2013 – Crystal Lake is born!

I can remember exactly where I stood when my wife and I both decided on the name Crystal Lake Publishing (it’s up for debate which one of us actually mentioned it first). It was early August, 2012. The very next day I starting the registration process, since I needed to apply for tax exemption from the US, UK etc. For those who don’t know, Crystal Lake Publishing is actually based in South Africa. Weirder things have happened, right?

After deciding on the name for the very first Crystal Lake anthology (FOR THE NIGHT IS DARK – which of course comes from a Game of Thrones episode), my next move was to contact artist Ben Baldwin, who’d worked on the cover for a book I appeared in a few months earlier. I believe it was the Dark Minds anthology by Dark Minds Press. I waited until I had the cover, then started approaching a few authors I already had personal connections to. I believe Gary McMahon and Armand Rosamilia were the firsts. Once I hooked them, it was relatively easy to fill up the TOC with names like Willie Meikle, Jasper Bark, Kevin Lucia, and Daniel I. Russell—all authors I continued to work with after this anthology. And thanks for Ross Warren for editing that one. I didn’t want to take on the job of editor and publisher on the first go. The rest of the TOC included G.N. Braun, Blaze McRob -Author, Scott Nicholson, Robert Walker , Tracie Tracie Mcbride, C. Johnstone, Stephen Bacon, Benedict J. Jones, John Claude Smith, Tonia Brown, Mark West, and Ray Cluley.

The book did quite well, and the rest of 2013 was quickly filled with:
Tricks, Mischief and Mayhem by Daniel I. Russell
Sleeper(s) by Paul Kane
Things Slip Through by Kevin Lucia (one of our best-selling single-author titles over the years)
and Where You Live by Gary McMahon 

There was also a Halloween anthology release with Fear the Reaper. There’s a bit of a sad history here. Contributor Rick Hautala passed away just before the release. What an amazing guy and author. We ended up giving the profits from the opening weekend to his wife, Holly. A few years after that we also lost Lawrence Santoro. You might remember him as the voice from Tales to Terrify. The plan was to make him known as The Voice of Crystal Lake. I still miss him. I remember the day he told me that he had to go to the doctor, and how scared he was. He knew something was wrong. 

Anyway, the rest of that anthology was filled with some amazing talent: Gary A. Braunbeck, Jeff Strand, Gary Fry, Sam Stone, Jeremy C Shipp, Richard Thomas, Eric S Brown, Joe McKinney, Ross Warren, Marty Young, Taylor Grant, Dean M Drinkel, Stephen Bacon, Steve Lockley, Mark Sheldon, Robert S. Wilson, Feo Amante, and John Kenny. 

Again, I went on to work with a lot of these authors again. I must’ve been doing something right back then. 

It was a tough year, and to keep expenses down, I did the editing, proofreading, and layout on these titles (except for Ross editing For the Night is Dark). It was all one hell of a learning experience. Learning how to make eBooks using Word was a horrible nightmare. Many late nights of pulling out my hair. I was actually still a full time teacher in 2013, and I already had dreams of being a full time publisher. More on that later this week. ;-) 

That's it for part one. If I remember anything else, I'll post it in the comments. 

Continued in part 2 (2014)...