Last week saw the “official release” of Stone Gods, Adam Golaski’s second collection of horror fiction and the second book to be published by NO Press. If you’ve already received a copy, thank you! If you haven’t yet and would like a paperback, you can order from our home page; if you want a digital copy, it’s now on sale in the Kindle store.
The response so far has been wonderful, especially given the small market for readers of short fiction — and the subset of that subset who enjoy horror. I am grateful for each and every one of you.
I’m also working with independent booksellers across the country to stock it in their stores; this is a new frontier for me. There are a number of them I’m actively pursuing sale with, and as of this writing, stores with copies already on hand are The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles and Bucket ‘O Blood Books and Records in Chicago, wonderful establishments both.
I’m currently working on getting the digital version out be sold on other platforms, including direct from this site. If you end up reading it and you have any thoughts — charitable or uncharitable — please send them to me! I’d love to hear how it struck you.
With Mooncalves, I was able to maintain a certain distance of ego from its reception (which was more generous than I’d hoped for), in part because though I paid my authors a good rate, I did so in a lump sum, on signing for appearance in the anthology. Which meant that at the end of the day, if the book didn’t go over well, the only person who could be said to have materially lost out on something was me. My goal was only to get the work out there and read, and its authors recognized. If I didn’t make much of my money back, that was fine.
As a single-author collection, Stone Gods is a different proposition: Adam’s hard work is repaid in money from every sale, and even if I never break even on the book (which I expect and planned for), a sale is new money in Adam’s pocket. For that reason I’m both putting my shoulder into getting the word out and worrying about ways I could be doing the job better, and doing better by my authors.
In late December 2023, the Chicago Review published a very trenchant, detailed, and easy-to-grasp conversation between two people involved in independent publishing. They talk about how difficult it is, both in a general sense and in the specific sense of, eg, how all-in-one booksale systems like Ingram leave small and micro-publishers in difficult positions.
(I should say I don’t present this as part of an appeal to support me specifically or event to lament my own difficulties — the weird state of the book trade is something publishers, booksellers, and readers are all subject to, and we are left to figure it out together.)
For example: I wished to list both Stone Gods and Mooncalves on Bookshop.org, one of the larger online book shopping platforms and one that can even benefit the brick-and-mortars that readers love. But I quickly into an issue: Both books were printed in a “traditional” fashion, for quality control purposes* . Instead of a print-on-demand model, I printed numbered editions of the books in advance — 250 for Mooncalves, 300 for Stone Gods — which were received in bulk and kept in storage (which I’m blessed to have) until orders to ship them to customers came.
The problem was that, naturally, a book registered for POD via Ingram is automatically integrated into the Ingram platform, which many if not most bookstores use to simplify things like order tracking, inventory, consignment, etc. If you print traditionally, you can’t be part of that system, unless you are the kind of large-scale operation that can justify its books being fed into the Ingram system without using its other services.
What this means for someone like me — a one-person shop that ships one, maybe two new titles a year — I have the option of committing to print-on-demand (which I’m not necessarily opposed to) and seamlessly fitting into the logistical systems of all the stores that use Ingram, or I can try selling books directly to bookstores outside that system.
As discussed in the Chicago Review piece, that asking bookstores to track and sell books outside the Ingram system can make things very complicated for them. Nearly every correspondence I’ve had with bookstores have led with “do you use Ingram?” The fact that they still entertain the idea of selling NO Press books even when I say no speaks, in a real way, to their passion and commitment to independent publishing. The reasons they use Ingram are imminently understandable — in many cases, they reduce complexity of and time spent on admin work — and every time I work out a deal I know it’s not easy for them. I am profoundly grateful to those people.
In any event, if it seems like the spread of NO books — any independent book — to independent shops is slow, just know that there are other factors at play. If you’re able to buy a book that isn’t from a Big 5 publisher or a “major” indie, thank the person selling it to you. They’re sacrificing something.
(As for promotion… Were it that my #1 direct marketing tool, Twitter, went to ruin just as I had my most urgent need for it.)
In the near future, there are a few things planned — first and foremost, Adam and I want to print a (very) limited edition of Stone Gods in a Mooncalves-grade hardcover format. We’re currently working out scope of work with Anna MacLeod, the same artist who provided the paperback’s wonderful cover art. Beyond that, I hope to get Adam in a booth for an audio edition of Stone Gods, but that will depend on a few things.
In terms of NO Press Edition #3… There are stirrings, but nothing yet set in stone (which, if you’re inclined toward such things, might I interest you in some Gods? Right this way). If I might be so bold as to imagine a NOPE #4… Call me mad, but my mind lists toward another anthology.
Thank you for reading. This post, but also in general. You’re why we do these things.
* POD books can be good quality, but your options for the kinds of features that Mooncalves in particular needed are very limited, if they are offered at all.