The Wrap Up

READING

I read 127 books this year, a small increase from last year's 116. 77 of them were e-books, so while that makes up the majority of my reading, I still read quite a few print books, too, and I expect that rough split to continue. 33 of the 127 were review copies. I wasn't able to review all the books that were sent to me, but I read and blogged about as many of them as I could and I'm sure some of the others will show up on the blog in the future. 21 of the 127 were books that I edited and published. In looking through the list, I noticed that I didn't read any books published in 2015 by the so-called Big Five. The only new books I read from traditional publishers came from Kensington and Baen, companies that have distribution deals with the Big Five but are independently owned, and there were only a few of those. Everything else I read was either small press, self-published, or decades old. This wasn't intentional. I'm certainly not boycotting the Big Five. But it's an unavoidable fact that they're publishing less and less that I want to take the time to read these days, while there's so much good stuff coming out from those other sources that I couldn't even hope to keep up with it. The important thing to me is that I don't think I'll ever run out of good books to read.

Which brings us to my top ten favorites of the books I read this year, in alphabetical order by author:

LIE CATCHERS, Paul Bishop

THE CRIME OF OUR LIVES, Lawrence Block

THE SHOTGUN RIDER, Peter Brandvold

TARZAN THE TERRIBLE, Edgar Rice Burroughs

THE BIG DRIFT, Patrick Dearen

101 ESSENTIAL TEXAS BOOKS, Glenn Dromgoole and Carlton Stowers

FIRE WITH FIRE, Charles E. Gannon

TURN ON THE HEAT, A.A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner)

RIVER RANGE, L.P. Holmes

WAITING FOR A COMET, Richard Prosch

My short list had 17 books on it, and I could have added another dozen or more that were pretty close. So it wasn't easy getting this list down to 10, but there they are, for what it's worth.

WRITING

As those of you who have read yesterday's post are aware, I wrote just over a million words this year, the 11^th consecutive year I've reached that mark. That breaks down to 12 novels and 7 shorter pieces of fiction, most of them novelette or novella length. Right now my plan is write at least that much in 2016. I'll need to if I'm going to keep up with the projects I've committed to do. It's a lot of hard work, but I'm still having fun so I don't see any reason to stop now.

PUBLISHING

Rough Edges Press continues to occupy a significant portion of my time. With plenty of invaluable technical help from Livia, along with some great covers, REP brought out 9 books in the Blaze! Adult Western series, along with a number of reprints and originals from Stephen Mertz, Ed Gorman, John Hegenberger, James J. Griffin, and David Hardy. We published three original anthologies, the two WEIRD MENACE volumes and the Alternate History anthology TALES FROM THE OTHERVERSE. The Blaze! series will continue in 2016, along with a full slate of original and reprint novels and collections, and we'll also have a big science fiction anthology next summer, if all goes according to plan. More details on that later. UPDATE: I added a picture of all the books REP published in 2015 to the top of the post.

So you can see there's plenty going on to keep me busy. I guess I stay out of trouble that way. Many thanks to those of you who have stuck with the blog for another year. I'll be around.

Rough Edges Press Update

When I decided a little more than a year and a half ago to become a small press publisher, my plans had an emphasis on the "small" part. I figured I'd reprint a few books by friends of mine that I thought ought to be available again and maybe do an original or two, along with my own books. It never occurred to me that I would wind up publishing 48 books in 18 months, or that Rough Edges Press would bring out more originals than reprints.

As it stands right now, I have a good-sized inventory of books and stories still to publish, and I haven't been able to devote as much time to that as I hoped, so I'm announcing that for the time being, and with a couple of exceptions, Rough Edges Press is closed to submissions. I plan to spend the rest of the year working through the projects I've already committed to and get them out there to the readers where they need to be.

As for those exceptions I mentioned, the Adult Western series Blaze! has openings in the schedule for next year, so if you're interested in possibly contributing to it, drop me an e-mail any time and I'll get you a copy of the series bible, if you don't already have it. Also, I'm still in need of a few good Alternate History stories for the anthology I'm putting together, which now looks like it will be out sometime this fall, along with the Weird Menace anthology (which is full and now officially closed).

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have written, read, bought, and reviewed Rough Edges Press books, and special thanks to Livia for all the help and advice she's given me. I hope I've done right by all of you. I've enjoyed publishing good books, and I have plans for much more to come, as soon as I get caught up.