Announcement: The Deeps on indefinite hiatus
After a recent meeting, we—the Spindle House editors—have mutually decided to indefinitely suspend further production of The Deeps, our literary magazine of dark tales. All subscribers have been refunded for any unreceived copies in the remainder of their subscription.
We had initially been anticipating a third issue of The Deeps and were preparing to open for submissions, but as the submission window approached we both realized that a third issue was not the best move for Spindle House. We’d like to take a little time to discuss the factors that led to this decision.
Our goal for this calendar year has been to determine a sustainable and relatively stable structure for Spindle House going forward. This means that Spindle House needs to be (a) profitable (or at least break even) and (b) manageable in terms of our time commitment.
In our experience, running The Deeps was an uphill climb for a number of reasons. Our decision to pay our authors and to produce print copies certainly contributed to the financial and logistical challenges we faced in production. We also saw that our website hits were dramatically higher during submission periods than on magazine release days; in other words, our potential contributors far outweighed our potential readers, never a good sign for the longevity of any litmag.
We were ultimately forced to accept our financial and temporal limitations in continuing to produce The Deeps. This is not a market in which we are able to compete at the moment; it’s that simple. Perhaps someday our luck will change and we’ll be able to bring The Deeps back into production (we can only hope), but for now we are laying it to rest.
In the meantime, we’d like to direct you to other litmags that are worthy of both your submissions and your readership. These are magazines that have inspired us, and we hope they will inspire you as well.
The Laurel & Skull, Tenebrous Press
Weird Horror, Undertow Publications
Ghoulish Tales, Ghoulish Books
We’d like to thank you for your support of Spindle House and The Deeps. We apologize that The Deeps didn’t work out the way we’d hoped, but the press itself isn’t going anywhere. We’re moving forward with other projects that we hope will give Spindle House—and our readers—a sustainable supply of dark tales.
