Last Man Standing?
Sometimes it sure feels that way.
Hola Fahrenhistas,
We’ve got some exciting new book news coming your way this week but before we jump into that The Boss has written one of his occasional State Of The Nation addresses - believe us, this one’s important - existentially important even.
Friends,
Indie Publishing just took another hit.
This month, after 15 years of publishing hard-edged crime and unapologetic noir, Down & Out Books announced it was closing its doors for good. Another one bites the dust. Not because the books weren’t good enough, but because the economics of Indie Publishing have become like a knife fight in a dark alley.
As anyone familiar with the details will know, the end when it came was sudden, shocking, & brutal. The aftermath has left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths, and although that’s not our story to tell, it does highlight once again the precarious state of this industry.
Across the UK and the US, small and specialist publishers are under an increasingly brutal squeeze: higher printing and shipping costs, volatile retail channels, algorithm roulette, platform policy whiplash, shrinking margins, and the slow death of social media as a reliable place to reach readers.
Put all that together and you’ve got an existential crisis for small presses.
Yes, the threat hits everyone in Indie Publishing, but genre houses are getting hit hardest. Noir and experimental crime fiction live and die on curation: specialist editors, short runs, collectible paperbacks, and direct, often personal relationships with the readers who care.
When a small Indie Publishing house goes under, it’s not just a business failing, it’s a cultural wound. Authors lose trusted editorial homes. Readers lose the curators who seek out the off-beat, the risky, the stuff that doesn’t fit the marketing spreadsheet. And the whole community loses another voice that was keeping the scene weird, alive, and interesting.
Of course, there are still indie houses pushing forward. We should know, we’re one of them. Despite all the odds, Fahrenheit Press is still here, still publishing, still shouting into the void. We’ve got new releases rolling, multiple imprints ticking over (including our new Fahrenheit Pocket Noir series and the eternally cool Fahrenheit 13 which is still banging the drum for the experimental and the unclassifiable).
I guess because so many indie crime imprints have closed or scaled back, we’ve noticed a few people recently calling Fahrenheit ‘the last man standing’. Honestly, that’s probably a bit overblown, but I will admit, some days it does feel close to that. It certainly captures the daily anxiety of still being here, still fighting, still hustling like hell while so many others have fallen. One glance at the forums & socials will show you that the mood across the community is one of quiet dread - everyone seems to agree that curated, risk-taking publishing is an endangered beast.
So what does this mean for readers? It means THIS is the moment to get deliberate about the kind of publishing you want to exist in the world.
Buy directly from small presses. Subscribe to their newsletters. Pre-order their books. Back the limited runs. Tell your mates. For niche genres, direct sales and word of mouth aren’t just nice extras, they’re oxygen.
We’re watching the Indie landscape being reshaped in real time. Closures are painful and real, and the wider trends are worrying, but there are still pockets of fierce, curated publishing keeping the flame alive so even now it’s not too late to make a stand.
If we want a future where experimental crime and noir thrive, not just survive, readers and writers alike need to move past nostalgia for the fallen and start giving practical, tangible support to the ones still clinging to the cliff-face.
If you care about books that push boundaries, the kind that make your pulse race and your moral compass wobble — here are three things you can do today:
Put your hand in your pocket and buy direct from small presses.
Pre-order and review. Pre-orders feed the algorithms & reviews fuel discoverability.
Support crowdfunding and special editions when you can.
Independent publishing has always been a labour of love (trust us, nobody’s getting rich off any of this) and over the last 10 years we’ve definitely felt your love, but as The Flying Lizards so memorably sang:
“Your love gives me such a thrill, But your love it won’t pay my bills.”
We’ve been banging this drum for the last few years, but it’s worth saying again: if Indie publishing matters to you, if you don’t want a future filled solely with celebrity-penned, paint-by-numbers thrillers or AI-generated sludge, then NOW IS THE TIME TO DO YOUR BIT.
Put your money (and your passion) where your mouth is.
Trust us. You’ll miss us when we’re gone.
Chris McVeigh, Founder & Publisher of Fahrenheit Press, October 2025
Okay people you read what Our Glorious Leader has to say, so this week we’re MAKING IT SUPER EASY FOR YOU TO GIVE US YOUR MONEY by publishing something SO COOL that no self-respecting Fahrenhista will want to live without it.
Introducing GHOST DANCE : THE COMPLETE SLOW BEAR COLLECTION by ANTHONY NEIL SMITH
This VERY SPECIAL EDITION brings together all 3 of the Slow Bear books into a beautiful and collectible single volume - complete with a brand new introduction by the author.
Available in Paperback, eBook & Hardback this gorgeous 426 page beauty is the perfect gift for yourself or someone who really deserves something a bit special.
Here’s what it says on the tin…
Hard luck. Hard liquor. Hard truths.
Meet Micah ‘Slow Bear’ Cross — one-armed, half-sober, and wholly fed up. Once a rez cop on the Fort Berthold Reservation, now he’s a broken-down hustler with a knack for trouble, a weakness for women, and a bad habit of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
In Slow Bear, Slower Bear, and Slowest Bear, our reluctant antihero stumbles, bleeds, and curses his way through a world of crooked cops, oil-boom gangsters, and small-town sins that never wash clean. He’s the kind of detective who’ll take your case, drink your beer, and still manage to piss off everyone involved.
Ghost Dance is bruised, brutal, and darkly comic, a binge-read for anyone who likes their noir unfiltered, their heroes damaged, and their endings uncertain
Welcome to the Badlands. Slow Bear’s still dancing.
And here’s what people have had to say about these books…
“Fantastic. Like what would happen if Jack Reacher hit absolute rock bottom, lost an arm, woke up in a dumpster, and just decided, fuck it, I’m going to keep killing bad guys.” – James Kestral, author of Five Decembers (winner of 2022 Edgar Award for Best Novel)
“In Slower Bear, Anthony Neil Smith’s prose is a hammer; sometimes pounding, sometimes clawing out flesh, but always bludgeoning or yanking the reader through the bloody and break-neck story of lost soul-asshole Micah Cross’ search for redemption. Or maybe it’s just the search for a glass of pulpy orange juice across the counter from a girl with a nice rack, but it’s fast, graphic, obscenely funny, and I couldn’t put it down.” – Meagan Lucas, author of the award-winning novel Songbirds and Stray Dogs, and Editor in Chief of Reckon Review
“Dazzles with repellent wit. A sleazy queasy poetic punch from one of the masters of pulp” – Saira Viola, author of Jukebox and Crack, Apple & Pop
“I went into Slower Bear expecting to read a fine noir novel by a gifted author I respect. I got this in spades. But what I didn’t expect was to come away with a renewed belief in the power of new love to push through even the worst of circumstances, as Abeline’s caring for the girls is also a dynamic we see form right before our very eyes. Smith ultimately offers us a side dish with his crime novel: the formation of an unusual family of four. I’ll take that with my shootouts every day of the week and twice on Sunday.” – Sheldon Lee Compton author of Brown Bottle, Alice and the Wendigo, and Dysphoria.
“Anthony Neil Smith mixes dark humor, menace, mayhem and a washed-out, one-armed hero in a noirish tale that never stops to take a breath.” - Linwood Barclay, author of No Time for Goodbye and Too Close to Home
Plus, if you still need a reason to buy - can you think of a better book to buy on Halloween than one called GHOST DANCE - I mean come on, right?
And of course, speaking of Halloween, don’t forget we just released the Fahrenheit Pocket Noir edition of Chez Usher - it’s available with all the other pint-sized classics over in our store, and right now we’re giving you 20% OFF if you buy any 3 from the series…
There are literally 100s of great reasons to support Fahrenheit Press over in our store, buy a book or grab some merch - and if you’re feeling REALLY generous you can always donate to our FIGHTING FUND where every single penny will go towards finding and publishing the best, the weirdest, and the future cult classics that no corporate publisher would touch with a barge poll.
Okay people, that’s all from us this week.
Have a Spooktacular Time this Halloween weekend - oh come on, we almost made it all the way to the end with zero Halloween puns - give us this one?
We kiss you,
xx