One of the most unfortunate trends in horror publishing over the last couple of years has been the slow decline in the number of paperback horror titles available to the general customer. From a public library perspective, we really need to be able to get our books from the large distributors or a local book store. It has been hard recently.
Before the Dorchester implosion back in 2010 (click here for details), their Leisure books imprint was a reliable source of great horror paperbacks. With mass market paperbacks beginning to go extinct and being taken over by ebooks, getting horror novels in patrons hands has been difficult.
Ebooks and libraries are in a very tenuous position right now. We are barely co-existing, and the focus of our ebook collections is on huge best sellers, not the smaller niche markets.
To save money, publishers were moving to ebook, but I still need horror paperbacks for my patrons.
I have been closely monitoring this evolution, and to tell you the truth, was not optimistic, but in the last few weeks, I have had two bits of good news from two different publishers making me think things might turn around and I will be able to go back to putting good paperback horror, by a wider range of authors, into my readers' hands.
First, at the end of June, Amazon announced that they have bought the rights to Dorchester's back catalog. This is great news for authors like Brian Keene and John Everson. In fact, Everson left a comment of the PW announcement.
And now, Journal Stone, already listed as a favorite of mine on my Publisher's page, is in the middle of a big expansion. One of their brightest, rising stars is Brett Talley. I have just added both of his books to the BPL's collection and plan to start handing them out to many patrons.
Click here for details on Journal Stone in their press release.
For the first time in 2 years, things are back on the upswing in horror paperback publishing. I am sure I am not the only one who is thankful.
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