Signings: Brian Keene
For some this may be old news, as the contract was inked this past December, but since this insider is live, I wanted to post it once again to begin the Brian Keene category.
Brian Keene has signed an exclusive publishing agreement with Delirium Books through 2010. This contract grants Delirium Books the rights to all of Keene's non-collaborative full-length horror titles (50k words and greater) in limited edition hardcover. Also included are reprint rights to his mass market novels, starting with Ghouls.
Brian Keene and I grew up in the horror genre in the mid-to-late '90s where we had fiction appearing in the same 'zines. When I started Delirium Books in 1999, he was one of the first authors I approached. Seven years later, Delirium and Keene have hooked up for 10 titles:
4 x 4 (October 2001)
The Rising (April 2003)
No Rest At All (August 2003)
Fear of Gravity (March 2004)
The Rising: Necrophobia (May 2004)
Sympathy For The Devil (December 2004)
City of the Dead (February 2005)
Earthworm Gods (September 2005)
Running With the Devil (February 2006)
The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World (March 2006)
He has also edited the anthology In Delirium which was released earlier this year.
A funny story about Keene and I…when The Rising was released in 2003, Delirium still had copies of this title for more than 6 months after publication. Keene and I were breaking balls trying to move the rest of the print run, wanting to get his first novel into the hands of readers. Finally, we made some deals with booksellers to unload the rest of the print run. Now these same books which we could barely give away in 2003 are selling on the secondary market for 10 to 20 times the original cover price. We often joke that if we wouldn't have worked so hard to move them, we'd be sitting on a small fortune now and drinking beer on a tropical island year-round.
What's so special about Keene is that he's one of the hardest working authors in the genre and he cares about his readership, much the same way Delirium Books does. He is a stand-up guy who is now considered to be a major author in this genre, yet he remains loyal to the small press publisher that he began his career with.
This is what I love about being in the small press…it's the close-knit relationships between people who share a common love of this genre. And I'm proud to have played a part in helping to nurture one of the most important modern-day talents this genre has. Not that I take credit for Keene's career…that's all his own doing. I believe Keene would have driven through Hell and high water to get to where he is today (whether Delirium existed or not), but I think I helped make it a much smoother and more comfortable ride for him.
And I now look forward to continuing this ride through 2010 and beyond…
Comment by jtdlz on 21 July 2006:
As always, I’ll be lookin’ forward to ALL Keene/Delirium projects. And yeah, if only some of us were smart enough to buy about 10 of those suckers back then…
Comment by macker on 21 July 2006:
…..and beyond…i hope so
great story, and thoughts.
Comment by macker on 21 July 2006:
did the same happen with 4×4 ??
Comment by Dezm on 21 July 2006:
Yup, I can’t really think of a better collab than Brian’s stories and Delirium books. I for one hope it continues well beyond 2010.
Comment by deliriumbooks on 21 July 2006:
4 x 4 was easy to sell because it was only 100 hardcovers. The paperbacks took longer and some of the copies were actually destroyed in the flood, so they weren’t around for too long.
Comment by carrioncrow on 23 July 2006:
I remember when I bought THE RISING off a store shelf at cover price…then I began reading and was floored…I was blown away by KEENE and utterly impressed with the quality book that DELIRIUM produces…I still take it off the shelf once a month and look it over…long live the the partnership…