Introducing ALTAR 13, New Horror Publisher

Beneath the Horror Mall umbrella there will be a new publishing entity that will make its debut in 2010.  The press is called ALTAR 13 and it’s one I’ve been developing within Horror Mall for the past year.

ALTAR 13 is not a Delirium imprint; it’s a Horror Mall publishing company that will produce fine limited editions for the collectors market.

Here is the information I can release at this point:

• ALL Altar 13 titles will be produced in limited runs of 100 hardcover copies. No other editions or copies will be produced except as follows: copies 1-13 will be bound in genuine soft leather, double-slipcased. Copies 14-100 will be bound in premium buckram with dust jackets.
• Altar 13 will be focused on bringing collectors books that have never been released in hardcover.
• Those that are fans of Delirium productions will want these, as Altar 13 will use the same durable bindings and material, including the natural soft genuine leather for the 13 deluxe copies.
• Each edition will contain exclusive bonus fiction never published in the original publication.
• Cover prices will ultimately be based on demand for the books. Limiteds (14-100) will begin at $65 for the first title. The deluxe copies (1-13) will be $265.
• No lifetime subscriptions will ever be taken for this press.
• No dealer copies will be available.
• Auctions will be held for lifetime first rights of refusal for each number. Winning bidders for each number will own first rights of refusal for that number for the life of the press. They will NOT be obligated to purchase every edition, but will have first chance to secure their number of every title announced from Altar 13. These auctions have started tonight with copy #1 at the Horror Mall auction site. All auctions will start at $1.  There will be a reserve set for the 13 deluxe editions.  There will be no reserve for the remaining 87 copies.
• Altar 13 plans to publish quarterly, but the number of titles produced per year will ultimately depend on demand. If demand is high, there may be more than 4 titles per year.

OWNERSHIP AUCTIONS

Each number will be auctioned off through the Horror Mall auction site. These auctions are NOT lifetime memberships.  Winning bidders will not be getting any books; they will be purchasing ownership of the number upon the terms of first rights of refusal for every title published by Altar 13. Each edition will need to be purchased at cover cost unless refused.  In the case of refusal, the copy of that title will be sold to another party through Horror Mall.  Certificates will be issued from Horror Mall to the winning bidders.  Owners of each number may sell their number to another party, but this must be done publicly through the Horror Mall auction site and auction commissions will apply to the sale.

The only copies Altar 13 will ever match for customers will be the ones won via the auction through ownership of first rights of refusal. In the event that there are copies that do not get purchased via the auction, these will be released to the general public on a title to title basis (matching numbers will NOT be granted as these will be issued randomly). Any copies refused by owners will be sold to the public at cover price for each title (all proceeds go to Horror Mall).

FUTURE TITLES

Although I can’t make any official announcements just yet, there are 3 titles that have been contracted through Altar 13 so far.  Two that have contracts signed, one that is still yet to be officially filed.

Of those two, here’s the scoop:

KINGDOM OF SHADOWS by Greg F. Gifune.

This will be the ONLY limited of this book produced.  And not only will you get the first hardcover edition of KINGDOM OF SHADOWS, it will also come with a BONUS NOVELLA called SORCERER.  A 23,000-word original story that was just turned in by Gifune.  This will be the only print edition of this novella of any kind.

Here’s a little more about SORCERER:

Times are tough.  Jeff McGrath has recently lost his job, and he and his wife Eden are having trouble making ends meet.  Saddled with a mountain of growing bills, the prospect of being evicted from their apartment and an enigmatic homeless man who lives on the steps of their building and seems inexplicably drawn to the young couple, things look exceedingly bleak.  But when one afternoon Jeff meets a beautiful businesswoman who wants to recruit him for a high-paying job at an internationally-renowned company owned by the wildly successful CEO Foster Hope, he thinks his luck may be changing.  But what initially seems like the break of a lifetime soon becomes an unimaginable nightmare Jeff may never escape.  Because an evil as ancient and elusive as the sands of time has come calling, nothing is as it seems, nothing happens by accident or chance, and one man’s dream-come-true may very well be another man’s descent into inconceivable horror.

Careful what you wish for…evil has many names…

DEPRAVED by Bryan Smith

Visitors are more than welcome in the isolated rural town of Hopkins Bend. The town needs them for their annual sacrifices…and entertainment. Now outsiders have stumbled into the town’s traps. Some will be held for their captors’ perverse, degrading amusement, but some will face a far more gruesome end at the yearly Holiday Feast. The townspeople hope their unholy ritual will protect them from the curse that befell the Kincher family. For more than a century the Kinchers have been changing, mutating, becoming gradually less human. And at the center of it all lies the dark secret, the malignant evil that controls Hopkins Bend and has made its residents truly…DEPRAVED.

The Altar 13 edition of Depraved will include new cover art and bonus fiction and non-fiction relating to the novel.