2020: A Year of Hope

It’s that time of year again: our Winter Sabbatical is officially over, and almost a year-to-the-day since we kicked off our business year at Iaconagraphy for 2019, I’m sitting here penning a new “kick off the business year” post for 2020. Connla’s post for the beginning of 2019 last year basically took flight like a lead balloon: we even had people unsubscribe from the Facebook page and the newsletter because it was too positive! So, for some people, the post that follows will be welcomed for its abject honesty and forthrightness, even though it may lack the “love, light, and delight” of Connla’s 2019 post (or perhaps precisely because of that lack). For everyone else: thank you for your continued support; for often being a light in our darkest of times, sometimes without even knowing it. Thank you for your honesty, your presence, and your belief in us and in this business and everything that it represents.

–Michelle Iacona, Publishing Editor, Founder, and Owner of Iaconagraphy Press

Everyone who works on or for Iaconagraphy Press is a witch, and it’s high time we started thinking and acting like that’s what we are. Those words, though not aimed specifically at every member of the Press staff, fell off the lips of a very wise teacher–he knows who he is–over dinner on a cold November evening just as we began our Winter Sabbatical. The words were actually spoken specifically to Connla, but over the course of our sabbatical, we’ve all had a lot of time to really take those words into our hearts and ponder them, and, in that pondering, desperately try to figure out how to put them into something even vaguely resembling real action.

The simplest of truths is this: Iaconagraphy Press is far more than simply a small independent publishing company. It encompasses more than simply the writing process, much less the printing process or all of the nuts and bolts which actually bring real books into publication. It is also an umbrella, incorporating our divination services and digital art. But it is far more than those things, too: it is the umbrella which shelters our little lives from the storm. What storm? Poverty! It’s far more than that, too, though: it is our calling, and, most especially, it is my calling. I love my business the way most people love their children, because it is the only physical child this woman is ever going to be able to have.

Any good parent wants their child to succeed in the world. They nurture that child, so that it may learn not only sympathy, but empathy. Of course, that means that the child may occasionally have to fall down or get hurt. As Connla so wisely says:

“In order to develop true empathy, we must endure. That means we have to actually live through things, sometimes hurtful things, to be able to practice true empathy. Otherwise, all we’re capable of is sympathy, and sympathy leads to pity, and I don’t have to sit here and sound like Yoda for you to figure out where that road leads….”

–Connla Freyjason

It is the hope of the parent, as that child is nurtured, and grows from all that nurturing, that it will go forward in life not only to practice empathy, but also to be able to offer something of benefit to the world. Maybe they’ll become a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher; maybe they’ll become a parent themselves. Maybe they’ll discover a cure for cancer, or become a better president. My hope for my “press child” is that it does practice empathy; that perhaps it is growing up to become a teacher….

Part of the nurturing of a child includes having conversations with it: we have to encourage children to make their voices heard, and we do that by letting them know at an early age that their voices are worthwhile. So, like any good parent, I sat down and had a conversation with my “press child” and asked it what I could or should be doing to feed it, nurture it, and help it grow strong. It’s answer was simple, yet complex at the same time, as is often the case, when conversing with children:

• Be honest
• Be present
• Believe

To be honest is often not the best marketing strategy in the world, but it lies at the core of my practice (in fact, at the core of the practice of everyone who works on and for Iaconagraphy), and, indeed, at the very core of who I am as a human being. When we are honest, with ourselves and with the world, it often means we have to face some harsh truths; we have to stop sugarcoating things for the sake of politeness or because we fear the feathers we might otherwise ruffle. In this case, perhaps the harshest of those truths is that raising a child–even when that child is a business–isn’t cheap, much less free. Children need clothes; food; a roof over their heads. In the case of a “press child”, that translates to ISBN numbers, printing costs, and marketing expenses (inclusive of paying for webspace). Those are the clothes that it wears, the food that it eats, and the roof over its head. Part of keeping the roof over a child’s head is also keeping one over its parents’ heads: essentially, a homeless parent equals a homeless child. This is where I come in as a business-owner: I need a roof over my head, so I can keep a roof over my “child”, Iaconagraphy’s, head (basic living expenses). None of those things are free!

Harsh Truth #1: Expecting one book’s sales to finance the next book’s ISBN, printing costs, and marketing expenses, while also paying the author’s royalties, and paying the publisher’s own life expenses (other bills; basic living expenses) is rather like buying one very expensive pageant dress (ISBN number), putting it on a child, and then entering that child in a pageant and depending on those winnings (book sales) to sustain the entire family. Meanwhile, Mama stands naked backstage. Needless to say, the child isn’t going to perform well, given those embarrassing circumstances. That child also isn’t going to perform well if it’s starving (lack of ability to pay printing costs) and homeless (no budget for marketing/webspace, not to mention Mama’s lack of basic living expenses), either. I’ve discussed before how this breaks down, when it comes to how much money is actually made of off books, and especially when it comes to print versus e-books.

Harsh Truth #2: Our other services, such as our Divination Parlor and Digital Press/art services, exist so that they can offset the expenses of those “pretty pageant dresses” (ISBN’s), as well as the food the “press child” requires (printing costs), and a roof over its head (marketing/webspace). They are also intended to keep Mama (me, the business owner) from standing naked and hungry backstage (to provide me and mine with basic living expenses, so I’m not spending my entire adult life living off the good graces of others). Think of it like “Pageant Mama” beading gowns or doing some seamstressing on the side, in order to effectively make ends meet. But if every other “Pageant Parent” who shows up expects to get those gowns beaded or hemmed for free, then “Pageant Mama” and “Pageant Child” are going to wind up just as naked, hungry, and homeless as back in Harsh Truth #1. In other words, if no one is buying or willing to pay for these services, then I’m screwed, and so is the Press and all of its authors, artists, and readers.

Harsh Truth #3: I’m never going to get rich, quick or otherwise, doing what I feel that I’ve been called to do, but the truth is, I have no desire to get rich, I’d just like to survive. I would like for my “press child” to also survive. I would like to be able to help with bills in the household in which I live, and maybe occasionally buy something I need for myself, instead of always having to ask someone else to buy it for me. I don’t expect vacations at Disney World and trips to Iceland; I would just like to occasionally have $20 at the end of the month that’s my own. None of what you see us doing here is in addition to disability or anything else. This is literally my only income; Connla’s only income (you know that old saying about hearses and luggage racks? Yeah, well, it’s true!).

To be present has been very hard for me over the past two years. I am a proud Southern woman, with all that that entails and implies. I do not do well feeling unsuccessful, or like I’m constantly having to plead for someone–anyone–to just give me a chance or give me a break. But I can’t continue to be the “absentee parent” of this “press child”, and then expect that “child” to be healthy and successful. Such neglect is the quickest and easiest way a parent can communicate that they don’t believe in a child, and I wholeheartedly believe in this one….

I believe in this business. I believe in each and every person/entity who has assisted me in building it, and who continue to slave away at attempting to make it a success. I believe that the services and books we are offering are valuable to this community, and to the world, and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be offering them in the first place. But belief dies in a vacuum. I desperately need mine not to die.

I also believe in the goodness of people. I’ll readily admit that it has taken me a very long time to arrive in a place where that sentiment is genuine, but I finally have. So while some people are going to read this post, roll their eyes, and say “oh, look, the people over at Iaconagraphy Press are poor-mouthing again”, they’ll be wrong. That isn’t what this is. Instead, this is me making myself profoundly vulnerable, as an expression, finally, of the fact that I genuinely believe in the goodness of people. I believe that if we actually let people know our state of affairs, instead of continuing to “put on a happy face” and politely pretend “everything’s fine”, that someone will actually respond to that genuine, honest expression of need. I have to believe in that: ultimately, faith is magick.

As an expression of that faith, we have a host of opportunities to fulfill that genuine need coming everyone’s way in 2020, including:

• An updated Divination Parlor, with new scheduling and new prices, based on the estimated time it takes to perform a reading and prepare the email for its recipient (which averages out to roughly $20/hour), is now available. Compared to the going rate of roughly $130/hour at most places, I think you’ll find the prices for our services are an absolute steal!

• Special PDF mini-books will be made available over the next couple of months in our Digital Press area, which will include annotated translations from the Havamal (by Connla Freyjason), a book of rituals for the Norse Witch’s year (by Connla and myself), and a Collection of Studies in Norse Archaeology, which will include the much-awaited information Connla has uncovered, pertaining to Lille Ullevi. These will be made available at typical e-book prices ($5-$10). These are special editions, issued in addition to our services as a traditional press; not a replacement, nor a “new regime”. Our other printables, including art collections and bookmarks, will likewise remain available in that area, as will our digital craft supplies.

• In the very near future, Connla Freyjason and I will both be offering web-based classes. We are presently in the process of determining format and prices.

• We have installed a Contribute button in the sidebar on the right of this blog, for anyone interested in a more “Patreon-style” involvement in supporting the Press and its participants. Believe me: every little bit helps, and all help is greatly appreciated.

• Connla is officially launching a “sister site” to Iaconagraphy Press, the sole focus of which will be the newly-founded Path of Norse Witchcraft: Heidhr Craft.

Last year, our Word for the Year was “delight”. In 2020, the Iaconagraphy Press Word for the Year is hope:

hope: verb. to cherish a desire with anticipation; to want something to happen or be true; to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment; to expect with confidence; to trust.

hope: noun. desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment; expectation of fulfillment or success; something desired or hoped for.

I hope we will continue to impress and serve all of you in the coming year. I hope you will all continue to show us your support and belief in us. I hope that, together, we can build a better world together. I am honest and present when I say that I believe that we can….