This year has not gone as planned.
On January 14th, 2025, Diamond Comics filed for reorganization under Chapter 11. Years of bad business practices had caught up with Diamond Comics as they owed millions of dollars to debtors (Hasbro, Bandai, and Penguin Random House, to name a few). Our distribution partner, Diamond Book Distributors (DBD), was caught up in its parent company's woes. DBD's woes became Apex's woes.
When Diamond Comics announced their bankruptcy, we were caught by surprise. Certainly, we'd heard whispers of Diamond Comics having problems, but not operating in the comics and gaming side of publishing, we didn't anticipate the collapse of the entire damn company.
On the day of the bankruptcy filing and in the time since, Apex has had several unpaid invoices that probably will never be paid. The latest news from Ad Populum (the new owners of Diamond's distribution services) makes me believe we will not see any future payments. In fact, mere hours after the courts made the sale official, Ad Populum laid off the entire DBD team save for three people.
Immediately, this was disastrous for Apex. ChloroPhilia by Cristina Jurado was already shipped and in Diamond's warehouse. The same for The Map of Lost Places, a title that constituted our largest print run to date and one of our largest marketing spends in the history of the company.
To be honest, this hurt far more than we care to admit. Somehow, the company is still standing. Many of our small and independent publishing colleagues on the comics side have given up. The only reason we're still open is that 2024 was a strong year for Apex and we had enough enough in reserve to limp along for awhile.
Compounding the issue is that Apex and all the publishers under Diamond were strung along as the bankruptcy was dragged out far longer than expected. We were asked to ride it out with them, that as far as Diamond was concerned, it was "business as usual". We cancelled the retail launch of We Who Hunt Alexanders (it will now be a POD-only title). We also indefinitely postponed our reissue of Plague Birds that was planned for the fall.
Between the investment in books that will never reach retail bookshelves and the loss of sales revenue, it's a minor miracle that we're still here.
But that's the thing. We're still here.
The Apex team isn't giving up. There is still some fight left in these old alien bones.
For our dedicated readers and fans, there are things you can do that will have an immediate impact.
1) Follow our socials, share our posts, participate in the conversation and please reach out. We’ve got to stick together!
2) Book sales ensure our future. Go preorder Jason Sanford’s novella, We Who Hunt Alexanders. Grab a copy of ChloroPhilia. Get lost in The Map of Lost Places.
3) Join our Patreon. Through the Apex Patreon, you can subscribe to Apex Magazine or become a book subscriber. There are perks such as access to our Discord, writing contests, and special exclusive offers.
4) Subscribe to Apex Magazine. Lesley Conner runs and operates the zine with the help of Rebecca Treasure. They're doing great things over there. Go see!
5) Review our books on Amazon, Goodreads, your blog, on Instagram, your Substack ... you get the drift.
We can and will get through this, and we appreciate any support you can offer along the way.
Thank you!
