We need to have a little chat.
It's not us, it's not you - so why are there bin-fires everywhere we look?
Hola Fahrenhistas,
Before we share some good bookish news with you, The Boss wants to have a little word.
Dear Friends,
As you all know, the cost of living crisis is hitting everyone in the pocket - inflation, energy prices, Brexit export regulations, and interest rate hikes have all conspired to create a perfect financial storm for consumers and an absolute bin-fire for small businesses like ours.
Doesn’t seem like there’s a lot any of us can do about inflation & energy prices except cough-up, and quietly stoke our rage for the time being.
Equally, not a lot we can do about Brexit, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t having a devastating effect on small businesses like ours. Before Brexit around 10-15% of our monthly sales were made into mainland Europe - now, because of the sheer costs associated with shipping & export regulations we’ve lost 99% of that European trade - our fellow Indie Publishers SALT wrote an excellent thread on Twitter this week which explains in detail why - if you click here you can read the whole thread.
The high interests rates that are causing so much financial pain to so many are a deliberate Government/ Bank Of England policy to squeeze consumer spending power in order to ‘hopefully’ reduce interest rates. Well, I can tell you on behalf of every small business in the country that the policy is 100% working in terms of reducing consumer spending - whether it works on reducing inflation is gonna be one for the history books but by the time that happens 1000s of people will have lost their homes and 1000s of consumer-facing small businesses like ours will have gone to the wall, never to return.
The sad truth is that consumer sales, already at an all-time low, have dropped off a cliff over the last three months and the gruesome situation facing every small publisher is pretty much the same as every small to medium business at the moment - we’re balanced precariously on a cliff-edge, and frankly it’s taking a bus-load-of-faith to try and see a path to safety.
The situation businesses like us face is significantly worse than it was even in the depths of the pandemic. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’d be very surprised if more than 50% of Indie Publishers will still be here in a year. So many have announced their demise in the last few months and many more have ‘quietly quit’ - ie, not made a formal announcement but have simply quietly stopped publishing and promoting their books.
Today we are launching a FIGHTING FUND for any of you who would like to donate directly to help keep us afloat through the next few months - anything you can afford will be much appreciated, we’ll pay you back in good karma, and with the promise to keep publishing the very best Indie Writing we can find for many years to come.
Alternatively BUY SOME BOOKS AND/OR MERCH FROM OUR STORE - it’s not like we haven’t got enough belting stuff hidden in there to keep your buying fingers twitching…
We know most of you are in the same boat as us so we won’t keep labouring the point - if you can support us by buying something or donating to the FIGHTING FUND then please do - if you can’t we understand and we send you solidarity.
With gratitude, as always, for your amazing support over the years.
Chris McVeigh
Publisher, Fahrenheit Press
Okay people, now we’ve got that out of the way lets give you some good bookish news…
Last week we published The Straw Men - the 5th book in Tony R. Cox’s ever-popular Simon Jardine Investigates series.
Predictably it went down an absolute storm with fans of the series but we thought we might just tempt some Tony R. Cox newbies out of the woodwork by publishing an EXCLUSIVE EXTENDED EXTRACT from The Straw Men over on our blog.
And as if that wasn’t enough, from tomorrow (Saturday 12th Aug) the 1st book in the series First Dead Body will be AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD FROM AMAZON ABSOLUTELY FREE, GRATIS & FOR NOTHING.
And finally, been a long one this aint it?
We haven’t had a sniff of a lawyer’s letter yet from D.C. Thomson but we’re not counting our chickens just yet - so if you want one of these VERY MUCH SOUGHT AFTER BEAUTIES - GET YOUR ORDER IN.
We reckon this will be the last weekend we can reasonably get away with selling them before we have to put Operation Scarper It’s The Rozzers into full effect.
Okay, that’s all from us, sorry to have to throw out the begging bowl this week but the struggle is real - please buy some stuff and/or donate if you can - and if you can’t, we send empathy, good vibes for better times to come, and we hope you enjoy the FREE BOOK over on Amazon this weekend.
We kiss you.
xx
❤️🩹