• Guest please check The Index before starting a thread.

[Publisher] Black Spot Books

Jacci

YA/MG Fiction Author
Registered
Joined
Dec 9, 2010
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Location
Reno
I got this information from Authors Publish and I'm tempted to query this publisher but since it's only a year old...any thoughts?

Black Spot Books just celebrated its one-year anniversary. They are a new speculative fiction publisher that considers work in a variety of genres including fantasy, dark humor, thrillers, and paranormal. They don’t often publish pure science-fiction or young adult titles, but they are open to reading them.
They are a print and electronic publisher with decent distribution. Their website is focused on recruiting readers, not writers. Most of their covers are good, but they are a little uneven in terms of appearance.They published eleven books in their first year. You can see them here. That number is unusually high for such a new publisher, but it helps authors get a feel for what they are interested in publishing.This is a very new publisher and because of that we suggest you approach with caution. Most publishers fail in the first three to five years. We don’t even review publishers that are less than a year old.
 
Last edited:

Scythian

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 4, 2018
Messages
201
Reaction score
40
These guys? https://www.blackspotbooks.com/
Only US-based authors, stuff over 65K in length, speculative fiction but not hard sci-fi or YA.

They've got one Pratchetty-looking book out https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732400709/?tag=absowrit-20 which was reviewed by Publisher's Weekly, as opposed to a cousin's blog. Another book will be coming out in December, and then a bigger bunch in 2019.

There's talk of "brick-and-mortar booksellers across the United States and Canada" on the submission page. Something to do with Small Press United in their press release.

Next year's bunch of books include stuff by https://www.staceyrourke.com/ who looks like a very pro indie author. But this could just a case of a friendly pro giving a bit of help to a small press they're sympathetic to, the way Piers Anthony is wont to.

In their submission page Blackspot books mention, as all too usual with small presses of this type, that you the author are going to totally market as well, because who else could possibly bettter know thine stories so well as thee, etc....

If I was residing in the US (and given up on agents, big indies or self-pubbing, which is not as rare as one might think) and had some old paranormal adventure adventure at hand, I'd probably dust it off, give it an "upgrade edit", and check these peeps out. They're making lots of the right noises, and the banal major risk is basically if this is all hanging on one person with frail health, who is skirting bankruptcy and prone to sudden lapses in judgement, as has been known to happen. If the human component of this business is more resilient than this, then things could work out.

There's talk of some startup capital https://logojoy.com/blog/how-to-become-an-independent-book-publisher/ and the owner is a uni proff in informatics, albeit pretty vague on publishing experience.

Also there's no sign of this becoming an author mill, with a 100 books a year coming out, and the business model depending on each book getting cheap primitive covers and edits and then selling 20 copies, of which 15--to friend and relatives. Rather someone trying to carve themselves a reputable little niche in the genre lit small press field.

Work with them to become a star? No. Work witht them to either maintain a hobby, or as a starting point to bigger venues? Maybe. If their attempts work out. It becomes a reputation gamble--if their reputation grows--the reputation of their authors grow too. If they suddenly implode--the author will not be in a good place. But this reputation gamble is valid for all new indie publishers. Ideally--they attract and publish only the best avaliable to them midlist writers and writers slowly working their way to higher levels, and writers and publisher both raise each other's reputations along the way.

Ah, fairy tales and happy ends...
 
Last edited: