Call me loyal...

I was reading about an interview with a career agent of some thirty years recently on Kristin Nelson's blog. Kristin summarised the main points in her post and one of these talked about the importance of loyalty for writers, agents and editors. Some commenters had varying opinions on this topic. I'm not sure what I think. Loyalty might seem a simpler issue if I only wrote one kind of book, like a series of crime thrillers with the same protagonist through out, or all picture books. But I don't. I write short stories, picture books, childrens novel's and the current project is YA. Who knows what i might produce in future. I think it is true to say that most publishers focus on particular genre, styles, or age ranges. As much as I wished my main publisher so far would fall in love with everything I wrote, the realist in me knows that some of my work may end up with other publishers. I already have short stories published in educational markets (NZ's The School Journal and the Australian School Magazine) and in several trade anthologies. Ultimately every book published should help every other book because each one reinforces my name with new and old fans. Each story deserves to search for the right home and will do best when it finds someone who loves it enough to turn it into a book and put it out into the world in the best possible way. No matter who ends up publishing which story I will always try to be professional, positive and helpful with that publisher. I guess my first loyalty is to my stories, but if they succeed then everyone involved should be happy?