Raincoast closing doors to publishing

Hello, It's been a long time but one of my New Year's Resolutions is to blog more. And write more. Even though the publishing business is slow. I heard last night that Raincoast has decided to stop publishing and focus on just distribution. My initial thoughts were--where are all the Raincoast authors going to go. Where are all the Raincoast editors going to go? Well, the authors will be trying to find homes elsewhere which will make it all the more difficult to get published in Canada. More authors fighting for the same amount of spots. My agent has some books of mine and she's having a difficult time selling them. Just before Christmas she said the business is "slow." I guess some of this 'slowness' has to do with our dollar rising. Funny how that works. The prices have to be adjusted and Canadian prices might be forced to go down to meet with the American prices. We have to meet somewhere in the middle I guess. I'm not sure about any of this, I don't have a business degree, I'm just speculating. I did a book signing at Christmas and on the back of one of my books was, Can $8.95, US $5.50. Yes, there does need to be some adjustment there.
Before I found about Raincoast, I was hashing out my career and wondering why I only seemed to get contracts to write about hockey. I've written other stuff. Really I have. I have a mystery novel out with publishing houses and my agent has a YA historical novel, a first-grade dance novel and a volleyball book. (Still sport but at least a different sport.) Yet, I just agreed to write two more books for Lorimers Recordbook series--yes, both are hockey. One is the 2002 Women's Olympic story and the other is the 2006 Paralympic Men's story. I'm excited to write both for sure but I keep thinking, I do have other interests, I can write about other things too. (Plus I'm talking to Fenn about another hockey book with them as well.) And I thought to myself hockey, hockey. Then I heard about Raincoast and I thought I was blessed to even have two books pending and a third maybe. I once heard where Agatha Christie really wanted to write either historical fiction or historical non-fiction, I can't remember which one but one of those. On a lark, she sent off a mystery novel to a publisher and...well, we all know the success of Agatha Christie.
So, I'll count my lucky stars to quote a bad cliche, and feel blessed just to be alive in this crazy business called publishing.
By the way, my latest hockey book Pink Power is available--published by James Lorimer-- and I'm quite proud of the story. It's about the first ever women's world hockey championships when Canada dressed their women in PINK.
And I helped Cassie Campbell write her book HEART. It's also available--published by Fenn. It's a fantastic book with great hockey stories and tips for being successful.
Oh yeah, and I just finished an edit on Holding, my eighth book in my sports series. It will be out in the spring and will wrap up that series.
Did I tell you, I've got other works about other things that haven't sold yet.
Oh yeah, I did tell you.