The most important thing is that they're closed to submissions at the moment.
Small press, effectively a one-person outfit as far as I'm aware. As far as I remember Nazarian worked for Wildside Press for a while, so knows something about the business, and she has some good reprint titles and anthologies in her catalogue. With print publishers, one acid test is to walk into a bricks and mortar bookshop and see if you can find any of their titles on the shelf. There are other marketing outlets open to specialist small presses (eg dealer's rooms at cons), but if you never see their titles on shelves in bookshops, neither does anyone else, which says something about how many copies are likely to be sold. I can't say whether Norilana passes that test, as I'm in the UK now, and wouldn't expect to see their titles here.
I know a couple of people who had shorts published in one of the anthologies, and they seem to be happy with the experience.
As I understand it, the near-bankruptcy is because the owner nearly went under due to large and unexpected personal bills of the "shit happens" variety rather than the "wastrel" variety. This is a standard hazard with small presses run by only one or two people -- anything happens to the owners, and the press has had it. They don't have to be bad people or bad at publishing, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All you can do is reduce the risk. Even sane small presses go under. I was waiting for Meisha Merlin to re-open to submissions so I could try a particular manuscript there -- and instead they shut down. Personally, I wouldn't cross Norilana off the list, but I'd try publishers higher up the pecking order first if possible.
ETA: And I'd note that I wanted to submit a short to one of the Lace and Blade anthologies, but couldn't come up with something suitable. As noted in the original post, it's easier to gamble a short story.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-13 11:10 am (UTC)Small press, effectively a one-person outfit as far as I'm aware. As far as I remember Nazarian worked for Wildside Press for a while, so knows something about the business, and she has some good reprint titles and anthologies in her catalogue. With print publishers, one acid test is to walk into a bricks and mortar bookshop and see if you can find any of their titles on the shelf. There are other marketing outlets open to specialist small presses (eg dealer's rooms at cons), but if you never see their titles on shelves in bookshops, neither does anyone else, which says something about how many copies are likely to be sold. I can't say whether Norilana passes that test, as I'm in the UK now, and wouldn't expect to see their titles here.
I know a couple of people who had shorts published in one of the anthologies, and they seem to be happy with the experience.
As I understand it, the near-bankruptcy is because the owner nearly went under due to large and unexpected personal bills of the "shit happens" variety rather than the "wastrel" variety. This is a standard hazard with small presses run by only one or two people -- anything happens to the owners, and the press has had it. They don't have to be bad people or bad at publishing, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All you can do is reduce the risk. Even sane small presses go under. I was waiting for Meisha Merlin to re-open to submissions so I could try a particular manuscript there -- and instead they shut down. Personally, I wouldn't cross Norilana off the list, but I'd try publishers higher up the pecking order first if possible.
ETA: And I'd note that I wanted to submit a short to one of the Lace and Blade anthologies, but couldn't come up with something suitable. As noted in the original post, it's easier to gamble a short story.