Hi all,
Arnold from ATB here. This is going to be a long post, so I can only ask that you read it all and know that this is coming from the heart. And just to head off any initial anxiety, everything and everyone is fine, ATB is fine and not going anywhere, we have some upcoming titles to tell you more about soon, but I just need to cover some things first.
This has been a rough last few years for us all. Stress, sickness, despair, loss – we’ve all dealt with it in one way or another, going back at least as far as, oh, let’s say 2016. But especially once COVID arrived, things became much more difficult, and in the midst of it all, ATB has had more challenges in continuing to make books happen and get them out to you. But we did it, even if it meant we may only get out one title all year (which is how it worked out in 2020 and 2022; more on that later). Ultimately, Natalie and I needed to pull back and prioritize family and personal matters, which meant going a little dark on social media with ATB. That was exacerbated by recent social media upheavals that left us with fewer and less attractive options for promotion, which has been another challenge for us. Our sphere of influence has always been small, but solid…until now.
For many years, we’ve answered questions from those that want us to sell on Amazon (we won’t, ever, for many reasons that are too numerous to go into here) or offer e-editions (we won’t, probably not ever, but that’s also a long list of reasons), and I’ve often reiterated that my passion is to make physical print books, not “distribute content.” I’ve always felt that calling what we publish just “content,” and treating it as such, has been one of the most damaging and diminishing things we’ve done culturally in the last decade or so, and recent battles in the media spheres between labor and conglomerates that want “content” to pump through their “pipelines” has made me even more certain of that. Other people might be happy to provide “content” for people, and that’s fine, but I want to publish books.
Some argue that in refusing to release e-editions, we’re not addressing issues of accessibility, and I agree. The simple answer is that if we were a company that sold even thousands of copies of books and made money, we’d have the luxury of considering that. We don’t, and we can’t, and since I love physical books, I have to focus our limited resources where we can make things happen that will sustain us into the future, so print books are all we can manage to do. And then some say, “Well, don’t you want to make money? What’s the matter with you?” That would be a valid question if there were any chance at all of turning ATB into a larger, profit-making enterprise, but please trust me when I tell you that we’ve explored all the possibilities, and that is not in the cards. The most we can hope for here is that a given ATB title breaks even or makes just enough to help with the next title, and since all I want to do is make these books real so that our many contributors can proudly share them with folks and keep them on their shelves, I accept that.
That does, however, mean that the support we receive from our dedicated base of contributors, readers, and other fans is vital, and things haven’t been as steady on that score lately, and understandably so, for the same reasons I mentioned earlier about these recent, hard years. OUTSIDE IN WALKS WITH FIRE, our sole release in 2022, was the lowest price point book we ever did, which made us think it would do as well if not better than all the other OUTSIDE IN volumes…but it did not. There’s a long road to that title breaking even, and it means we’re not likely to do books of that length again, at least not for a long while. But we still have other titles in the works – some coming very soon, some down the road, and some that are indeed further OUTSIDE IN installments. We’ll keep plugging away, because I want to keep making books happen. But I wanted to explain all this to anyone that cared to listen, because it matters to me that you know where we’re coming from, and why.
I’d like to think that one reason people often question our strategies, or wonder “why not this” or “why not that,” is because when they do see our books, the quality of the finished product and the material within suggests a bigger and more capable company, but again – two people, spare time, a couple bucks from the last book if we’re lucky, and that’s it. We’re trying.
I am so grateful to all of you for liking what we do enough that you’ve helped ATB last over ten years. We do have more books to come, and we can’t wait to share them with you (including a couple titles that tie into the big anniversary of that UK sci-fi show so many of us love so much). And for now, although we still have all of our existing social media accounts, we’re going to be focusing entirely on Facebook and Instagram for getting the word out, so follow us there for the latest news.
Wow, did you make it through all of that? Thank you again, and see you soon!
