CHROMOPHOBIA: Hardcover Pre-order Info; Final Hardcover Art; The Hard Art Of Setting Expectations

Good morning, Boils and Ghouls! Today is Monday the 4th, and this is the first full week of October. Let’s get spooky!

In roughly one year and change, the CHROMOPHOBIA paperback will see release. Sounds like a long time, but in the world of publishing, a year might as well be a month. For us, that time will come and go and it’ll feel like we got in one, maybe two, blinks.

However, the CHROMOPHOBIA limited-edition hardcover will be available much, much sooner. Many months sooner, in fact. We expect to begin shipping as early as June 1st. Now, the state of the world and shipping and distribution being, uh, a giant mess… well, those plans could get wrecked. This is an unfortunate reality that is now a part of the publication equation, indie or otherwise. But, we are usually well ahead of ourselves, these days, as far as our production goes, so mitigating the new and unsure world is a bit less daunting.

Though, being ahead of ourselves and understanding the problems we currently face re: distribution, we were able to completely rethink production for CHROMOPHOBIA in quick turnaround. We had plans, but those plans are no more. Now, we have new plans. Most of this stuff is boring business shit, so we won’t unload too much of it here, but suffice to say it is always advisable to have a plan B. Or, a plan C or D or E or whatever it takes to see a job through to completion. At this point, we think our “worst-case scenario” will be that shipping slows down.

Having said that, let’s move the discussion to hardcover CHROMOPHOBIA pre-orders, while also allowing us to backtrack a bit.

When we first started offering exclusive hardcover editions, we kept a really tight pre-order window. We were, for all intents and purposes, simply testing the market. What we saw, even with the time restrictions, was an overwhelmingly strong response, especially for a micro-press. And support for each subsequent release has only grown.

When we opened up pre-orders for QUEEN OF TEETH, we did away with the restrictive window of time and opened up orders for several months. Not only was the support more than comparable to the early releases, but we know that many readers were only able to obtain their hardcovers because of the longer pre-order window.

Ultimately, the goal is to get books in hands, yes? Which brings us to CHROMOPHOBIA.

This will be our longest pre-order window, to date. We plan on opening up hardcover pre-orders on November 1st, this year, and keeping that pre-order window open until June 30th. For a total of 8 months, readers can secure their hardcover copy of CHROMOPHOBIA.

The hardcover edition will have exclusive cover art, as well as interior art. Elements for the entire slipcover wrap are still being worked on, as are the 7 interior illustrations. However, work on the front cover image was recently finished, and now includes the final text.

Take a look:

We cannot wait to see how this pops on a glossy cover stock. It’ll be gorgeous! And the interior illustrations will be keeping the “Rainbow Death Metal” theme, while also riffing on the esoteric elements, utilizing a pseudo-tarot aesthetic. These illustrations will be developed over the fall and winter and we won’t be showing any of them off until March 2022. You gotta have some surprises, after all.

Now, to the point about setting expectations. Anthologies are an enormous investment in both time and money. We love working on them, but the truth of the matter is, for a micro-press, they are daunting. Every book is a gamble, really. Anthologies, however, are in a league of their own, so to speak.

For CHROMOPHOBIA to be a success, financially, the book will have to move many copies. If we were to use only the hardcover release as a barometer of said success, then we would need to move about 140 hardcovers. Now, we don’t necessarily think we will hit those numbers in hardcover, but you never know. Considering that, though, whatever we don’t move via hardcover will need to be made up by paperback sales, later in the year.

This is called “Dreaming Big” and it is part and parcel of navigating the world of publishing. Or, any field wherein one hopes to create and sell art. This is why we referenced “the hard art of setting expectations” and, sometimes, you gotta be happy just breaking even.

Them’s the breaks! But, you know, this is the reality of what we do. Not a complaint, just an acknowledgment. 

We will have more info about the CHROMOPHOBIA hardcover pre-orders once we get closer to November 1st. 

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the support.