Today we’d like to introduce you to James H. Longmore.
Alright, thank you for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
When I immigrated from Yorkshire, England to Houston with my family back in 2010, I decided to take the opportunity to step up my writing career and see if I could make it as a professional. I have nine novels and novellas published to date, along with a whole bunch of short stories scattered among anthologies. across the country.
I have also been fortunate enough to make a good living ghostwriting for other authors in myriad genres. I’ve always written – it’s all I ever wanted to do – but ‘life’ kinda got in the way over the years – my erstwhile career was in sales and marketing for big corporations (including Toyota & Duracell) and I founded and ran my businesses back in England.
I believe it’s that unique combination of creativity, sales, marketing, and business experience that has made my independent publishing company, HellBound Books, a great success. We began back in 2016 with just five titles – two of which were mine to make up the numbers – and built up to the 120+ horror & dark fiction books we publish today.
I retrieved the rights to all of my books to publish under the HBB brand, and I’m delighted to be publishing some of the authors I grew up reading! We have also built a terrific following for our weekly podcast/radio show – The New Panic Room – which began as a promotional vehicle for HBB and has grown into much more. We have interviewed authors from all across the industry (not just horror) – from newcomers to established writers.
In 2022, we launched a new company entirely independent of HellBound Books – My Book Inside. It offers to ghostwrite and publishing services to anyone wishing to have their story told – fiction, memoir/autobiography, self-help, or anything else. Our services draw upon my considerable experience as a writer and publisher, and it’s an absolute pleasure to help people bring their stories to life.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’d be telling a huge untruth if I said it’s been plain sailing from day one! HellBound Books has seen its fair share of trials and tribulations as with any new business. Naturally, our first few years were spent learning the business the hard way – there was so much to learn about not only the technical aspects of publishing but the industry itself insomuch as what worked and what didn’t, and how to publicize and market on a shoestring budget.
Of course, we had a couple of shady characters latch onto us – one almost sank us! The odd one always slips through no matter how cautious you are in business. Then, of course, we had COVID-19 – we saw a big dip in book sales at first, but then folks stuck at home began reading; it seemed they couldn’t get enough of our books of horror and dark, slithering things!
I guess the biggest challenge for HBB after almost 7 years in the industry, is keeping things fresh and exciting for our readership. I’m confident we achieve that by publishing wonderfully terrifying, wholly unique novels and creating some of the best horror anthologies in the business!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about HellBound Books Publishing LLC?
HellBound Books is an independent publisher specializing in horror and dark fiction – plus, we have recently published some non-fiction/reference titles in the genre. We publish in paperback, eBook (Kindle especially), and Audiobook formats.
We are renowned for our quality titles, exceptional cover art (yep, really!), and for taking great care of our authors, artists, editors, and PR people. We maintain a drama-free business (there’s a lot in the indie publishing world!) and are transparent in all our dealings – we’re the ‘good guys’ of the horror community! As cynical as it may sound, what sets us apart from the majority of independent horror publishers is the fact that we are still around (and growing) after 7 years!
I’m especially proud of the good name HellBound Books has created over the years, as well as providing a platform for brand new authors taking their first steps into the world of publishing. An especially proud moment was being approached in 2022 by the Bram Stoker estate to publish the most complete version of Dracula ever in honor of the book’s 125th anniversary! In addition to that, we also published Bram Stoker’s lost journal, which makes for a fascinating read!
Our titles represent some of the very best up-and-coming authors writing in the horror genre today, we also publish some of the ‘big names’ in horror in our anthologies: Joe R Lansdale, Bentley Little, Richard Chismar, Jack Ketchum, Graham Masterton, Guy N Smith, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Graham Jones, Dacre Stoker, & Lisa Morton.
In short, HellBound Books are a must for all fans of horror and dark fiction; we cover everything within the genre – so there’s something for everyone! All of our books are available on Amazon, and Kindle (some on other eBook platforms, too), and many can be found at Walmart, Target, and Barnes & Noble.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some changes you expect to see over the next five to ten years?
Horror has seen a big resurgence in recent years, thanks to Stephen King and a slew of incredibly successful horror movies (thanks, Blumhouse, Jordan Peele, James Wan, Ari Aster, et. al!). The genre – and all its sub-genres – has been around for as long as the man put pen to paper, and I don’t see it going away anytime soon.
For the publishing industry as a whole, the growth of eBooks will continue as more and more readers take to their devices (I’m old-school and much prefer good ol’ paper!) and audiobooks will carry on rapidly growing in popularity. As for the much-lauded expansion of AI writing apps, I remain cynical about their ability to recreate the originality and spine-chilling prose of a good horror story (I mean, could you imagine an app writing Frankenstein, Carrie, Books of Blood, Interview with a Vampire, The Rats, etc?).
Trends come and go – vampires were big when Twilight was popular, zombies when The Walking Dead emerged, and (of course) plenty of pandemic novels are on the shelves (virtual and physical) at the moment. It’s impossible to predict what’s going to be big in even a couple of years, but it’s safe to say the horror-reading public will always be hungry for good, well-written, unique stories that scare the living daylights out of them!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hellboundbookspublishing.com & www.panicroomradio.com & www.mybookinside.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/hellboundbooks/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hellboundbooks/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-longmore-6441a21/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/HellBoundBooks
