WHO ARE WE?

The Back Alley is a publication of Back Alley Press, an imprint of Barbadoes Hall Communications. Back Alley Books was founded in 2001, with the intent of preserving the hardboiled and noir literary forms, and with the hope of finding and nurturing new voices in that form.

Back Alley Press began as Back Alley Books, and for the first six years of its existence published fiction in hard copy. To date, we have produced seven novels. Three of these books, Juicy Watusi, Wet Debt, and Cordite Wine, were nominated for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award.

Beginning in early 2006, the publishing plans at Back Alley Books took a different direction. Instead of novel-length works, we decided to focus more on anthologies of short stories and critical/historical pieces. It quickly became evident that attempting to do this using any of the current printing technologies would be too expensive for such a small press. For that reason, we have decided to become an electronic press.

The advantages are obvious. Publishing a single title in trade paper format can cost up to $1000, when you include the cost of having a cover designed, the time required to format the book and design the interior material, assigning an ISBN number, and finally the cost of accessing a commercial Print-On-Demand printer.  Producing a single title using the traditional web-fed press and mass-market paperback formats can cost up to ten times more.

Using a digital format, however, requires only the purchase of a domain name, the cost of maintaining a web page (about $75 a year), and the time required to format and design the page itself. For considerably less than $100 a year (excluding the cost of acquiring stories from authors), Back Alley Press can produce the equivalent of two books of short stories. No distribution costs, no cover design fees, no ISBN numbers to purchase - this is a perfect medium for entry-level and experienced authors alike.

So, here's our plan:

We intend to produce four issues a year. Each issue will contain five new short stories by emerging or established authors. We will pay for these stories - not much, perhaps twenty-five dollars apiece - but it will be a paid publishing credit. We will submit, or arrange to have submitted, every story published in The Back Alley to the major awards - Edgar, Shamus, Derringer - that accept open submissions. In addition to new fiction, we will also attempt to reprint at least one classic hardboiled/noir story from the public domain in each issue. We will maintain archives of past issues which can be accessed by new readers, in order to help emerging authors build a fan base. As an added bonus, we will accept submissions of Commentaries, Analytical, and Historical perspectives on these important literary genres.

The cost to you, the reader? If you prefer, not one red cent. However, if you would like to contribute a buck or two to help defray the costs and to express your appreciation for the content, there is an opportunity to do that also - Simply click on the friendly Donate button at the side frame of the site. We will accept credit and debit card donations through our partnership with PayPal. If the link is not active when you read this, keep checking back!

At Barbadoes Hall Communications/Back Alley Press, we believe that preserving a truly American literary tradition is more important than huge profits. If you would like to participate in this project, please take a moment to cruise by our Submissions Guidelines page. We'd love to hear from you.