Reflecting on Debbie's negative feelings regarding her publishing experience, I've been taking a bit of an inventory and can say this. More can always be done. Mistakes have been made. Mistakes will be made. Savage Press has often failed to meet the needs of bookstores, authors, Internet customers, distributors, friends, book lovers, readers, etc., etc., etc. Undoubtedly SPI will be inadequate for many future tasks. In the eyes of many, Savage Press (and Mike Savage in particular) "deserves" to be roundly condemned, thoroughly thrashed, exterminated, tortured, bullied, dragged through the mud, drawn and quartered, waterboarded, and any other sundry humiliations, degredations, and annihilations.
However, it can also be equally well reasoned that Savage Press, and everyone else on the planet, "deserves" compassion, empathy, and permission to grow from inadequacies to competencies.
What it boils down to, in my mind today, is not that I or a company, or anyone "deserves" a certain type of treatment. What it boils down to, today, in my mind, is that we each have a choice every day, every hour, every minute. We have the option to choose compassion and patience and empathy. Today I thank God that I'm eschewing anger, declining defensiveness, repudiating rage by chosing mercy, compassion, and empathy...especially toward Savage Press, myself, and everyone out there whose needs are not being met by SPI and me and anyone.
It is my hope that we can all get our needs met (both in the publishing sense and the wider sense) not at the expense of anyone but by agreeing to choose compassion for each other and for all. Maybe there is room in the world for a struggling, faulty, confused, "lazy," publishing company (and publisher) who wants to keep doing the next "right" thing but often falls short of external definitions of "right." Maybe there are too many publishers defaulting to what some might call mediocrity. But for now, today, I believe there is room in the compassionate, considerate, moderate, empathetic world for Savage Press and its publisher to exist.
For this I am truly grateful.
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