Limited Editions: Their Reasons for Being

[Dan Hocker]

In my mind a small press / limited edition publisher (usually one in the same) also exist to give beginning writers a shot to get published. It is also an outlet for genre's / sub genre's that don't necessarily fit into what the mass market publishers see as "sell-able".

[HorrorScribe]

Like a lot of you, I'm a huge fan of the limited edition. I don't necessarily think of myself as a collector (other than of the CD Signature Series) because I read every single limited edition that I purchase. However, neither do I consider myself to be a casual reader of these finely produced books. I fall somewhere between these two categories. Perhaps I'll call myself an Admirer.

With that in mind, I've recently contemplated why limited editions exist. Well, for several reasons as we all know:

1. For true collectors
2. For horror enthusiasts
3. To bring some awesome books back into print
4. To create a special version of certain books that have become significant to horror over the years
5. To generate excitement and something of value for those lucky enough to have purchased a world's first edition of a book by a big name author in the field
6. For aesthetic purposes
7. And, damn it, because the spectacular limited edition publishers are helping to keep these extraordinary physical treasures alive; there's nothing like holding a Ray Garton limited edition novel (for example), opening up the cover to the signature sheet, and then immersing oneself in the rich prose that follows on actual pages that the reader has to flip.

I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons as well. Feel free to share your thoughts and reactions. I'm eager to learn what other people think about this topic.