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Nuts & Bolts: Jason B. Sizemore

September 15, 2008 This week's Nuts & Bolts interviewee is Jason B. Sizemore, the publisher of the Apex Book Company. Apex specializes in science fiction, horror, and crossovers between the two. I asked Jason about I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein (November 2008, reviewed in this week's PW).

Genreville: When did you first encounter the idea behind I Remember the Future, and what got you interested in it?

Jason B. Sizemore: I'd just released our first non-anthology title (Unwelcome Bodies by Jennifer Pelland). During one of our email exchanges about her book, Jennifer mentioned that she had a friend named Michael A. Burstein who was shopping a collection of his short fiction.

Naturally, I'd heard of Michael A. Burstein and his contributions to short-form science fiction. His story "Sanctuary" was one of my favorite SF works of the past ten years. I asked Jennifer to invite him to submit his collection to Apex.

To my surprise and delight, I had his query in my email the next day. It was for a collection of twelve major award-nominated stories. Who wouldn't jump at a chance to publish such a book?

So I owe a big "thank you" to Jennifer Pelland for helping lure Michael into the Apex web.

GV: What challenges did you face when promoting the book?

JBS: The idea of promoting such a book as Michael's frightened me to a degree. For one, Apex generally publishes darker genre works and Michael's short fiction harkens back to classical SF... very Asimov's in style and plotting. Secondly, with 15 stories in the collection, half of them novellas, the higher word count compared to our previous releases made cost an issue.

Turns out, when you're publishing a book of Hugo and Nebula-nominated stories, marketing isn't so hard. Even Apex fans of our darker horror titles are showing interest in I Remember the Future. Not only that, but the SF community has really gotten behind the book. I think SF fans have been looking forward to a Burstein collection for a long time.

GV: How did it inspire or discourage you? How is that experience affecting your current and future projects?

JBS: This has been a unique project. When I signed Michael to the book deal, he asked if he could be involved heavily with the advance marketing of I Remember the Future. Being a small press where most marketing is done by a one man army (me!), I was all for his involvement. I found out Michael has been taking a book publishing and marketing curriculum at a local college. He's practically given me a college course in book marketing for free. No doubt this will come in handy down the road.

Next week's Nuts & Bolts will feature Betsy Mitchell, editor in chief of Del Rey, discussing Peter F. Hamilton's The Dreaming Void (March 2008).

Posted by Rose Fox on September 15, 2008 | Comments (1)