So I’ve left Dabel Brothers Publishing…

I’ve been receiving several inquiries from friends and colleagues who have heard that I’ve left Dabel Brothers Publishing.

Yes, I have left, for good. Yes, I’m mildly annoyed about it, and yes, it was because I chose to, and not because I was forced to.

I’ve had enough inquiries that I’m going to tell the story. But I’m not one to air dirty laundry, and I won’t be explaining the intricate details of this company. Pretty much everything here is public knowledge already. Instead, I’ll offer a brief survey of the experience, and it will be my final word on the matter.

In August, 2002, my then-friend Mike S. Miller introduced me to Les Dabel, who had just started a small comic book company called Roaring Studios that was already in trouble. It had published two books — The Rift and Waterdogs, and was about to go under. Mike had been hired on as the artist for their licensed project, The Hedge Knight, and I was hired on to handle the book’s PR. My first job — to write a letter to the guys working on the other books to let them know their books were canceled, and to write up a press release about The Hedge Knight. We also had several other projects on the horizon: Marshal, North and South, Fatal Sword, Hymns, Legacy and Roaring Monthly. To show you how idealistic we were in those days, check out this press release I wrote for the Roaring Monthly:

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[Journal] – I Guess I DO Know What I’m Talking About…

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I’m a member of the American Marketing Association. This year, I entered the annual student case competition with a team from my school. The case involved McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a textbook publisher that’s trying to figure out how to enhance its presence on the web and make more sales directly to students.

My team met weekly, and I was able to put my knowledge of publishing to great use. We shaped a great concept for an online marketplace that would even allow McGraw-Hill to take advantage of used book buying and selling without incurring any inventory costs, and we backed it up with a campus consumer program to make sure the website would be well-used. I took our notes and wrote up the bulk of the proposal, made some corrections with the input from the team, handed it over to our team leader, and went on a cruise, promptly putting the case competition out of my mind.

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