Tenebrous Tidings-10p025-Why blow smoke when there's a box of hand grenades sitting right here?

And my smiling skull will be all that you see, to make you know that my soul's been set free

Hails, 10p Cult! Got a lot to cover today, so let’s dive in.

I realized immediately after hitting Send on the last newsletter that, while we’ve made mention of it on our social media, we haven’t formally announced our final release of 2023. And it’s a good n’ Weird one:

Anthony Engebretson’s LUMBERJACK, December 2023 from Tenebrous Press

About Lumberjack:

Nebraska, 1901. Neville yearns to abandon his privileged roots and prove himself a true man: a lumberjack; but he faces rejection after rejection. His dispiriting journey of self-discovery leads him to J. Sterling Morton—illustrious statesman, newspaper editor, founder of Arbor Day, racist madman—who presents Neville with a quest that could offer salvation.

For Morton suffers at the hands of an elusive demon, one that Neville himself has encountered. Tasked with killing the creature—and armed with his trusty axe, Alexander—Neville hopes to rise to the status of legend; he is determined to see his task through, no matter who or what he must cut down to succeed.

But Neville may just as easily be crushed beneath forces that outmatch him in this grimly comic, thoroughly bloody historical tale.

If the Coen Bros. wrote an eco-Gothic thriller, it might come close to matching the Weird vibes of this book. We’ll be talking about Lumberjack a whole lot more as 2023 rolls along, but for now: Beware the Axe.

Some news that’s a bit more current:

BRAVE NEW WEIRD is out today

Want an overview of what the Best, Brightest and Weirdest of the fiction world had to offer in 2022? This is the anthology you need: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume One (we’ll be back next year with Volume Two, natch, and we’re already plotting to add another component to this yearly celebration of all things uncanny; stay tuned!)

Anyway: 700 stories were submitted—by indie publishers, self-publishers, authors, editors and mystery Weirdos—and from that pile we diligently culled twenty-two tales we felt represented the finest of the New Weird field: Horror, yes, as that’s our specialty, but pieces that branch into other genres as well, and are unafraid to explore the darkest, most inscrutable corners of our world…and others.

Popularity contests be damned; the odds are good you’ll have a passing familiarity with some of these names, you not all. Veterans and new blood alike stain the Table of Contents of Brave New Weird. You’d do well to keep an eye on all of them, because the glow they cast over the Indie Horror world is a Weird and wonderful one indeed.

Brave New Weird is on sale now: directly from us here, and wherever you buy books.

Booksellers, Bloggers, Bloviators: we’re expanding our early readers list!

More info about our upcoming slate of novellas is inbound in the days, weeks and months ahead; in the meantime, we are looking to grow our ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) audience!

If you’re a bookseller, reviewer, indie fiction blogger, Horror YouTuber, etc., and would like to get your eyes on unrevised, early copies of our books…we wanna help you do so! Love em or hate em: we want you to share your honest thoughts on Tenebrous titles with your audience.

If you’re interested in a slot on the 10p ARC list, sign up here. (Not sure if you’re on our list already? If you haven’t received an ARC of Soft Targets, you’re not!)

One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Pat Ourselves on the Back

The first novella we put out—both last year and ever—has made the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot! Needless to say, Alex and I are proud as hell, and we want to extend author M.Shaw a hearty congratulations.

cover art and interior illustrations by the mighty Echo Fucking Echo

One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve was intended to serve as Tenebrous’ mission statement to deliver New Weird Horror from unheralded voices. Even if this is as far as it goes in the Stoker nomination process, the fact that it resonated with so many people is incredibly validating to all of us.

**If you’re a voting member of the Horror Writers Association and haven’t had a chance to read One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve yet, please reach out to us here and we’ll hook you up!

One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve is on sale here, and everywhere books are available.

OK, so usually I say something gut-bustingly funny brimming with sage wisdom groaning beneath the weight of a million puns here, and y’all nod, and smile knowingly, and silently admire my indomitable wit; and then we make a flawless transition to, “Here’s Alex with the Weather!”

But apparently Alex slipped her meds and has a whole lot to unload today; so screw the weather,

Here’s Alex with the State of Publishing Today

I promised we’d talk a little about publishing implosions, and why part of my job for Tenebrous is to do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen to us—for our sake, but more importantly, for the sake of the authors who rely on us keeping their books in print, and the artists who rely on our ongoing commissions.

Over the past couple years, we’ve seen a whole bunch of publishers go down—or barely survive—in great big blazes. A lot of us were affected, having contracts dropped and books un-published, our reputations screwed with, our identities insulted or downright attacked. It’s not fun; but in the horror community, we’ve come to accept as a given that every year a couple people will turn out to be great big honking tits.

Well, we shouldn’t. That is not normal, and not necessary, and not acceptable. It’s insulting to all presses and editors to embrace the mentality that ‘shit just happens.’

Shit doesn’t happen in a void.

One of the most common things is that the editors sign or publish a book without seriously considering the implications. The book turns out to be harmful, the author turns out to be vile, the audience complains, the press reacts poorly. Sometimes they close up shop completely, ranting about ‘the state of the community’. Sometimes diplomacy wins out and they overcome it, keeping their terrible choices in the laundry room. We’ve had what, five of those over the past year alone?

I want to tell you that any editor who needs the audience to tell them whether or not what they published is acceptable is a hack; but let’s be constructive instead. What can, and should, your favorite presses be doing to ensure they don’t suddenly need to leave their authors and readers in the lurch?

It’s not foolproof, and I hope you all contribute other ideas, but here’s my plan, using our next novella, Carson Winter’s Soft Targets, as an example:

1.       Be aware of what and who you’re publishing.

It should be the basic lowest bar any editor has to clear.  If you’re not paying attention to the book you’re releasing into the world, and to how your audience interacts with the author, what exactly are your purchasing practices based on? Good looks and compliments?

To be clear, this does not mean, ‘don’t ever publish anything upsetting’ and ‘don’t ever publish people who can’t do the schmooze’. Quite the opposite; we’ve published both, and our upcoming Soft Targets deals with an upsetting topic for US audiences: gun violence. What this actually means is that we can’t show up after the fact, after people have read it, and say, ‘oops, we didn’t realize.’

It means we made a deliberate choice responsibly. We considered this novella for six months. We passed on it initially. We considered whether we were putting the author in harm’s way. We asked for second opinions, then ignored those second opinions—but we did so with our eyes open.

And if we’re wrong, that’s going to be on us.

2.       Preemptively combat any harm you may be causing.

A thousand micro-choices have gone into this book for no other purpose than to allow us to publish a magnificent piece of work while still minimizing any harm its difficult topic might cause.

We’ve moved content warnings front and center: in the book itself, in all of our discussions of it. Because we only want the people who want this book to buy it.

We’ve made a joint decision with the author to donate a share of both our profit and his to gun violence prevention and victim support charities. That means that none of us will be making bank here no matter what, which is a good thing.

We’ve directed the art in such a way that no gun ever appears on the cover or interior illustrations. This is a deliberate choice, to avoid the possibility of the images we publish being taken out of context and used for harm, as well as to highlight that the real story is not about the guns. It also happened to make the whole thing gorgeous!

3.       Prepare for the worst.

Despite all the above, there’s always a chance we’re wrong and the book will cause more harm than good. We don’t believe so in the slightest, but it’s naïve not to accept that we’re human, and don’t know everything.

So, we’re actively preparing. We’re making plans for what happens in case of trouble, how we should behave, what we can do, what we can say. Because in the heat of the moment, people react emotionally and can cause further harm, to readers and authors. All of them ended up there because they didn’t believe they could be wrong and didn’t prepare for that possibility.

4.       Promise to stick to your decisions.

Most importantly, we’ve made a pledge that we’re not going to drop this book on account of the public reaction.

Let’s be very clear about one thing: dropping a book is not a consequence for the publisher. It’s only a consequence for the author. It costs the publisher nothing and makes them look like a good guy. That’s not only profoundly unfair, but also sets a horrible precedent.

Now, we recently added what some may call a ‘morality clause’ to our contracts; here it is for full transparency.

[Please note that there are some very strict rules. It would have to be over something we weren’t aware of at the time of purchase (so, not the content, and not the author’s behavior if that’s…how they’ve always behaved), that the author is charged with or admitted to (so no rumours, no twitter gossip), and that would negatively impact the sale of the book (so, not if they get into beef with their local gardening club).]

“[contract may be terminated] (c) by Publisher who may at any time prior to publication choose not to publish the Work if Author has been convicted or admitted to illegal or morally repugnant conduct (under commonly accepted, nationwide standards), unknown to Publisher and inconsistent with the Author's reputation at the time this Agreement is executed, where the conduct has become known to the public and resulted in sustained, widespread public condemnation of the Author and that will directly and materially diminish the sales of the Work.”

As far as morality clauses go, this one allows us to do one thing, and one thing only: If someone were to sell, say, a children’s book to us, then be convicted of crimes against minors before publication, we would be allowed to drop that book and prevent catastrophic harm.

What many authors don’t realize is that this clause ensures we can only cancel releases in those conditions (and the clause continues with how the author can appeal that decision), and the contract we had before—as well as most publishing contracts—allow books to be dropped at any time, for any reason.

And they are. Often. For the silliest reasons.

Important side note: authors, read your contracts carefully.

So yes, it is a ‘morality clause’, whether we chose to call it that or not. One that only affects our morality, forcing us to make decisions we stand by, and then stand by them unless something truly catastrophic happens. One that keeps our authors safer than they were before.

So, what does this mean for Soft Targets? Well, it means we’ve got contingency plans that don’t involve dumping all the consequences on the author (or our other authors), including switching to a model where we donate 100% of our net profit to charity; seeking out and publishing counter-narratives; adding more decision-makers to our team; and loads more.

Now, here’s the thing. When you read this book after learning about all this prep, you’re going to think, “That’s it? All of that prep and all those warnings, and that’s it? I was expecting something much more dangerous.” And yes, that’s it. Ultimately, all this prep is simply for the fact that in this excellent book, two characters decide guns are fun, and then face the horrific consequences of that decision. That’s all.

And this is the bare minimum level of preparation you should be expecting from your publishers every single time. I’m not anybody, and I have no resources, and if I can come up with this much, most others should be doing better.

Don’t let any of us off the hook when we’re not.

I was gonna go off on Soft Targets for a bit myself, but Hurricane Alex beat me to it

cover art by Blacky Shepherd

Still a pretty snazzy cover though, innit?

We’ll be opening up deluxe preorder packages for Soft Targets on Valentine’s Day…because c’mon, look at all that red! The deluxe packages (more details coming soon) will be available to anyone who wants one, but only for two weeks; after which we’ll convert to standard book-only preorders until Soft Targets’ release date, March 22.

And I gotta be honest: I am champing at the bit for this book to come out.

Not because of everything that Alex said above (well, maybe a little. I had a whole spiel I was gonna go off on before this newsletter started to look like a novella itself: about my queasy relationship with guns; about the fact that this book didn’t come out last year has nothing to do with Carson or Alex, and everything to do with my hesitation in confronting the subject matter).

Nah, the reason I’m all jacked up on nervous energy is that it’s been too friggin’ long since we put out our last original book (last September, in fact! Crom Cruach by Valkyrie Loughcrewe, available here!) We were cautious last year, feeling this whole Tenebrous ship out, making sure we knew how to pilot it. And we ended up giving ourselves a bit of a lull over the holidays (well, publicly speaking; behind the scenes it’s been pretty much nonstop chaos).

Well, in 2023 we are making up for it. While we’re hyper-vigilant of the dangers that face small presses who overextend themselves, this year is also the culmination of seeing what Alex and I are capable of, operating 10p at maximum capacity.

Brave New Weird is the table setter, focusing on all the things we love about the genre we champion; and a new kind of mission statement for the mutual elevation we want to see from our too-often beleaguered corner of the industry.

From Soft Targets in March on through Lumberjack in December, the six novellas and one composite novel we’re releasing in ‘23 will showcase different aspects of the New Weird vibe: time loops; curses; impossible landscapes; fungal explosions; post-apocalyptic lands; cryptids; some very, very haunted houses and broken families; our shared history revisited, revised and refracted into something itchingly familiar, wholly alien and 100% Weird. If we don’t kill ourselves before the finish line…it’s gonna be something special. And I am chuffed.

This is the Year of the Tenebrous Cult.

Hail the Indie Horror scene.

Hail 10p.

Matt & Alex