For Exposure book cover

For Exposure: The Life and Times of a Small Press Publisher

Jason Sizemore

ISBN TPB 978-1937009304

200 pages

$ 12.95

Publisher/editor Jason Sizemore's For Exposure is a creative memoir and reflection of his first seven years in the science fiction publishing business. He claims every detail in the book is factual, but it is up to the reader to determine what outlandish events are fact and what might be fiction.

Follow Sizemore's unconventional professional path as it winds through a tiny, overheated Baptist church deep within the coalfields of Appalachia, Kentucky, past a busted printer and a self-serving boss that triggered an early mid-life crisis and the epiphany that he should open a magazine spreading the gospel of science fiction to the masses, all the way to WorldCon 2012 and his first Hugo Awards ceremony.

In this collection of semi-true and sometimes humorous essays, Jason exposes the parties, people, and triumphs that shaped him into the Apex Overlord. He also lays bare the hardships and failures that have threatened to take it all away. Meet Thong Girl, heed the warning about the ham, receive rest stop bathroom wisdom, and visit an emergency room straight out of a horror movie in this extraordinary account of life as a publisher and editor.

With rebuttal essays from Maurice Broaddus, Monica Valentinelli, Lesley Conner, and more, For Exposure tells Jason’s story with insight from key players along his road to success. It is a comprehensive and frank look at what Apex and the genre publishing business is about. Take a shot with the publisher, dance the night away, and become a legend. And do it all For Exposure.

Includes first-person rebuttals by Geoffrey Girard, Maurice Broaddus, Janet Harriett, Monica Valentinelli, Sara M. Harvey, Justin Stewart, and Elaine Blose.

Also features a look at Apex ten years in the future by Michael A. Burstein, Jaym Gates, Maggie Slater, and Jettie Necole.

Contains the following TRUE recountings by the author and accompanying rebuttals:

Prologue: See the Child
Chapter 1: The Risk Master
Chapter 2: The Ham
Chapter 3: A Forgotten Night
—A Forgotten Night: Eyewitness Rebuttal by Justin Stewart
Chapter 4: Legends of the Slush Pile
Chapter 5: Death by a Thousand Cuts
Chapter 6: Another Forgotten Night, with Fact-Checking by Maurice Broaddus
Chapter 7: Business Acumen
Chapter 8: Building the Legend of Apex
—Building the Legend of Apex: Eyewitness Rebuttal by Elaine Blose
Chapter 9: Stoned and Delirious
—Stoned and Delirious: Eyewitness Rebuttal by Sara M. Harvey
Chapter 10: Waterfalls
—The Case of the Mysterious Warm Splatter: Eyewitness Rebuttal by Monica Valentinelli
Chapter 11: For Exposure
—For Exposure: Eyewitness Rebuttal by Lesley Conner
Chapter 12: Lord Hugo
—Lord Hugo: Eyewitness Rebuttal by Janet Harriett
Chapter 13: Parting Shot
—“Faithful Reader” by Jettie Nicole
—“Unless…” by Maggie Slater
—“I Remember the Future of Apex Publications” by Michael A. Burstein
—“Feed the Beast” by Jaym Gates

Cover art by Justin Stewart

See the child cower behind the pew. He’s a matchstick of a kid, pale with a ball of thick, curly red hair towering outward like a healthy flame. At the age of ten, his imagination is an uncontrollable beast, running wild with visions of the demonic afflictions that affect the men and women jerking about on the worn brown carpet of Big Creek Baptist Church.

These are people he knows, people he’s known his entire life. They’re a serious lot, not the sort to just fall to the ground and yell out unknown words and incantations. Speaking in tongues, as the old-timers call it. Ethel Bowling, a sweet elderly woman who teaches his Sunday school class, yells and cries out for the Lord while lying in a fetal position by his feet. Only 45 minutes earlier, she had rubbed the child’s hair and given him a dry kiss on his left cheek.

“Such beautiful hair this one has,” she’d said. “Did ’ya get it from your momma’s side?” It’s a common refrain he hears, particularly from the older folks. No Sizemore in memory has ever had red hair, and members of the small community never fail to note the aberration.

The child does not understand what is wrong with the adults. Well, that’s not quite right. He reckons they’ve been touched by the Holy Spirit. But why should the Holy Spirit, a benign and powerful extension of God, see fit to put a person into conniptions and tears? Preacher Hayes, a bent figure in an old-fashioned grey cotton suit and tie, stands at the front of the church, sweating profusely, holding his cracked and wrinkled Bible skyward while he punctuates every refrain of “Amazing Grace” being sung by the choir on a raised dais with a bellowing “Praise the Lord!”

The whole setting—the crying, the speaking in tongues, the loud preaching—frightens the child.

Born the son of an unemployed coal miner in a tiny Kentucky Appalachian villa named Big Creek (population 400), Jason fought his way out of the hills to the big city of Lexington. He attended Transylvania University (a real school with its own vampire legend) and received a degree in computer science. Since 2005, he has owned and operated Apex Publications. He is the editor of five anthologies, author of Irredeemable, a three-time Hugo Award loser, an occasional writer, who can usually be found wandering the halls of hotel conventions seeking friends and free food.