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horrormall · 03-17-2009, 08:54 PM

Hello. My name is Shane Staley and I'm owner and proprietor of Horror Mall. I was directed to this thread, so I thought I'd answer some questions here. Horror Mall is a sole proprietorship which just started to get into digital distribution. I run a Bram Stoker Award winning specialty press called Delirium Books as well.

Our customer base is frequented by book collectors, and HM is by far the biggest specialty store for limited edition horror books. We've just introduced digital editions in the past few months.

As for concerns placed here about our policy being 'dumb' and other comments, all I have to say about this is that HM just started getting into this market and I plan on adding different content and formats. This is new and it will be evolving.

The problem with DRM discussion here seems to be one-sided, and I understand some perspective as readers and consumers and I agree it's much easier to allow free distribution of digital goods. But from a publisher's perspective, do you guys actually know how many authors are comfortable having their work put out there in a non-DRM format. I'll tell you: not many. And it's new to most authors working in the horror genre.

I've published Brian Lumley, Brian Keene, Ramsey Campbell, Douglas Clegg, Jack Ketchum and many more of the bigger names in the genre. Out of the majority, I'd have to say we're talking about 10% of them are totally cool with just throwing their work out there without some kind of protection.

The digital access key is only for PDFs and you do not have to ever re-registered your file again. If you read the FAQs, you'd note that it stated you only had to log in to the file with a user name and password once every 365 days.

As for losing sales left and right, please understand that digital downloads are a very small fraction of the business done here.

But it'll grow and we'll evolve.

03-17-2009, 08:54 PM	#13
horrormall Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 354 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Kindle 2	Hello. My name is Shane Staley and I'm owner and proprietor of Horror Mall. I was directed to this thread, so I thought I'd answer some questions here. Horror Mall is a sole proprietorship which just started to get into digital distribution. I run a Bram Stoker Award winning specialty press called Delirium Books as well. Our customer base is frequented by book collectors, and HM is by far the biggest specialty store for limited edition horror books. We've just introduced digital editions in the past few months. As for concerns placed here about our policy being 'dumb' and other comments, all I have to say about this is that HM just started getting into this market and I plan on adding different content and formats. This is new and it will be evolving. The problem with DRM discussion here seems to be one-sided, and I understand some perspective as readers and consumers and I agree it's much easier to allow free distribution of digital goods. But from a publisher's perspective, do you guys actually know how many authors are comfortable having their work put out there in a non-DRM format. I'll tell you: not many. And it's new to most authors working in the horror genre. I've published Brian Lumley, Brian Keene, Ramsey Campbell, Douglas Clegg, Jack Ketchum and many more of the bigger names in the genre. Out of the majority, I'd have to say we're talking about 10% of them are totally cool with just throwing their work out there without some kind of protection. The digital access key is only for PDFs and you do not have to ever re-registered your file again. If you read the FAQs, you'd note that it stated you only had to log in to the file with a user name and password once every 365 days. As for losing sales left and right, please understand that digital downloads are a very small fraction of the business done here. But it'll grow and we'll evolve.