By Rachel Brune
Crone Girls Press has published horror for five years and counting at this point, but it was only until a year or so ago that I realized we were an independent press whose books were not available through most independent bookstores. And so, with our latest release, Dark Spores: Stories We Tell After Midnight Volume 4, we’re focusing on giving our readers options.
An Inherent Contradiction
When I started Crone Girls Press, I knew a good deal about what makes a good story, how to cajole my connections to provide me with a good story, and how to work with an author to make a good story even better. From the time we published the first volume of Stories We Tell After Midnight, I have learned a lot about how to be a better editor, coach, mentor, friend, and anthologist.
The thing I wished I knew, back in 2019, was limiting it could be to publish exclusively on the Big River Site. I listened to podcasts and followed author groups that recommended rapid release and Kindle Unlimited exclusivity and various other Amazon-focused profitable techniques that made a lot of sense for publishing speculative fiction but, as I learned, had limited application to other genres and forms.
But still, publishing KDP was a place to start, and that’s where we began.
Genre Horror and a Punk Attitude
I’ve always pursued creative ventures. I had a band in college (shout out to Pop’s Basement), I enjoyed blogging and publishing interviews, and I have been writing songs, poems, and fiction for years. Through those years, I’ve seen various platforms that claim to support independent creatives come and go, from Lulu to CreateSpace to CDBaby to Bandcamp to Spotify for Podcasters and many more. The one element they all had in common was relying on creatives’ work to drive aggregate traffic to their platforms where they would parcel out pennies to the creator and bank the rest.
For book publishing, it seemed the same. Sure, we could strike up partnerships with collectives like The Literary Underworld (shoutout to The Underlords!) Or, we could consign books with certain bookstores, especially local indie shops. But for the most part, it seemed like the Big River Site was the only, or at least the best, way to go.
But was it?
Corporate monopolies aren’t very punk rock, and it seemed like an indie press like ours could put in the time and leg work to start growing an organic presence and giving readers an alternative to purchasing our works that weren’t (only) through their ’Zon accounts.
First Step—The Underworld
Elizabeth Donald was one of the first people I thought of when it came to horror. And shortly after we started publishing, she invited me to become part of the Literary Underworld. And in fact, this partnership contributed to the motivation to dig into how and where and why we were selling our work, and to do the leg work to understand more of how we could get away from sole reliance on Amazon.
Take a look over at the Underworld catalogue. You’ve got all genres from horror to sci-fi to urban fantasy to romance. You can find some of my personal titles there (Cold Run and Side Roads), as well as a number of Crone Girls Press titles, a few of which contain familiar Underlords in the tables of contents (Coppice & Brake, Tangle & Fen.) And, one sale of a title through the Underworld returns about three times the amount of an Amazon sale. (Punk rock might not be about profits, but book sales help keep the lights on.)
Next Step—The world! Muahahaha!
Dark Spores: Stories We Tell After Midnight Volume 4 is our first anthology in the series to follow a theme. We fell in love with the idea of mushrooms and fungus and mold and mildew creeping along in the dark underground, building and multiplying, until they extrude through the soil or the skin. The theme resonated with our authors who sent in tales of loneliness, isolation, and fear, as well as forced assimilation, willing submission to the darkness, and other fearsome fates.
As with our other projects, we looked for the widest and deepest variety of voices and perspectives that we could invite, seeking unique ways of looking at life—or death, as the case may be.
And, with this volume, we are doing our best to offer different ways of inviting the spores into your library. (We realize that’s possibly not the best way of putting it…)
First, you will be able to order the anthology through The Literary Underworld.
Or, and this is our second-favorite way, you can head to your local bookseller, especially if you have a local bookstore you enjoy frequenting, and order it through them.
Finally, you could order it through a link on the book page on our website.
Feeling a little short on funds? Aren’t we all… Not to worry! My local library has a link where we can request a book, whether through Interlibrary Loan, or for the library to purchase the book. If yours has a similar link, fill it out and let’s spread our spores through the public library system!
Many thanks to Elizabeth Donald and The Literary Underworld, who have been gracious supporters and partners to me and Crone Girls Press from the beginning. Thanks to everyone who has purchased one of our volumes through the Underworld, and especially, who has gone to their review site of choice and left some kind words for us. Here is to a future with more great books and wonderful partners—and lots of independent options for our readers.
