When you’re representing freelancing talent to publishers and corporates, you have to get used to the peaks and troughs that dot the publishing calendar. When we set up whitefox, we were raring to go 24/7, and some of the patterns that had been familiar to us when we worked in a large organisation started to frustrate us, peering in from the outside.

In December, no one makes a decision in December that can’t be put off til January. August is both holiday-quiet for senior execs and crazy-busy for the teams assembling those all-important Christmas books. The London and Frankfurt bookfairs are distractions for entire organisations.

So August 2014 has been something of a revelation inside whitefox towers. We now enjoy a steady pulse of work, a rhythm and flow that is dictated not by companies but by individuals. In the world of indie writers, deadlines are self-determined. The pace of workflow is your own, month after month.

We like the new rhythm and hum of regular work with writers who are self-publishing. We like it a lot.