Keep Those Rags and Machines Hummin’: A State of the Union Address

Well. 2014—now there’s a publishing year I’m glad to see the back of…

“A new analysis of U.S. ISBN data by ProQuest affiliate Bowker reveals that the number of self-published titles in 2013 increased to more than 458,564, up 17 percent over 2012 and 437 percent over 2008.”
—“Self-Publishing Continues to Grow in U.S., Says Bowker,” October 8, 2014

“We were the Merchant Ivory comic book—the critics love us but no one’s going to see us.”
—DC Comics artist and writer Keith Giffen on the cancellation of his “New 52” series O.M.A.C.

Gotta tell ya, I know exactly what Giffen means, especially from my position as an indie publisher. With self-published books growing in massive numbers every year—and God knows a lot of them probably fall solidly under SF writer Theodore Sturgeon’s law that 90 percent of everything is crap—it’s easy to get lost in all the noise. But if there’s one thing we do well here at StarWarp Concepts, it’s publish titles that have been critically acclaimed, from The Saga of Pandora Zwieback to the line of Illustrated Classics.

The problem is, just like Giffen’s observation about O.M.A.C., none of them really sell. If I’m not standing right in front of you at a convention, telling you how awesome our titles are, nothing gets sold—bookstores don’t order them in any great numbers; librarians don’t order them; mainstream reviewers won’t review them…unless you’re willing to pay for their opinion, or you’re a large press. And since we buck the trends of knocking off successful franchises, or republishing poorly written fan fiction based on those franchises, our releases rarely get attention when we send out press releases.

So last year the only way to keep the company going (and make a living) was to completely commit to my full-time freelance career as a proofreader and copyeditor, which meant I never turned down any job that my clients offered. That, in turn, resulted in little SWC business getting accomplished beyond the occasional blog post—mainly because my web designer kept impressing on me the need to keep the company noticeable to search engines. The second Pandora Zwieback novel, Blood Reign, and the new Lorelei comic, House Macabre, got bumped from their proposed 2014 release dates to this year (I can’t publish if I don’t have the funds to pay my designers or to print books, you see). Lorelei: Genesis and Make Doom! Make Doom!—digital comics in the early stages of production—got canceled. A couple of other early-stage projects were placed on indefinite hiatus. As the immortal Kurt Vonnegut said in Slaughterhouse House, every time a character died: So it goes.

To date, our bestselling print title is the graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, which apparently goes to show that, despite the objections of current comic readers to anything related to “bad girl” comics or art styles (just witness last year’s brouhaha over legendary artist Milo Manara’s cover for Marvel Comics’ Spider-Woman #1), a sarcastic sexual demoness who walks around with her blouse unbuttoned still has her followers. Was I stunned to discover this? Actually, yes. Lorelei hadn’t made a comic book appearance since 2002—a full decade before Sects and the City was published. I was dead certain that in today’s market, given her non-superhero look and attitude and more grounded characterization, Pandora Zwieback would be the property with the greatest appeal to readers. But it was Lorelei who brought in the sales. Color me surprised.

I know why that is, though: because Pan is the star of a novel series, not a comic. As I said before, it’s been difficult to convince bookstores and libraries to order Blood Feud or any other SWC title in any significant numbers—although the Illustrated Classic A Princess of Mars did all right…until Disney’s John Carter movie adaptation bombed at the box office (d’oh!)—but Lorelei had access to comic shops, and the retailers who not only appreciated the book’s great art but remembered the character, SWC’s background as a comic publisher, and me. Thus, Sects and the City appeared face-out on store shelves for “New Comic Wednesday” when it debuted, becoming instantly available to readers. And, thanks to the growing readership of digital comics, it continues to sell.

Pan, unfortunately, hasn’t gotten that opportunity—unless you count the free digital comic, The Saga of Pandora Zwieback #0; according to SWC sales figures at DriveThru Fiction, that introduction to the series has been downloaded over 400 times in the past three years. But how many of those downloads led to e-book sales of Blood Feud, the first Pan novel? Thirteen.

However, Pan does really well when I’m exhibiting at a convention; the same applies to the Illustrated Classic Carmilla. That’s when Pan and Carmilla reach their readers. But as I stated earlier, that’s because I’m standing right in front of you, telling you how great their books are. I am nothing if not an enthusiastic salesman at conventions; I call it “being in touch with my inner Stan Lee.”

But conventions present their own problems, of the monetary variety. I’ve stopped exhibiting at New York Comic Con, after a disastrous 2013 appearance—I had the best location I’ve ever had at a major show, but came nowhere close to recovering the $1,500 I spent on the space. BookCon 2014 brought a smaller loss, and I loved the enthusiasm of the event, with so many teens in attendance who loved reading. Unfortunately, I’ve had to abandon plans for future shows, because BookCon (which is also run by the folks behind NYCC) raised the small-press booth price from 2014’s $650 for one day to $1,600 for two days in 2015 (at least the $1,500 expense for NYCC was for four days). A bad location and empty ATMs at 2014’s Eternal Con absolutely killed my sales, so much so that I didn’t return for the second day—and I’ve never done that at a show before. And due to a short-term medical problem I had to cancel my appearances at the Brooklyn and Collingswood book festivals (both with nonrefundable exhibition fees).

So…yeah. 2014—not one of my better years as a publisher.

And yet…here I am, back for another year. And here’s what’s coming out in 2015:

Blood Reign: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 2: The book we’ve all been waiting for at last makes its debut on February 2, 2015. Yes, it’s a Monday, but the idea of Book 2 being released on 2/2 appealed to my inner Two-Face. Also, February is Women in Horror Month, so that timing fit well…er, too. I’ll be teasing the pub date on the SWC and Pandora Zwieback websites, as well as on both of their Facebook pages, to get you properly stoked.

Lorelei Presents: House Macabre: Lori returns to comics on January 28, 2015, this time as a horror hostess. The 24-page, one-shot anthology contains three stories written by me, and one by Dwight Jon Zimmerman, the New York Times bestselling co-author (with Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly) of Lincoln’s Last Days. Dwight’s also the former writer of such comics as Web of Spider-Man, Iron Man, Sensational She-Hulk, Marvel Comics Presents, and…Thundercats (and yet the Times still went and listed his book. Interesting.). Cover art is by Louis Small Jr. of Vampirella fame, and the interior art is by Pandora Zwieback co-creator Uriel Caton, “Chainsaw” Chuck Majewski, Lou Manna, John Pierard, and Juan Carlos Abraldes Rendo.

Blood & Iron: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 3: I did tell you at some point that the vampire storyline is now a trilogy, right? In case I hadn’t…yeah, it’s a trilogy. I’d like to say it’ll be ready in time for the Brooklyn Book Festival in September, but let’s aim for WinterCon in December, and then I can surprise myself if it’s out earlier than that. 😉

And that, my friends, is the state of the union. As the band Rose Royce said in the theme to the movie Car Wash (also the official StarWarp Concepts anthem), we might not ever get rich, but let me tell ya, it’s better than digging a ditch. And we’ll keep those rags and machines hummin’.