2003 - 04/2003 Meeting

Page Created: 09/18/10. Last Update: 09/22/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 05/28/08.

MATTHEW SCHWARTZ

The Shocklines website is: http://shocklines.stores.yahoo.net/.

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: April 12, 2003.

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 31.

Meeting Program: Talk by Online Horror Bookstore Owner.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2003 Philip J De Parto:

The April 12, 2003 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Although there were two pre meeting events scheduled, only the anime was actually shown before the meeting. Taras Wolansky supplied the tapes for this event and was surprised to discover that the version he had purchased was far racier than the one he had seen at a convention. There were no children present, so he played it, but he intends to preview future selections before bringing them to the meeting.

The discussion of "Arena" was canceled when Jim an Steve Spinosa became ill and were unable to attend. We had intended to offer a discussion on another topic, but the earlybirds were more inclined to talk among themselves, so we dropped the programmed discussion.

Matthew Schwartz was the Guest Speaker. Mr Schwartz runs the online Horror Store <shocklines.com>. The store is designed to be a one stop shopping place for off beat and hard to find horror. The focus is on books, but it also carries selected DVDs, comics, art, tee shirts, etc.

Mr Schwartz got into the field eight years ago when he founded <horrornet.com> which offered virtually free wesites to horror writers and the small press. This led to a succession of paying jobs in the on-line world, including stints with Barnes & Noble, Hasbro, and the Comic Book industry.

The dot com world paid well, but the aggravation of working for his Dilbertian superiors was ruining his health. A couple of operations later, and Mr Schwartz knew it was time to become his own boss.

Mr Schwartz founded Shocklines to focus on the small press and collectable horror markets. The operation is run out of his small Jersey City apartment with books stacked in his bedroom and in the kitchen cupboards. He works 50 - 60 hours a week on the job and does everything from ordering inventory to packing and shipping the stock. He cannot compete with the chains on prices for mass market releases, so he concentrates on customer service and inventorying hard to find titles including Australian imports. He accepts credit cards, checks, and pay pal and takes advance orders for titles so that he can keep inventory under control. He also sends out an on-line daily informing his customers of newly arrived merchandise.

Business continues to grow, and Mr Schwartz anticipates farming out the order fulfillment end of the operation to partner Richard Chizmar in the not too distant future.

It was a fun meeting with much talk about horror and e-business.