To the Lit Community,
We are grateful for your patience as we worked to thoughtfully and intentionally organize Mason Jar Press’s transition plan. Ultimately, we have decided to move into an extended hiatus while we retool our team. While there’s any number of details to work through, we are confident we will open back up again refreshed, reinvigorated and ready to publish beautiful books from brilliant authors.
This transition has been a long time coming and is overdue. We created MJP ten years ago and it’s been our passion this entire time, even as our lives have changed and developed. Eventually, we reached the point where our staff could no longer maintain the responsibilities and (joyful, wonderful) work that running an indie press requires. We aren’t sure when we crossed that event horizon, but it’s clear from our recent missteps and errors that we simply no longer have the time and capacity to run the press the way it needs. Stretched too thin, it was inevitable that somewhere along the line, MJP as it stood would have to evolve, or cease.
Good news and bad news. The bad news is that time is now and lots of factors have contributed. We were one of those presses that lost our distributor when SPD went under. We harbor no ill will as SPD’s demise is another symptom of sustainability issues, but it compromised our ability to function and, overextended as we were, we don’t have the ability to swiftly pivot. That impacts our authors, our sales, and much more.
In addition to losing our distributor, several staff members had quietly let it be known over the past few months that they were unable to continue, and were playing out the string until their current jobs were done and they could fade out. Those losses, as well as the resignation of our EIC and designer made it clear to us that a massive overhaul is needed.
Now for the good news: we are in fact overhauling with an eye to keeping it all going instead of simply ending. We’ve met multiple times as a team and decided it is time to part ways, with love and affection and a desire to leave the press in capable hands. While many of our staff are leaving, we are doing so as friends and colleagues who are confident that this isn’t the end of the press, but just the end of a chapter.
Many are transitioning out of MJP, but staff are also staying, excited to take on new roles and reshape the press. We’re recruiting new blood from amongst the many, many partners and friends we’ve made over the years and are already planning meetings to hand over the keys—along with the institutional knowledge we possess—to the next iteration. Some of us are staying on until the transition is finished and will help find a new distributor, new teammates, and new books, before heading out.
Honestly, we’re excited.
Beyond our staff changes, a great deal of our time and effort these past few weeks has been focused on our recently published and soon-to-be-published authors — specifically, reaching out to other presses as potential new homes for their books. We have made good progress on that front, and will update you as those plans come to fruition. Several authors are close to signing with new presses, and more are on the way. We are remaining involved and invested in those authors and books and will see each one of them to fruition.
All of our remaining authors have been given the option to stick around for the next step, or to be released from their contract, with all remaining books, all the files, and all remaining payout. If they stay, we will continue to sell their books and will move our catalog to whatever distribution model we eventually choose. None of our authors will be forgotten and we’ve communicated with all of them already.
Just as our priority is to maintain the staff’s personal relationships, and to maintain our broader community, we are absolutely committed to doing right by our writers. They are family, after all.
There is still work to be done with other logistics — closing business accounts, reevaluating joint projects with other presses and organizations, etc. — but we are also looking ahead. Right now, the plan is for Mason Jar Press to go on a long-term hiatus of about one year while new leadership and staff are brought on board (with some familiar faces sticking around) and mentored on the publishing process.
What the press will look like on the other side of this is anyone’s guess. The events of this year have demonstrated without any doubt the importance of intention and follow through, of committing to the important work of publishing with eyes and heart wide open.
We’ll announce any authors that are moving to another press, but otherwise, we’ll be going dark for a bit. Don’t worry though, Mason Jar Press will be back.