The pandemic has been tough of many small businesses, and Wildside Press was not immune. Wildside began as a hobby, with just one part-time worker (me) almost 30 years ago, and we are pretty much back to that state now (Sam Hogan, the contracts manager, is also still aboard. Other staff members who worked on new books have been let go). 

Luckily I have always tried to diversify our business (ebooks, audiobooks, used books and movies on eBay and amazon.com), so when one segment of the market goes down, there are others to keep us going. Amazon — about 85% of our market for "new book" sales — pretty much stopped shipping books for 2 months, which had a devastating effect on that area of our business. Luckily Ebook sales rose slightly, and used media sales doubled.

As things begin to reopen around the country, we are facing new challenges. Although new book sales are picking up, our primary printer (lightningSource) is having problems getting paper. They are now taking 22 days to print paperbacks...not good for "on demand" printing. And they seem to be having cash-flow problems, since they are trying to force new fees and charges on their clients. (We are fighting those fees, but may end up taking our business elsewhere. Luckily there are competitors—and I have now started setting up our new books there, "just in case"...)

Wildside Press has slimmed down, but we are in no danger of shutting down. We can continue indefinitely, producing just a few books every week. But when things pick back up, or perhaps settle into a new normal, we will be able to better judge what the future holds. Rest assured, though, Wildside Press will be there, with more of the great new and classic books you've always enjoyed from us.

This week, I will be adding about 50 new titles to Wildside's store. Some just went up today (Jim Glass's new science fiction collection, Strange Worlds, Near and Far, is one I particularly recommend). And look for our MEGAPACK® ebook collections starting to appear in paperback — the first four Ghost Story MEGAPACK®s are now available, for example. I found a way to generated the paperback text from our ebook files, which sped things up enormously. Let me know what you think about them.

Lastly, we have been having trouble with spammers using our "contact us" web form to send ads instead of valid questions. If this continues, we will have to shut it down. You can always reach me through Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social media if the web form goes missing here.

Lastly, if you read ebooks, don't forget to check out our ebook site, bcmystery.com — lots of fun things are happening there.