2020 UPDATE: The headline above kinda looks like an epitaph, but it's not. Tattersall Publishing is still here because Tattersall Publishing is me...and *I'M* still here! But, as we know, all things evolve, and now Tattersall has evolved into Mil Gatos Creative, which is what I hope to do for the rest of my life (or until it's not fun anymore, whichever comes first). I'm still going to provide graphics support to my established clients for the foreseeable future, but I'm not taking on any new ones.
My eyesight is not getting any better and there are a lot of things I want to see and do before I can't. There are a couple of books I'd still like to write and a lot of art I still want to make. So join me on Facebook at my personal page @Crystal.C.Wood or @casamilgatos. I hope to migrate some of the Mil Gatos portfolio to Instagram soon.
Love, Crystal ~ January 2020
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I started Tattersall Publishing in August
1994 as a self- publishing venture. After having received much
positive feedback from but little success with major publishers
with my first novel, Cut Him Out in Little Stars,* I decided
that the only way to get this novel published was to do it myself.
At the time, my husband, George, and I owned a small quick printing
company in Denton, Texas. It was all old-school ink slapped on
paper with a printing press. I actually ran the press on the
first 500 sets of the book's pages, and we collated them, chapter
by chapter, on the dining room table at home. The full-color
cover was printed at a large commercial printing company in Gainesville,
and the books were bound in Dallas.
My plan was to take the book directly into
the science fiction market by way of science fiction conventions.
I would have been happy to sell a hundred copies. But some very
favorable reviews in respected trade and genre publications such
as Publishers Weekly and Starlog launched the humorous
SF novel into the national market. In 1998, at the beginning
of the digital printing revolution, Cut Him Out in Little
Stars went into a second printing.
Following the success of Cut Him Out
in Little Stars, I decided to expand the scope of Tattersall
Publishing as a trade publisher, and released the first novel
by my friend Gerald Eugene Nathan Stone, God's Front Porch,
which was a hit in the inspirational market. I then published
Fool's Joust, the sequel to Cut Him Out in Little Stars,
to favorable reviews from many notable sources. Then followed
several other books from a number of other authors, and Tattersall
Publishing was officially a small press.
I'm very pleased that Tattersall Publishing's
trade books have received favorable notices in Publishers
Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, The Midwest Book Review,
and other publications specific to the books' genres. At least
one of the Tattersall titles has had serious consideration for
motion picture production, and one was even adapted as a screenplay.
We made some good memories in these 20 years!
But, as with all business ventures, there
are ups and downs, and over time, a business that wants to stay
in business will evolve. In 2003, I decided that the financial
risks of trade publishing and the demands on my time and skills
were becoming too great. I discontinued that service and began
to play to my strength: publication design and production. I
had worked as a professional graphics artist since high school,
and, with the digital print-on-demand revolution taking off,Tattersall
evolved into a book design outsource for self-publishing authors
and a general graphic arts service. In addition to books, I design
and contract for production for everything from business cards
to newsletters, annual reports, catalogs, brochures, newsletters,
and even T-shirts and other advertising specialties. Take a look
at the portfolio if you have a few minutes...I think I do pretty
good work for someone with no formal graphic arts training. ;)
I'll never forget the thrill of opening
that first carton of my books when they arrived from the bindery.
I get to experience that same excitement again every time an
author whose book I have helped to realize does the same. Thank you to all who have been with me on the
journey so far. We still have a lot of good books to write, read,
and publish, so let's all get busy! |