I felt high as a cloud when I received word that my publisher is finally ready to start work on my novel, “Promise Full of Thorns,” after nearly eighteen months on hold!

Looking back to a recent re-acquaintance with Shakespeare, I wondered if he jumped over a candlestick when he first published. Maybe not! By 1594 when Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” was created, he was already an accepted member of Lord Chamberlain’s Company of Players (later called King’s Men) and only needed to have his plays printed—not published—for the actors to use.

Publishing in those days could be dangerous, says Lyndsay Docherty of Lancashire, England, a lifelong Shakespeare fan and teacher. The risk was not censorship against rough language, bad morals, or violence, but rather treasonable political material that might trouble the anointed kings, such as Elizabeth I, whose position as monarch was quite vulnerable.

Fewer of Shakespeare’s plays, mostly harmless comedies, were circulated in limited numbers during his lifetime. Wider “publishing” of his plays happened after he was no longer alive to be grimly punished by the monarchy for sedition. However, Shakespeare happily had some long narrative poems published during his lifetime. “Venus and Adonis” and “Lucrece” were best sellers. Maybe he did some celebrating over these successes.

Back to today and my current publisher: A fellow author, whose novel was recently released, said he felt that our publisher lacked professionalism. He said he felt disrespected and treated shabbily with communication delays, editing mainly by Grammarly, and an original cover design he deemed abominable. “Months of suffering are behind me and I’m trying to take time to feel good about it.”

Bill Schubart, a Vermont author and publisher, assesses turmoil in the publishing world this way: He says that my publisher, while reputable, is roiled in a declining market for literary fiction, the rise of e-and audio books, Amazon’s dominance, and a flood of hybrid and vanity releases. Publishers are “struggling with . . .the rationale of pumping more books into an enigmatic and saturated market.”

Those are not the same challenges to publishing that Shakespeare faced! I’ll keep you posted how it goes for me. Thanks for tuning in!