I Dreamed a Little Scream

I have chosen to create a publishing company for the same reason F. von Frankenstein chose to sew together inanimate flesh:

To See It Live.

I want my stories, and those of my colleagues with whom is shared a love for dark writing and cheap wine, to exist beyond the realm of Hope, out in the sunshine of Is where the printed page turns with the breathless sigh of a lover's kiss. You know, where we can eventually go to Comicons and be worshipped as gods. With lots of freebies and all the Diet Mr. Pibb we want.

Here starts a journey in the 46th year of my life, and simultaneously ends a journey that started in 1974 in Mrs. Amos's 4th grade classroom, nestled in the cinderblock-and-blacktop edifice known as "Branson Elementary School." Mrs. Amos suffered through my very first short stories, consisting mostly of verbs like "BAAAAMED!" and "WHOOOSHED!" and plots as thick as "He had to KILL the GIANT SERPENT OF DOOM!"

It was then, with "The Night Chicago Died" on the radio, that I aquired the taste for writing, the desire to be an author. Through the decades since, I have also wanted to be a truck driver, a soldier, a supreme court judge, an actor, a dj, a park ranger, and even a preacher. The desire for all these vocations has fallen to the wayside, save for one: to be an author.

At the age of 46, I'm well over half-done with my life. I have acted some (for money, but not for Hollywood), I've been a dj, I've got a short story published and I've written plays. But a book...MY book...

It's very hard to get a book published by a "major" publisher. Distribution used to be the issue, along with promotion. Publishers want BIG authors for BIG bucks, so that mass-distribution drives down hard cost (but not book price), and the author's name already comes with a following. Big author = big bucks for the publisher.

Now, thanks to the 'net, distribution is NOT an issue. With the 'net's reach, big bucks can come from the long tail- from the ability to connect with the niches and nooks and crannies and craniums that enjoy a good story that might just happen to involve copious amounts of blood. Or dead things. Or brain-sucking mosquitoes. On the 'net, name recognition is not as important as good stories at a good price that people will talk about to their friends and- pleaseohpleaseooooohpleaaaaase- will send to said friends a link to purchase said book for the sharing of said pleasure.

Ergo, Macabre Hill Press is born/hatched/summoned/disinterred. It's a scream come true for me. Now, to make it the same for you, my reader. In other words...

BAAAAAM! IT'S ALIIIIIVE!!!

PS- thank you Mrs. Amos for encouraging me, instead of committing me. And I'm sorry I've forgotten how to do the Virginia Reel. May your square dance lessons shake the linoleum in heaven.

Mark L. Groves
Publisher, Macabre Hill Press