While on Facebook last week, I saw a post from a former journalism professor of mine marking her ten-year anniversary in her post at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Which naturally made me reflect. Ten years. How very different my life is today. How very different publishing is today.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to that professor. Liz Brixey served as a friend and mentor on so many levels. She introduced me to Jasper Fforde, too, and truthfully, I might not be writing this blog today if she hadn’t.

That might seem a strange connection. After all, I don’t publish Jasper Fforde (Yet. With Fiction River, you never know <grin>.) But it was Jasper Fforde who allowed me to make the transition from a purely “literary” reader who only read the “classics” to one who could appreciate mainstream books. And it was Liz who knew exactly what she was doing when she gave me her copy of that first Thursday Next adventure.

I don’t think she envisioned me ending up here, as a book publisher. Frankly, at that point eight years ago, we both thought I’d still be in journalism. Like I said, how very different publishing is today.

I lament many of the changes to the journalism industry. Not all of them. The immediacy of journalism thanks to the Internet and technological advances is fantastic. But the ethical core of journalism has been shaken by these same advancements. I’m not sure it will ever recover to what it once was.

But what has complicated the journalism world has been a boon to the magical world of fiction. The past ten years have freed us as readers just as Liz once freed me from genre-lock. Fiction can now thrive unfettered, all driven by reader demand.

And reader demand keeps us very busy, indeed, here at WMG. And we couldn’t be happier.

We have been busily working on our authors’ backlists. Thus far, that has been dominated by short fiction, with collections and series novels rounding out the effort.

And coming this month and next, we’ll return five standalone novels to print form: two romances, a fantasy, and two horror. Can you say diversity?

We’ll also be continuing to release the Fey novels in print, as well as the Smokey Daltons. And we’ll be publishing the first three Diving novels outside North America (those markets have been waiting a long time for that last development!).

Plus, we’ve got some new collections, and we’ll reissue a couple of out-of-print novellas, too. Oh, and the third Fiction River, Time Streams.

And now you can keep up with our latest efforts on our New Releases page.

Busy, busy, busy.

That much at least hasn’t changed in ten years. Boredom is not an option in publishing <grin>.

I’ve never told Liz what I just shared with you. I think I should. Maybe I’ll send her a link to my blog. How very 2013 that would be.

Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer.