally have a career path outside of traditional publishing.

The writers who work hard will be the ones who will succeed. Those who don’t work hard or don’t learn will be the ones who will fail.

The road ahead looks good to me, finally. I feel like we’ve come through a pretty dark wilderness and we’re heading into a new world together.

By the afternoon, I still didn’t have a topic. Dean’s teaching a workshop and I went up there to ask the students what they wanted to see me cover in the blog. They gave me a great list.

The problem with it?

I’ve touched on all of those topics over the past five years. Not a single topic they’ve mentioned is one I haven’t already thought of and written about. Not one.

I don’t expect people to read everything on the blog, so of course they didn’t know. But I did.

And that’s what I’m facing now.

I’m looking at updating everything. From the contracts and dealbreakers posts to the bits of the Freelancer’s Guide, to a tweak on the way we look at self-publishing versus traditional publishing, all of it needs a slight revision.

But it’s a revision, not an exploration.

And exploration is what interests me.

So…

I think it’s time I end the Thursday Business Blog. Not because you guys have failed to support it. You’ve done a fantastic job, sending me e-mails, links, commenting, and donating. I appreciate every single bit of it.

No, the reason I need to end the blog is that I’m looking on it as a burden, not as something I look forward to. I’m not enjoying writing it any longer. I have so much other writing to do that the blog is actively interfering with.

For the first 4.5 years, I always looked forward to tackling a blog topic. Since the fall, I really haven’t. And when something goes from fun to work, I usually don’t last very long. I finished the discoverability series, but I don’t really want to tackle another.

What’s exciting to me about the new world of publising these days is the fact that I can write anything for any reason at any time. Novels and short fiction are my true love. Nonfiction is something I do on the side.

For the past five years, my writing life has revolved around Thursdays, and the nonfiction. The never-ending drumbeat of a hard deadline.

It’s time I end that, for my writing. I need to focus on the fiction itself.

Thank you all for taking this journey with me. I’ve truly enjoyed it. I greatly appreciate those of you who supported the blog regularly (and those who put in a few dollars now and again). Those of you who have regular donations set up, it’s time to cancel them.

I hope that the discussions we’ve had here will help all of you in your careers. I know they’ve helped me with mine.

Thanks for the regular visits. I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated them.

THURSDAY: 2:30 PM:

Wow. I came to the blog to discover nearly 100 comments since I put it up. Too many to answer individually, but boy, oh, boy do I appreciate them all. You guys made me tear up. 

Many of you asked some questions, and I know some of you won’t go through all the comments to find my answers, so, in no particular order:

1. I will continue Free Fiction on Mondays and the Recommended Reading once a month.

2. Everything will stay up, although the website’s new design will premiere in May, so some of the older posts might get a bit garbled. If they do, let me know, and I’ll fix. But I recommend printing up the ones that mean the most to you or capturing them in a file or something, just in case.

3. Yeah, I’ll probably get on my high horse at some point. But not for a long while. I really need fiction time.

4. The Fates (Grayson), a new Nelscott series, some major short stories, and finishing the Retrieval Artist story arc are all on the agenda, as well as a new Diving novel, and some other things. (And, and, and…popcorn kittens strike!)

5. Once again, everyone, thanks so much. You all brought tears to my eyes. Thanks.