Ghoulish Entertainment, LLC is a disastrous mess of spooky projects owned by Max and Lori Booth. Operating under the name Ghoulish Books, we are both a small publishing company and an indie bookstore based in the Greater San Antonio Area. We also organize the annual Ghoulish Book Festival in SATX and produce several shows on the Ghoulish Podcast Network. Our crime fiction imprint is Arsenic Press, which will launch sometime in 2024.
Our bookshop address is 9330 Corporate Drive, Suite 702, Selma, TX 78154. We are open Tues-Thurs (10-5) and Fri-Sat (10-8), and closed Sun-Mon.
Our company mascot is known, simply, as The Ghoul.
Established in August 2012 as Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing (PMMP), we rebranded as Ghoulish in late 2021 after finally getting sick of typing out the name Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing. Ghoulish is far easier to write, and also clearly defines our true passion in life: spooky stuff for creeps and weirdos.
This was the PMMP logo (designed by George Cotronis):
And this is the new, decomposed Ghoulish logo (illustrated by Betty Rocksteady):
Before launching PMMP, we (Max & Lori) had both worked as volunteers for the quarterly horror magazine, Dark Moon Digest (DMD), which was (at the time) owned by Stan Swanson of Dark Moon Books. Helping with the magazine introduced us to the indie horror community and the many kind and talented individuals within it (and also the actual lunatics), which ignited a very irresponsible desire to start our own small press.
Our first title was Cruel by Eli Wilde (January 2013), and our last title is currently undecided, as we have no plans of quitting any time soon due to an inherent stubbornness, but most likely it’ll end up being some sort of House of Leaves ripoff that gets us all sued and forces us to file for bankruptcy.
For a complete history of our publications, click HERE.
Works published by Ghoulish Books (and PMMP) have gone on to receive recognition from the Bram Stoker Awards, This is Horror, and the Splatterpunk Awards.
In 2014, Rafael Alvarez’s Tales from the Holy Land was included in the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s Writers in Schools program.
In 2015, we officially purchased Dark Moon Digest from Dark Moon Books and began publishing it under PMMP. In July 2022, we decided to discontinue DMD after releasing issue #48.
In 2018, we were called “one of the most original voices in horror fiction” by The San Antonio Current.
In 2020, an adaptation of Max Booth III’s We Need to Do Something was filmed in Detroit, directed by Sean King O’Grady and starring Sierra McCormick, Vinessa Shaw, and Pat Healy. Booth also wrote the screenplay. IFC Midnight released the film in theaters and VOD on September 3, 2021. It can currently be streamed on Hulu.
Since 2022, we have organized the Ghoulish Book Festival every spring in downtown San Antonio. It is a massive three-day festival dedicated to celebrating everything spooky.
Also debuting in 2022 was The Ghoulish Show, a monthly comedy variety show hosted by Max at Radio Coffee & Beer in Austin, TX. Check it out live on the last Tuesday of every month, or watch previous episodes on the Ghoulish YouTube channel.
In 2023, we launched a new horror magazine titled Ghoulish Tales. It comes out twice a year. Subscriptions are available HERE.
On April 29, 2023, we finally fulfilled a life-long dream of opening our own horror-themed brick & mortar independent bookshop. If you’re ever in Central Texas, come visit us sometime. In addition to selling spooky books, we also host writing circles, book clubs, and a free horror movie screening on the last Saturday of every month. Check out our EVENTS page to see what we are up to.
