I received a press release earlier this week from Delerium Books. They are changing their business model. The text from the release is:

Delirium’s trade paperback and book club will end this month with the final featured title: David Jack Bell’s The Girl In The Woods. My focus has shifted significantly over the past few years and digital editions will replace the trade paperback line in Delirium’s production schedule.

This will no doubt become a hot topic, but I’ve come to the conclusion over the past few years that the digital medium is a necessary step for the survival of not only the genre in literature, but the entire book industry.

The only thing I can say at this point is this: it’s no longer become a matter of whether you like or dislike the digital medium; it’s the point that the business of publishing needs to change in order for it to survive. The money-makers for each physical book that is produced sadly barely include the two essential components which is the author and publisher. The money that changes hands profits printers, book binders, distributors and shipping carriers, which is great, if it weren’t for the fact that what little is left (a very small pittance) falls into the hands of the true artist and those that work hard to bring their book to a broader readership.

The digital format has the ability to change all of this, to even the playing field, to compensate justly the starving artist and independent entrepreneur instead of the bloated corporation. It also allows readers to purchase new works of fiction for much cheaper than limited editions, trade paperbacks and even mass market paperbacks in some cases.

I’ve always been one to do things my way and carve my own path and it’s time to start a new direction.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the physical book as well, and plan to continue to produce limited edition hardcovers for collectors, but I feel the time has come for change, to focus on digital.
Delirium’s amended publication schedule will be posted in the coming weeks. Instead of monthly, Delirium will take on an irregular production schedule of primarily digital releases with some limited edition hardcover releases in the mix.

Another major reason for the reduced production schedule is my involvement with Horror Mall. This company has really become a force in the past year and I feel it is essential to the growth of the genre at the independent level. It is a company that is at the forefront of helping many authors, artists, publishers and movie studios. And starting this month it has become my full time job. My goal when I founded Horror Mall in 2007 was to make it the gateway to independent horror and it is well on its way. With more of my focus on Horror Mall, I will be able to promote digital titles not only from my own press, but from others as well. And not just digital, but the fine limited edition publishers that are in business. And Horror Mall will be there to support other entrepreneurs, artists and many others in our genre.

This is something that bothers me immensely. e-books and pdf downloads and the recently popular kindle have been on the fringe of the publishing industry for quite some time. Delerium has been a fairly large player in the small press for quite some time now. Seeing them make the shift from physical books to digital is disturbing to me.

Times change. LP to 8 track to cassette to CD to MP3. A progression that we can all see and understand. But that is a technology that has been evolving from its inception. Books have been mass produced for almost 600 years (1440 was the Gutenberg Press invention.) And before that they were made by hand. Books have been part of human history in such a way that they are almost what has defined us as a civilization.

As a business decision I understand it, but I will never read a digital version of a book with the same appreciation as holding a printed copy. I read PDFs and emailed proofs and text documents on a regular basis. But I have never referred to them as books. And I never will.

Call me old fashioned, but my home is filled with bookcases. Shelves and shelves of doorways to worlds other than our own. Boxes of books that I haven't the shelves to display. The only way I will ever give those up is for my house to burn down. And if that happened I guarantee you one of the first things I would do with my insurance money would be buying books. Real books, not digital ones.

I will continue to support the industry and wish Delerium the best of luck with their changed endeavour but you can have my books when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

Bloody MonkeyZ

~ JimmyZ Johnston