If it hadnвЂ™t been for the late Dave Oskin approaching us about being acquired by Big Earth Publishing in the spring of 2005, we wouldnвЂ™t be here right now.ДЄlison: I donвЂ™t have a lot to add to BenвЂ™s response вЂ“ he was much more focused on landscape, and my focus was much more internal: the specific books on our list, the submissions coming in, etc. In the parlance of the poker world, we were all in. IвЂ™d somehow convinced Alison to quit her paying jobs. In the spring of 2005 we were running on fumes. It was easier to believe that we could be an upstart with a mixture of punk/DYI ethics and our own Midwestern sensibilities (in contrast to Big Houses in NYC) when others nodded along.Д«ut even that had its limitations. I canвЂ™t ever overstate their importance to how things played out then and where we all are now. Some of the crime fiction people who adopted us in those early years-the entire Jordan family, Reed Farrel Coleman, and even Laura Lippman-kept us believing in what we were doing and our ability to succeed. The yo-yoing of it all was stressful and we almost threw the towel in on more than one occasion. The next day youвЂ™d find out nobody has ever heard of you and wonвЂ™t buy your books. One day youвЂ™d get a piece of good news that youвЂ™d interpret to be a sure thing big break. It was overwhelming to understand what our place was in the larger industry. The Internet was finding its legs, but there wasnвЂ™t a Facebook or a Twitter to put everybody together, to breed that sense of familiarity one gets these days from interacting with total strangers in a digitally personal way.Д«efore connecting with organizations like MWA or the people putting on regional conferences, we interacted more with small presses of scattered niches at shows like Book Expo America. Between the ongoing shifts and an ignorance of the historical reality of the industry (coupled with the fact that I was in my mid-20s), it was hard to walk a straight line, even when we set our course on a destination.Д«ack then, we didnвЂ™t have a good handle on the existing crime fiction community. It was like jumping into the fringes of hurricane, recognizing some things passing by at a million miles an hour, and assuming that to be the landscape. Ebooks, for the most part, still sounded like science fiction. Today, a writer can upload her books online, sell through print-on-demand sites, and reach an audience completely inaccessible 15 years ago.Д¬an you describe the landscape in general for small presses when you started and especially what it was like for a small publisher of вЂњcrime fictionвЂќ?Д«en: I donвЂ™t know what the landscape was really like. Steve: Today, with self-publishing and distribution so different than it was in 2000, understanding where Bleak House Books fit is difficult. They sat down, cyberly speaking, with Steve Weddle, news hound and author of COUNTRY HARDBALL, to talk about how an idea changed lives and threw off a ripple in the publishing pound that has yet to still.

Ten years later they continue to help shape the crime fiction community now as the Publisher of Tyrus Books, a division of F+W Media (LeRoy) and the Acquisitions Editor at Thomas & Mercer, a division of Amazon (Dasho).

Not long after that meeting, Alison went to work as an intern at Bleak House Books, a then little known indie publishing house. Back in 2003, Ben LeRoy and Alison Janssen (now Dasho) met at a Barnes and Noble in Madison, WI.

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