31 Days of Horror: Day 23-- New Resource Alert-- Night Worms

Yesterday I featured Sadie Hartmann, horror reviewer. Today I want to feature her company, Night Worms.

Night Worms is important for library workers to know about for three reasons.

First is their main business, a horror subscription box. This is something you need to know about for your horror readers, a service you can let them know about. But this is a very specific type of subscription box as Sadie and her partner Ashley explain:

We Are Not a "Subscription Box"

The most important thing we want people to know is that we are not a subscription box in the same way people think about a subscription box. Typically, monthly book boxes contain one book and a lot of coordinated merchandise. Ashley and I both have repped for Subscription Book Box companies before and both of us experienced a "burn out" on the excess merch. Tees we won't wear, hats or beanies we won't wear, too many coffee mugs or pint glasses, tea we didn't like, bumper stickers we won't use, or artwork that infringed on the author's intellectual property. Here's what you can expect from NIGHT WORMS:

1. HORROR BOOKS- novels, author collections, short stories, chapbooks, anthologies, magazines and such. Quality horror. At least two physical books and maybe an extra readable. 
2. ORIGINAL ARTWORK- we have lots of artists that want to work with us to create original art for Night Worms. Collectible bookmarks, postcards, stickers, bookplates, ATCs (artist trading cards) and more. 
3. BUYING MORE BOOKS- The publishers we work closely with want to be a part of Night Worms by offering exclusive content, downloads, coupons and discounts to you!

Libraries with a particularly large horror following. should definitely consider signing up for the box itself. It is less than $40 and you get books, coupons to add more books to your collections, and the artwork portions of the box make great prizes. But in general, most libraries will want to know about the box to learn about authors and small publishers they may not know about AND to pass the info on to horror loving patrons.

I also should point out that Sadie and Ashley do their homework on the publishers they work with, and if Night Worms is promoting them, they are worth you taking the time to peruse their offerings for your library.

Second, they run the Night Worms Book Club where they discuss and review the books from the subscription boxes. As Sadie and Ashley explain:

Night Worms Book Club 

This is where YOU come in! Each month, Ashley and I work closely with our tight knit network of publishers that we have built a strong, symbiotic relationship with over the last year to bring you the best in horror. We put together a package of books, magazines, publisher "schwag" (freebies, goodies, coupons, collectibles etc.) and a few Night Worms exclusives for a reasonable price.  

We encourage our patrons to consider themselves a Night Worm and promote horror with us by using our unique hashtags on social media.  

#nightworms, #promotehorror #nightwormschallenge #horrorfiction 

Find us on Instagram @night_worms 

Find us on Facebook Night Worms Book Club 

Find us on Twitter @night_worms 

This is a wonderful online book club opportunity that takes place on multiple platforms of social media, as you can see above. And, horror fans can participate even without buying the box. As a library worker, you can lurk on the posts to see what readers think of the titles and use that information to make collection development decisions.

And finally, and this is a brand new service that Night Worms have just embarked upon, but one that I think can be a game changer for libraries looking to add more small press horror to their collections, Sadie and Ashley have started the Horror Hub. From the email they sent to supporters:

Hello! 

You are getting this email because Night Worms is rolling out a new feature on our website that involves, you! 

It has been a vision of ours for a long time to have a one-stop resource for horror fiction readers and creatives to stay up to date with everything going on in the industry.  

Especially new releases, podcast interviews, and other important dates. 

Ashley has partnered with me to support the vision and we have launched a "Horror Hub" on the Night Worms website. 

Check it out: HORROR HUB 

Make sure to toggle the calendar to October to see some of the special events we've added. If you click on an event, it will reveal a full title, description and a "Buy Now" link. Podcast episodes will have a "Listen Now" link.  

This is where YOU come in: Ashley and I will be adding events we want to see on the calendar but we need you to email us your important releases, content, and dates as well. If you have a Gmail, you can create a Google Calendar event yourself (Author name first, "New Release": Title) and send it to nightwormsreviews@gmail.com as an invite. When we accept it, this will publish directly to the calendar. 

Night Worms will be promoting this calendar to our subscribers and social media fanbase and we hope you will too! We have linked our Instagram account to the calendar tool and will use our platform as a "Horror Hub" as well. We experimented a little bit with Chad Lutzke's new release, THE PALE WHITE and Hunter Shea's, SLASH. We've seen some great traction and buzz surrounding these titles. 

While Horror Hub is in its Beta phase, it will be open to creatives like yourself, by invite only. It's also a free service. If this gets as popular as we think it might and should it require more time & energy, we might evolve it into a paid feature but for now, let's just revel in the possibilities. We think horror fans are going to love seeing all this horror news displayed in a user-friendly, one-stop resource like the Horror Hub. 

If you have any questions or have content you want to be shared ASAP, please email Ashley or me, Sadie, here: nightwormsreviews [at] gmail.com

One of the biggest problems with small presses for libraries is that they do not give us as much lead time to add titles as we would like. The small presses know this is an impediment to getting their books into the review journals but it is really not possible for them to be working as far out in advance as the larger publishers.

However, with Horror Hub, at least we can now see a calendar of horror titles and events a little more in advance, but more importantly, all the horror small press titles in one place. Eventually, as this service grows and authors and publishers use it more, it will become a go to horror resource for collection development. I have added Horror Hub to my Resources page as a preferred resource.

I am excited about both the Night Worms and all the work they are doing to provide quality information about and access to horror titles. Their work, connections, and commitment to the genre will be able to help us help our horror readers every day.