No doubt, you’ve noticed the bigger than usual marketing push I’ve thrown behind DARK FAITH. Actually, I’ve thrown everything into its marketing. My spare time. My spare change. Calling in favors. Bugging the contributors to help. Forcing Maurice and Jerry to fight against their lazy nature and help out.

In the world of cliches, this is affectionately known as ‘Pulling out all the stops.’

DARK FAITH has caused me grief, various levels of adjita, heartbreak, guilt, frustration, and anger. DARK FAITH has also produced euphoria, forged new friendships, and has been an inspiration.

My heart…it aches at such a venture that vacillates between unbearable stress and unmatchable happiness.

This leads to the question of ‘Why does this book mean so much to you? Don’t you have other books to release? What about these crazy changes to APEX MAGAZINE? Why, I ask when so much other stuff is going on?’

Okay, I will confess. The subject of ‘why’ never entered my thought patterns until M.G. Ellington asked me ‘Why’ (I’ve abbreviated the real question) via an instant message. Surely, the ‘why’ had lingered in the back of my mind since the genesis of DARK FAITH, but when I turned to face the question, study it, I understood completely.

This is a big deal to me.

On the surface, it looks rather simple. And yes, before I anger any authors in our stable, I perceive every Apex book release to be a big deal. When an author or editor entrusts you to publish a piece of intellectual output that said author/editor may have spent years producing, you take the job of publishing seriously. But DARK FAITH reaches out with its little threads and infiltrates many levels of importance within Apex and me personally, more so than the usual Apex book.

I’m going to start on the business side of the equation (though I’ll be brief).

DARK FAITH will be the first major release from Apex where we’ve had a distributor. As a publisher, we’ve stepped into the scary world of book returns in exchange for a broader reach and greater things. To bandy about another cliche, I like to call it “dealing with the devil.” With that comes great risk. This success or failure of DARK FAITH literally can make or break the company. The time and money invested in this 400 page volume of fiction and for it to fail…the thought makes me nauseated.

But running a business means confronting risk. For that reason, I’ll stop right here with the business concerns.

On the personal front…

I’ve never had a project that has affected personally like DARK FAITH has. The seed that eventually produced the anthology occurred on the last day of Mo*Con IV. After two days of some rather heady discussion concerning faith, God, art, love, sex, fidelity, Jesus, other religions, atheism, sex again, and so on, the convention stragglers (aka dead dogs) rested in the front yard of Maurice’s house taking in the sun. (Yes, house. Maurice’s convention is a rather close and personal affair, although everyone is invited.)

Maurice, being the clever man that he is, took me off to the side and began a discussion about putting together a Mo*Con anthology using faith as a central theme. As far as pitches go, the timing was perfect. I was slap happy, slightly hungover, and tired. A trio of great authors (and three great people) happened to be at the party and they overheard our discussion. Suddenly, we had three big names for the anthology: Wrath James White, Tom Piccirilli, and Alethea Kontis.

From there, DARK FAITH erupted into full-blown madness. Maurice and I battled over the format of the anthology. He wanted to include Mo*Con recipes in the book. I was wanting a more practical, marketable book. While I think Alethea’s baklava is the bee’s knees, I didn’t think the recipe needed to be in a book of dark fantasy and horror.

Maurice and I felt it was important to pay all contributors a minimal professional rate. Unfortunately, I did not have the liquid funds to make that happen. A good friend stepped up and loaned me enough money so that everyone could be paid a proper and professional amount.

It took us months to find cover art. When I don’t commission cover art, I troll deviantart. Time and again we’d find a piece we (me, Maurice, and Jerry) loved and time and again we failed. The cost would be prohibitive, the artist no longer owned the rights, or the artist never responded to my queries (happened a lot). Thank goodness for Edith Walter!

Then the stories started streaming in and the project turned awesome.

An author submitted a story that brought tears to my eyes with its poignancy and reflection on a terrible time in all our lives. Another submitted a story that produced guffaws of laughter and had me in stitches for the whole story.

A person I barely know decided pull some strings and land DARK FAITH a full page feature in FANGORIA.

An artist offered up his work for free just because he believes in the work Apex is doing.

Maurice, Jerry and I, due to the many trials and tribulations of producing DARK FAITH, have become great friends, for better or for worse.

I’ve developed professional relationships with thirty-one different authors and one artist.

So here I stand on the precipice of the DARK FAITH release emotionally drained, short on funds, and nervous as hell about its success, but I have no doubt I am a better person, a better publisher for it all.

To end this essay of reflection and sharing, I’ve learned two important things: 1) Never, ever, ever allow Maurice Broaddus to pitch you a book at a convention’s dead dog party and 2) If DARK FAITH is a success I would do DARK FAITH II in a heartbeat.

Jason Sizemore is the owner and operator of Apex Publications.