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I am a delusionalist; I’ve been delusional since as far back as I can remember, around 1968 when I was just a tike and Captain Kangaroo was in black and white. In kindergarten, I convinced myself that I was a vampire, ran around at recess flapping my jacket around the playground like I was flying. My kindergarten teacher warned my mom that I was always after the girls. I would bite them on the arms. Around the third grade, I started writing stories, belting out church hymns at the top of my lungs on the playground swinging on the swings without an ounce of care, while in the next instant breaking a playmate’s arm for not believing that I was a vampire. Later in life, I was a Penticostal preacher, so to speak, and I tried to be a rock star at several points. I directed choirs, played in piano bars. My sister’s abduction and death ironically rescued me from a cluster of downward druggie years, but immersed me in karaoke hell for awhile. I love gardening. I used to sneak out of my parent’s house regularly when I was twelve to streak naked through parks at one in the morning when the automatic sprinklers turned on and I could run through them. I made it a monthly ritual growing up that I pretended my house was a grocery store and I made my family shop through it. I was a camp counselor, a religious counselor, a phone room sales manager, a college actor, a youth mentor, lived in a car, and currently live and run my publishing company, Black Bed Sheet Books, out of the Sacramento, CA area, making a living as a horror novelist, something I’ve been doing professionally for a couple of dozen years now with a few ups and downs but a good fan base around the world, something I’ll always be greatful for. I mean, no matter what I’ve done, I’ve always been a writer, through and through, since the day I became literate, and I’ve always had an audience of readers who really dig what I write, as dark and disturbing or fantastical as it’s always been. That’s been my life-long delusion, though it’s always seemed pretty real to me, and I’ll keep writing for others to read until the day I die. NOW LET ME HEAR FROM YOU ALL A HEARTY "AMEN" TO THAT!

In October 2008, I set into motion what it takes to establish a bona-fide publishing company out of my garage and two other offices inside my home. If this venture proves to be an extremely successful one, I’ll still be operating out of my garage and home, but perhaps in larger ones. Even if it doesn’t go that far, I’ve submerged a great many years of my life into not only the art of writing as a profession, fiction as well as non, but into the entire process of taking something creative from typed manuscripts to computer documents to something scribbled on grocery store paper bags or napkins, packaging them into a bookstore-quality products and presenting them to the world…..my own works, as well as works of others, since 2002 under the name of Diverse Media. Now, I’ve decided that the time has come to take my publishing pursuits to the next level and to establish Black Bed Sheet Books as a credible, reputable, and successful publishing venture. Since my reputation and focus is built upon the genre of horror literature, that is what BBS specializes in. I will not limit myself nor BBS to this genre, and all avenues are open, hence the byline “fine publishers of exemplary literature, fiction and non.”

In the past, I’ve invested my writing career into publishers and agents that fell short of even minimal expectations. As a result, I’ve become fiercely independent. I’ve been working for myself and as a result brought myself farther into my career than any third party has taken me, and I have the will and means to do the same for my authors.

  My objective is to be the ideal publisher I as a writer always wanted to have, and I intend to carry out that mission to the fullest. I will personally work with each one of my authors to meet the highest quality publishing standards, and release each title to the broadest marketing and selling potential utilizing all the tools and resources available to me.

---Nicholas Grabowsky

BASIC INFORMATION:

Black Bed Sheet Books/Diverse Media

Acquisitions: c/o Acquisitions Department. Estab. October 2008. Publishes hardcover and trade paperback originals and reprints. Publishes 10-15 titles per year. Receives 40% of books from first-time authors; 95% from unagented writers. Pays average of 12% royalty on wholesale price. Does not yet offer advance. Publishes book up to one year after acceptance, with an average of 4-5 months. Accepts simultaneous submissions. Publishes fiction and nonfiction of all types, but specializes in horror/fantasy fiction.

Recent titles: Blood Bar by Norm Applegate; Grave Whispers by Ryan B. Clark; Thoughts of Unbridled Black by Jake Istre, Flatty Kat Astray by Phyllis Haupert.