Midlist Writer: Damnation Books opens its doors

Tuesday 1 September 2009

Damnation Books opens its doors

The soon-to-be publisher of my horror story "Dannevirke" have opened their doors. Damnation Books came out with their first catalog of dark fiction novels, novellas, and short stories as the clock struck midnight on September 1. They are being published both as electronic books and in print.

Damnation Books has set itself apart from the usual crop of ebook/POD publishers with a couple of interesting policies. Firstly, for short stories they pay semipro rates of three cents a word. That attracted some rising authors along with the usual horde of amateurs. I'm sure they were inundated with submissions, but they got to sign on writers who had several publications to their name.

The second innovation is variable price books. When a new title is released, it's free. After the first "purchase" the price rises five cents, and continues to rise five cents until it reaches its list price. I took advantage of the time difference between the U.S. and England to make my order at four in the morning U.S. time and scored seven books for 65 cents. I felt a little guilty about that! Hopefully this policy will draw in readers and create buzz for the books. Both this and the payment policy are gambles for a startup company, but I think they are wise moves. They're already getting attention for their first anthology, The Zombie Cookbook. I couldn't resist ordering that one, now could I?

My short story doesn't have a release date yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing it come out, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Damnation Books fares in the rough world of publishing.

1 comment:

Karina Fabian said...: Hope you enjoy The Zombie Cookbook. It's a lot of fun!

Karina Fabian
www.zombiecookbook.net; 2 September 2009 at 08:56

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