Derrick C. Brown is a poet as well as the president and founder of Write Bloody Publishing. He’s also the author of several books, a comedian, and a former paratrooper. Brown has a fascinating take on the life of an independent artist and a small business owner.

Write Bloody Publishing was started in 2004 by traveling poet and former paratrooper, Derrick C. Brown.

After spending years book touring throughout Europe and the U.S., Brown realized the untapped potential in the contemporary poetry market for authors who were hitting the road reading in bars, theaters, and clubs.

Authors had to learn the art of building fan bases by putting on entertaining readings.

Brown was seeing young, smart, page-savvy poets, prose writers, and poetry performers sell out shows with only self-published, junky-looking chapbooks available for sale.

It seemed ridiculous and fateful that publishing houses — both mainstream or independent — hadn't signed on some of the best-known and hardest-working touring authors on the scene today.

This has been the guiding philosophy of Write Bloody: Let the poets and authors who tour be the marketing; let this publishing house be the source for a movement.