Curious King, the specialty press many book collectors treat as the gold standard for letterpress-printed, handbound editions, has announced Eldritch King, a new horror and dark-fiction subscription imprint. A newsletter sign-up page is the only thing live so far. No titles or pricing have been revealed.
Curious King books usually sell out on production and resell for thousands of dollars. Any new line from the press draws collector attention, and this one is aimed at a different buyer than the flagship releases.
In the launch post, the Curious King team says most tiers of its releases are out of financial reach for many collectors, because letterpress printing and handbinding are expensive. Eldritch King is meant to fix that with lower prices. The team says the quality at that price point “will knock you clean dead.”
The project has been in development for some time. Titles are due to be announced soon, and more details will come out over the next few days and weeks. Early newsletter subscribers will be rewarded when the full announcement goes live, and a date and time for the grand opening will be sent out ahead of launch.
Collectors have long paid premium prices for limited horror editions from presses like Centipede Press and Suntup Press, and those prices climb fast on the secondary market once a run sells out. A subscription at a lower price gives readers a way in before a title disappears into the aftermarket. It also puts a press with a sold-out track record into a more accessible tier of the market.
The sign-up page is live now at Eldritch King.
If a press whose flagship books resell in the thousands offers a cheaper subscription tier, does that pull speculators off the secondary market, or does it just create a new class of sellout?
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