If you’ve ever wondered just how insane the life of an indie publisher can be, then you need to read “The Publisher/Author Relationship,” a fantastic article written by James Roy Daley, publisher of Books of the Dead Press.
I first Inter-met (Ha! See what I did there?) Roy back in 2010, when he was compiling the first two volumes of his Best New Zombie Tales anthology series. He was looking for previously published zombie apocalypse stories, and I happened to have one: “Laundry Day” (seen first in Padwolf Books’ 2007 anthology The Dead Walk Again!), which takes place at an all-night Laundromat and… goes to some interesting places, plot-wise. It’s also a very adult story—I drop F-bombs like I’m razing Dresden, and there are some fairly gory deaths for it. This is definitely not recommended for younger readers—The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, it ain’t. Still, Roy liked it so much he included it in the second volume.
He wasn’t the only one who enjoyed it, though. As the review site Paperback Horror said about “Laundry Day”:
“Laced with a brutal humor and some seriously gory violence, this one is a slaughter-fest crowd pleasure for sure. Action from the get-go, with a surprising twist ending that I really didn’t see coming.”
Why, with a recommendation like that, maybe you should purchase a copy and find out for yourself just how good it is… he said modestly. 😉 The other authors involved in the collection are no slouches, either: Mort Castle, Cody Goodfellow, Tim Waggoner, Nate Kenyon and a host of others—Roy put together a winner in this one.
Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 2 is still available in print and Kindle editions here.
So, now that you have a better idea of who Roy is, be sure to come back tomorrow and find out what publishing is like—from the publisher’s point of view!
