Cemetery Dance and pre-orders!

I'm a rather new to small press collecting so I have a few questions regarding Cemetery Dance that I hope that Brian or Richard Chizmar can answer.

First let me say thanks to Brian for communicating with their customer base at Shocklines, as it seems that the communication between CD and its customers has been rather uninformative of late.

It should be noted that Cemetery Dance is not lacking a great communication vehicle to get information to their customer base as I nearly daily receive grab bag offers, banged and dented book sale, signed author volleyballs (has anyone received theirs by the way…its now December). However, even with this great marketing vehicle customers never seem to receive viable or reliable updates on the books they purchase from Cemetery Dance.

Brian gave us a very nice update on IN LAYMON'S TERMS stating that the reason for the five plus year delay is due to one person's introduction. If Kelly is having some issues getting this to you…five years worth of issues, why not have someone give her a hand writing it…hell she could dictate it to them over the phone or bullet point it and have one of the authors ghost write a beautiful introduction. Should we expect another 5 year delay if Kelly doesn't find her muse? How about giving us a deadline…a real, honest deadline that this book will be in our hands on this date? Delirium Books can do this, Bloodletting Press can do this, and Centipede Press can do this. Even new publisher's like Cargo Cult, Chizine and Sideshow Press can do it and it amazes me that CD cannot.

Let's put aside IN LAYMON'S TERMS for a minute and let's even say that we'll give you guys a pass on that one, it's an important book and one we all want done right. However, Can you please give us an update on the 29 other titles that you've taken money for and not published or given accurate updates on? Furthermore can you give us some heads up on what Cemetery Dance is doing with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they've taken in advance orders from customers that haven't been published and CD hasn't given reliable updates on?

I'm not stating hundreds of thousands of dollars lightly and please feel free to refute my numbers Brian or Richard. However all someone needs do is use a calculator and some simple addition to figure out that it's a very high number. Heck, between just three of your titles and only in lettered edition you're talking $114,000. LEGACIES $23,000 CENTURIES BEST $52,000 and Fifteen Year Celebration $39,000. I sure hope that customer's cash for these and other titles hasn't gone to purchase the movie rights to From a Buick 8 and others and it's still setting in your bank account.

I've listed them below for easy reference. I'm not talking about the update I'm used to getting from CD that states "we're deep in production" (which has come to mean we're three years away from even looking it) or "it's at the printer" (which has come to mean anywhere from 10 to 2 years out) or the inevitable "the signature sheets are making the rounds" (which is the kiss of death).

1. Blatty, William Peter: Elsewhere
2. Booth, Bob: The Big Book of Necon
3. Burke, Kealan Patrick: The Turtle Boy: Peregrine's Tale
4. Chizmar, Richard: Shocklines: Fresh Voices In Terror
5. Chizmar, Richard: Cemetery Dance: A Fifteen Year Celebration
6. Clark, Simon: King Blood
7. Clark, Simon: Butterfly
8. Clegg, Douglas: Afterlife
9. Etchison, Dennis: Got to Kill Them All & Other Stories
10. Furth, Robin: Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance
11. Golden, Christopher: British Invasion
12. Golden, Christopher: Mind the Gap: A Novel of the Hidden Cities
13. Golden, Christopher: Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman
14. Hautala, Rick: Occasional Demons
15. Howison, Del: Dark Delicacies: Original Tales of Terror and the Macabre
16. Keene, Brian: The Cage
17. Keene, Brian: Scratch
18. King, Stephen: The Secretary of Dreams (Volume Two)
19. Lansdale, Joe R.: The Horror Hall of Fame: The Stoker Winners
20. Laymon, Kelly: In Laymon's Terms
21. Lee, Edward: The Innswich Horror
22. Newman, James: The Forum
23. Pelan, John: The Century's Best Horror Fiction
24. Sauers, Michael: A Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz
25. Wilson, F. Paul: Sims (Book 5: Thy Brother's Keeper)
26. Winter, Douglas E.: Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic
27. Wood, Rocky: Stephen King: The Non-Fiction
28. Sarrantonio, Al: Moonbane
29. Sarrantonio, Al: Halloween: New Poems
30. Chizmar, Richard, Legacies