“Well, that was certainly something very special, wasn’t it…” (or something like that)
—Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock Presents
In honor of the first (and perhaps greatest) holiday of the best season of the year, I want to tell you where Bell & Brier Press got its name, and to reflect on these first couple of months since we clawed our way out of the sentient, undulating void of eldritch lunacy that is my imagination and into existence. This venture is about much more than selling books. It’s meant to stride hand in hand with our little family’s story, and I suspect there will come a day when I want a document that chronicles these elder days.
I named the press after my daughters, E. Belle and A. Rose, who are named for Beauty and the Beast and Sleeping Beauty, two of the darkest and loveliest fairy tales ever to be turned into Disney commercial properties. At the tender ages of 2 and 4, they are already exhibiting an unsettling affection for Spooky Things, a fact of which I am naturally very proud. They are the reason I do anything, even get up in the morning (a habit, I admit, I am still getting used to).
Gothic literary necromancer that I am, I am also possessed (romantically, spiritually, and legally!) by a faerie queen who inhabits the body of a perfectly preserved antique doll. She shares, and indeed inspires, the love of the macabre and darkly transcendent I have carried my whole life. It is impossible to speak of anything I do without acknowledging her, too.
I never intended any of this to happen, of course. Two months ago I was perfectly content to write my fiction and submit it to agents and literary magazines, where it could enjoy the traditional fate of all serious literature: languishing unread in somebody’s inbox before receiving a very polite rejection. But looking ahead to a future in which I might have to self-publish my novels, I decided to experiment with book design and typesetting by making a book from public domain sources, something I wanted to read but couldn’t find a decent edition of.
I started with the cosmic horror tales of H. P. Lovecraft. About a month later I woke up with a catalog of 13 books in our Classics line, all live and selling copies, even though I hadn’t put (and frankly still haven’t put) any meaningful effort into telling people they exist. (Since it’s Halloween: three werewolf books are coming throughout November!)
Somewhere along the way, an experiment in book design became something more ambitious: an attempt to bring strange, beautiful, neglected, and occasionally quite deranged works of literature back into the hands of readers who might love them as much as I do.
Which brings me to you, my dear reader. We’ve been alive for about five minutes in Publishing Years, and we started from zero: no audience, no marketing experience, and no idea what I was doing. Yet we’re already approaching 50 subscribers, have hundreds of followers, and are steadily selling books, even the weird ones I made purely for myself and assumed no one else would want. So, seriously, THANK YOU! Not just for your money (although I love your money, please send more), but for being here, for reading our strange stories and articles, and for engaging with our unhinged notes.
We have a long way to go, but you make me hopeful that whatever this becomes, it will be something I’m proud to hand to my daughters one day and say:
“I love you. I built this weird literary Gothic cathedral for you. Please remember to turn the lights off when you leave.”
I’m so glad you’re all here for the journey.
I’m writing all of this while running sound at an open casket funeral in a Gothic-style church sanctuary, by the way. Like, actually.
Happy Halloween!
Cody M. Thomas
Editor
Bell & Brier Press
P.S. Want to see what’s on the shelves? Check out some of our books here! And what’s the best werewolf story you’ve ever read? Hit reply and tell me.