APEX NEWS: Apex Book Company to release 42 titles at the end of January

Sadly, Apex Books is releasing the rights to 42 titles. A complete list is at the end of this post. Starting this Monday, we will have a Last Chance Sale to give our customers one final shot at acquiring the Apex editions of these books. It will also give the authors a final boost to their royalty payouts.

Why These 42?

We love having older books by great writers like Lavie Tidhar, Wrath James White, and Jennifer Pelland. The long-tail sales are nice. Unfortunately, the long-tail sales aren't enough to offset the time lost from all the data collection, entry, reports, and emails that we must do to keep 71 titles in print.

Lesley and I keep falling further and further behind providing sales data, royalty & sales statements, and worse, royalty payments. We determined that the most effective way (and most painful) to accomplish our goal of timely statements and payments was to trim our catalog.

The biggest factor was, of course, how the book was selling. Best-selling titles, out of necessity, will stick around.

A secondary reason was publication date. While books like HebrewPunk and To Each Their Darkness were moving a few copies every month, they've been in our catalog a long time; it is time to give them back to the authors.

A third reason is in a change with how we're approaching the Apex Books brand. We will strive to become a boutique publisher of short fiction and short novels. We have collections by Kameron Hurley and Tobias Buckell on the way. We have our group of popular crowdfunded anthologies: War Stories, Glitter & Mayhem, Do Not Go Quietly, and Upside Down. There's the groundbreaking World SF anthology series, five volumes strong with the possibility of a sixth. The groundwork has been laid for this branding goal. It's a matter of Lesley and I putting in the work to finish the job.

Gratitude

To the authors and editors of the books we're releasing, it's been a joy working with all of you. I've learned something about publishing from each of you. You've help shape me into the publisher and editor that sits in this chair right now. Thank you for entrusting your hard work with Apex.

The List

Here is the list of books that will be on sale starting Monday. Everything will be 40% off with free shipping on orders $35 or more.

  • Aetherchrist (Kirk Jones)
  • An Occupation of Angels (Lavie Tidhar)
  • Appalachian Undead (Eugene Johnson & Jason Sizemore)
  • Beautiful Sorrows (Mercedes M. Yardley)
  • Breaking the World (Jerry Gordon)
  • Close Your Eyes (Paul Jessup)
  • Coil (Ren Warom)
  • Dark Faith: Invocations (Maurice Broaddus & Jerry Gordon)
  • Desper Hollow (Elizabeth Massey)
  • first communions (Geoffrey Girard)
  • Freeze/Thaw (Chris Bucholz)
  • Glitch Rain (Alex Livingston)
  • Harlan County Horrors (Mari Adkins)
  • HebrewPunk (Lavie Tidhar)
  • I Can Transform You (Maurice Broaddus)
  • I Remember the Future (Michael A. Burstein)
  • Kentucky Kaiju (Shawn Pryor, Tressina Bowling, Justin Stewart)
  • Last Dragon (J.M. McDermott)
  • Like Death (Tim Waggoner)
  • Machine (Jennifer Pelland)
  • Mars Girls (Mary Turzillo)
  • Maze (J.M. McDermott)
  • Midnight (Mari Adkins)
  • Nexhuman (Francesco Verso)
  • Orgy of Souls (Wrath James White & Maurice Broaddus)
  • Plow the Bones (Dee Warrick)
  • Ration (Cody T. Luff)
  • Seasons of Insanity (Gillian Ainsworth and Frank Humboldt)
  • Severance (Chris Bucholz)
  • Shine Your Light On Me (Lee Thompson)
  • Sing Me Your Stars (Damien Angelica Walters)
  • Snow Over Utopia (Rudolfo Serna)
  • Some Kind of Monster (Tim Waggoner)
  • Starve Better (Nick Mamatas)
  • Stay Crazy (Erica Satifka)
  • To Each Their Darkness (Gary A. Braunbeck)
  • Ugly as Sin (James Newman)
  • Undead (Katerina Klemer & Bianca Spriggs)
  • Unwelcome Bodies (Jennifer Pelland)
  • What Makes You Die (Tom Piccirilli)
  • Yours to Tell (Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem)