Dark Regions Press:

[Splync]

Weird House might pick up the first party titles the DRP was going to do, but I'm more worried about the books from other publishers that DRP had been selling. 

They had mostly been selling books from other publishers these last few years and not all of those titles have been released or fulfilled. 

I had the Essential and Mission editions of Catch-22 from Amaranthine on order through DRP, for example. :-/

[Ben Staad]

Erg. I hadn't thought about those. Fingers crossed for you.

I've been through this as well and it's an unsettling feeling.

Weird House might pick up the first party titles the DRP was going to do, but I'm more worried about the books from other publishers that DRP had been selling. 

They had mostly been selling books from other publishers these last few years and not all of those titles have been released or fulfilled. 

I had the Essential and Mission editions of Catch-22 from Amaranthine on order through DRP, for example. :-/

 

[Dave1442397]

I had the Essential and Mission editions of Catch-22 from Amaranthine on order through DRP, for example. :-/

If you paid with a credit card, you might want to try disputing the charges and see if you can get your money back.

I'm sure if you contact Amaranthine that they would help you out with getting the books you ordered through DRP. They would also probably like to know about DRP before they ship out a lot of books they may never get paid for.

 

[Splync]

If you paid with a credit card, you might want to try disputing the charges and see if you can get your money back.

I'm sure if you contact Amaranthine that they would help you out with getting the books you ordered through DRP. They would also probably like to know about DRP before they ship out a lot of books they may never get paid for.

 

Already reached out to Amaranthine. DRP never ordered the books, so they won't be sending any their way.

I'm going to see what can be done on the credit card side, but unfortunately I think we're past the window in which I could dispute the charges. We'll see though!

[Sock Monkey]

Already reached out to Amaranthine. DRP never ordered the books, so they won't be sending any their way.

I'm going to see what can be done on the credit card side, but unfortunately I think we're past the window in which I could dispute the charges. We'll see though!

I hope this turns out well for you. The fact that money was taken and orders were not placed would make me nervous as well. I have not purchased anything from DRP since their lettered editions of Off Season and Bird Box, so I have no skin in the game, but if they are going under, then I feel for all those with outstanding orders.

While I'm sad to see the press disappear--if that is the case--I also can't say that I'm too surprised. DRP has been struggling for an incredibly long time to get books out in a timely manner, if at all. These long production times and inconsistent project plans (like authors being announced for I Am The Abyss and then subsequently reversing that decision) led me to step away from buying from the company, with only one of their titles still left on my shelf. I used to have what seemed like an inexhaustible amount of "preorder patience," but that has pretty much evaporated in recent years. I always had hope that they would turn things around as the more successful publishers we have, the better it is for everyone in the industry, but signs are not looking good at this point.

[Boggle Champion]

So Dark Regions Press has gone dark from the looks of it. Their website appears to be unavailable and things don't sound great. 

This is pure speculation, but hopefully Chris Morey or someone from DRP will make a statement on the topic. 

DRP has consistently sent out two newsletters a week for years, but haven't sent anything since the end of June, which is also around the time that they stopped responding to emails and messages. 

I hope all is well and things get cleared up for those who have outstanding orders (myself included).

Wow this sucks, but does make sense. I contacted them several weeks ago about some of my pending orders and never got a response.

I received a copy of Atlas of Hell (Midworld) in early June from them, but I've been waiting for In the Valley of the Sun, which I know released earlier than Atlas. I also have a couple other books on order, including DRP's Cabin at the End of the World.

Thanks for the heads up on this.

[swintek]

FWIW: Weird House has issued a statement on their Facebook page:

It has come to our attention that Dark Regions Press has gone dark and their site has come down with no word to customers. We are aware that DRP owes a lot of books to a lot of customers. While Weird House is a separate entity from Dark Regions, many of you know that Chris at DRP is Joe’s son and that Joe used to own Dark Regions over a decade ago. As such, we feel compelled to make a statement and share what we know.
Some of you may be aware that Joe at Weird House was helping Dark Regions to fulfill some of the books they were behind on, including Transmissions from Punktown and Wolf Hunt 3. Weird House lent some of its resources to Chris to finish these books and fulfill orders. Small press is a tough business however, and we could only afford to help out so much. We had hoped that with the aid we lent to Chris and DRP the company could recover and make good on their commitments to customers. Unfortunately, Dark Regions seems to have needed more help than Weird House could afford to give.
As for what is happening with DRP, we honestly don’t know at the moment. We at Weird House were unaware of Dark Regions taking down their site. We only became aware of this when it was brought to our attention by a reader. Chris at DRP didn’t inform Joe or anyone else at Weird House of his intention to take down the site. At this point, we still don’t know the status of the company.
We wish that there was more we could do, but the truth is, Joe left Dark Regions many years ago. While we sympathize with those impacted by the actions of DRP, Chris and Dark Regions are responsible for their unfulfilled orders. We simply can’t afford to pay for the failings of another business because of a shared last name.
We will continue to share any information as it comes to us. Feel free to reach out to us via email or facebook messenger if you have any questions or concerns.

[CyberGhostface]

I only had their ‘Cabin at the End of the World’ waiting so it could be worse I guess. I was really looking forward to their planned limited edition of ‘The Woman’ though. Definitely sucks for those who had multiple orders.

[RonClinton]

As SM mentioned above, I’m also disappointed but not surprised, given all the years-long issues we’ve all seen. I hope those with pre-orders are able to find some kind of remedy to their unfortunate situation. With as long as the problems have persisted and as active in promotion as Chris was, I wonder if Dark Regions will turn out to be the largest default of debt in the history of the genre small-press industry…seems like only CD would eclipse them, if they should ever go down that route — as Joe says in his post above, there were a lot of books owed to a lot of people. It’s really unfortunate not only on a micro scale but on a macro one as well, given the increasing reliance from publishers on pre-orders…events like these only (rightly) make it tougher for customers to have faith on the safety of preorders and that impacts the solvency of the industry itself.
 

[Ben Staad]

As my finances have tightened I have greatly reduced my pre-ordering of books. In the case of DRP and here at CD I stopped completely. I really wanted to order an SK CD gift edition but I just will not pre-order anymore from publishers with inconsistent communication and publication speed.

I have also cut back on preorders from publishers who only supply store credit in lieu of a refund of a preorder.

I really only trust a handful of folks these days with my money.

make it tougher for customers to have faith on the safety of preorders and that impacts the solvency of the industry itself.
 

 

[swintek]

I wonder if Dark Regions will turn out to be the largest default of debt in the history of the genre small-press industry

That's an interesting- if painful- observation. I hadn't thought of DRP's potential demise in those terms, but, yeah- I'd imagine you'd be right. Overall, we've been very lucky down the years collecting in this relatively safe hobby of ours with very little fraud or blatant misuse of the collectors' trust (and money!). I mean, sure there have been plenty of small presses vanishing overnight with folks' preorder $ never to be recovered, but they have usually been with "only" one or two books from their own respective imprints owed, and not preorders from many other presses. I know, it hurts any way you slice it if you are out books owed. Maybe Chris can regroup and figure something out. I sincerely hope so. And, if he does- he's got to really scale back that all-over-the-place business model, imo. It always put me off sending $ for books I actually wanted from him.

[brlesh]

Disappointing, but not surprising news.

It seemed like each newsletter for the last year and a half or so was just advertising some DRP website sale.

Not a long term sustainable business model.

It’s been so long since I’ve ordered anything from them (and I stayed away from their third party offers), but to the best of my recollection I’m out two books.

B
 

[swintek]

Bev Vincent posted a link over on thedarktower.org forums with the comment: "They're for sale". Looks like the business was put up for sale at the end of April:


https://www.prlog.org/13018372-profi...ince-1985.html

[RonClinton]

Bev Vincent posted a link over on thedarktower.org forums with the comment: "They're for sale". Looks like the business was put up for sale at the end of April:


https://www.prlog.org/13018372-profi...ince-1985.html

Huh, that long ago...and yet I see emails from them soliciting business in April, May, and June. I'm not a lawyer, but...wow -- especially June's gift card offer, which would seem to intimate that that they will be in business long enough to honor it.

I wonder if the sale terms of this "profitable business", as described by the link announcement, discloses all the outstanding debt in the form of undelivered books. One poster on my smallpresshorror .io group stated that he has "nearly 20 titles I had pre-ordered through DRP, including a four-volume lettered edition"...that's surely thousands of dollars and that's just one customer, and we all know he's not alone.

[Boggle Champion]

Author William Meikle has been posting about the situation on Twitter. He has more than a dozen books published through DRP, and it seems like the authors are in the dark as much as the customers are. His most recent post:

Latest update on the Dark Regions Press situation is that there is no update. They're still uncontactable, the site is down, the business is up for sale and nobody, neither authors nor out-of-pocket customers, has been told what's going on. Its a real shitshow.

https://x.com/williemeikle