MSI Press Blog

Our grand dame, a 20-year-old Himalayan, lost her eyesight at age 18. For those unfamiliar with the breed, that's already remarkable. Himalayans typically live about 10 to 15 years, yet here she is at 20, still enjoying life on her own terms. Her blindness resulted from a combination of high blood pressure that could not be controlled and glaucoma. One day, the world she had known through her eyes grew dark. I suspect she misses being able to navigate visually. I suspect there are moments when she remembers what sight was like. But if she misses it, she rarely lets it define her. Her ears still work. Her nose still works. Most importantly, her heart still works. She still seeks out affection. She still purrs when stroked. She still recognizes familiar voices. She still enjoys companionship, comfort, and the simple pleasures that make a cat happy. In many ways, she remains exactly who she has always been. Today is International Blind Cat Day, and she reminds me of something that man...

  Cultural relativism does not ask us to abandon judgment. It asks us to locate judgment within context. It invites a particular kind of humility: the recognition that our own moral compass is culturally tuned. The principles that feel self-evident to us often feel that way because they were woven into our language, institutions, stories, and habits long before we were aware of them. What we experience as common sense is frequently the inheritance of a specific place and time. This does not mean that all values are equal, nor that criticism becomes impossible. It means that before judging a culture, a practice, or a belief, we should first ask: What problem was this value attempting to solve? What human need did it serve? What world did it emerge from? When we speak of "values," we are not necessarily naming eternal truths descending unchanged through history. More often, we are naming the ways human beings make meaning together. Values are collective responses to the conditi...

  Some childhoods are shaped by bedtime stories, family rituals, and a sense of safety. Others are shaped by uncertainty. When a mother is trapped in drug addiction, children often find themselves living in two worlds at once. In one world, they still love their mother deeply. In the other, they struggle to understand why the person they depend upon seems increasingly unavailable, unpredictable, or absent. The tragedy is not that the love disappears. The tragedy is that addiction often stands between the love and the child's ability to receive it. Living in a World of Instability Children thrive on predictability. They need to know who will pick them up from school, whether dinner will be available, and whether home will feel safe when they walk through the door. Drug addiction can disrupt these basic expectations. Routines become unreliable. Plans change unexpectedly. Moments of stability may be followed by periods of chaos. For a child, the result is often constant uncertainty. O...

  Authors frequently confuse LIST and NET and, in this way, end up with contracts that pay lower royalties when they believe that they are getting a good deal. Often, they cannot negotiate in ways that benefit themselves because they do not understand this difference and its significance. Let's break this down. List refers to the retail price of the book. Payment on list means a percentage of the retail price of the book. If royalties are 8% of list (5-8% is typical), then on a $10 book, royalties would be 80 cents; if they are 10%, royalties are $1, on every book sold. Easy to calculate, easy to predict income, and always standardized, no surprises or overestimations. Net refers to what is leftover after expenses. Gross revenue gets adjusted by a number of expenses: printing costs, printer set-up fees, shipping costs, handling fees, distributor percentage of sales (typically, 40%-55% per book), distributors' initial and continuing catalogue listing costs (without which online ...