As a publishing company grows, it gets harder and harder for you to actually take the time to enjoy the pleasures that originally attracted you to the business. Dealing with returns by the caseload, straightening out invoices, working through computer inventory screw-ups, wrangling with printers and making payroll dominate your everyday life. Success in publishing means a lot of work. And the more successful you are, the further you will be pulled from those things that got you into the business. Success means finding new ways of funding the company's growth.
Success means setting up new computer systems to integrate record keeping and accounting.
Success means trimming royalties and discounts to obtain higher operating margins, etc. As a publishing company grows, it must hire people to do many of the tasks, such as editing and designing books, that were once done by the founder. Building a successful publishing company requires you to learn new skills, such as managing people, monitoring cash flow, negotiating contracts and planning business strategies. I have found that few publishers were business majors in school. More often than not, they majored in English, psychology, journalism, engineering or even political science.