Very sad news today, as many may know on here, my partner, Dan Russell, is an editor over at Necrotic Tissue Magazine. Well, today, some very sad news was handed out to staff (via email), readers, and writers alike, on Stygian Publications blog. Necrotic Tissue is sadly closing. They are putting out one last issue, Issue #14, and that will be the very last issue to see print. It's quite sad to see the decline in small presses out there, especially in the horror industry, which I feel personally, has been hit pretty hard in the last 12 months. There have been so many small presses fold in recent years, and even larger places are having the same issues now. It's devastating to see the path these presses are going down, as well as distributors. I mean, look at what has happened with Leisure and Borders. It's a very sad time for writers, editors, publishers and distributors. I guess all we can do is give them as much support as possible to try and help keep the $ ticking over so they can ride the storm and just hope they are still standing when it passes. But as I said, very sad to see the doors close over at Necrotic Tissue Magazine. I've enjoyed reading each issue and was hoping to one day have an entire shelf (or more) full of their magazine, as they look great on our shelf here at home and have some brilliantly crafted stories within those amazing covers. R. Scott McCoy did an amazing job to provide such a top quality magazine every issue, and to 'always' be on time. Well done to him I say.
That is sad news Torana, but to be honest I can't be totally sympathetic with the Leisure and Borders problems. In fact, I would have to put some of the blame on them for horror presses having such a hard time. I don't know about the town you're in, but around here horror sections in those stores are almost non-existent. Most of the horror titles are mixed in with the general fiction titles, except for about a four or five shelf-deep section that's about four feet wide. On those shelves you will find just the bestsellers in horror, and usually no new authors. The only place you would find a horror title by a new author might be on the local author table, if you're lucky. The brick and mortar bookstores in my opinion have played a big part in the demise of horror presses, and they have had a major negative effect on the horror genre overall.
I agree with you on that, Kevin. We don't have a decent book store where I live, just a few shelves and you can only find stuff from Stephen King in there really. Not much at all in the way of horror. Everywhere we go, the horror shelves are full of non horror rubbish, or literally pushed aside for Stephanie Meyer's fire lighters (I wish I were exaggerating there, I seriously do. But she took over much needed shelf space and is useless at writing). People here are more interested in self help, biographies, autobiographies, sport books or cooking books. Or the latest fad with the teens. Maybe we could try and make horror more fashionable? If you want horror, you 'have' to search the entire stores for the horror books. But it isn't so much the stores, as it is the writers. Did you know a lot of the big name writers who write our favourite horror titles, don't actually like to be called 'horror writers'? They go with dark fantasty, thrillers, etc. Horror is not really wanted by a large audience, so you have to play the field a bit to be recognised. I do agree with you in a big way about brick and motor bookstores, but it is sad how they are having just as many issues.
