About Spikethecat Limited

 

 

Spikethecat Limited was founded in 2009 to provide an opportunity for new and emerging writers to have their work published in a professional way and to build a track record of publication that will eventually convince someone  to pay them an advance the size of which has never before been witnessed in the world of publishing. 

 

At this point the authors will gratefully remember the people who believed in them during their early career and send a huge and gratuitous cheque to them which will not bounce. I agree that as business plans go this probably isn’t one they would teach you at Harvard Business School, but it is the only one I have.

Spikethecat started off running competitions and publishing winning stories as both print and e-books.  The early print books are now very rare and highly sought after. (as opposed to the publisher who is very high and rarely sought after.)  Sadly using trees was not sustainable without another mortgage so now we publish e-books only but we also don’t charge an entry fee any more.  We don’t pay anything either, and you will have to take it on trust that one day we will if we can.

We at Spikethecat believe that:

 

· lots of good story tellers don’t get published,

· vanity publishing is a bad thing,

· short stories are the most pure form of fiction,

· e-books are the future,

· but it’s always nice to see something in print,

· one day we’ll be sent a huge gratuitous cheque,

· good things happen to good people

· and lots of other things too complicated to explain here.

 

We aim to become successful by being honest, having fun, and doing the best we can.    The company is called Spikethecat because I used to have a cat called Spike.  I should emphasise that it is a name and not an instruction.

 

Spikethecat Limited is a company registered in the UK and limited by shares. Company number 06996439, but we can think of no reason why anyone would want to know that but I am apparently obliged to tell you.

 

There is lots more information on Spikethecat on the blog here.

 

About Richard Hallows

 

Spikethecat was founded and funded by Richard Hallows. He is the author of three non-fiction books and numerous short stories and magazine articles, most of which he never got paid for. He has been published in anthologies and on web sites in the UK and the USA, his work has been translated in Japanese and Arabic and published on four continents, which sounds more impressive than it probably is.  He regularly ends sentences with prepositions but rarely refers to himself in the third person since he had treatment.

 

He continues to write but doesn't enter his own competitions you will be pleased to know. The first volume of Someone Has To Die was a collection of his own stories solely to test the publication process and iron out any wrinkles before he had to do it with someone else’s work.  He’s good like that, although tired of writing about himself in the third person.

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