Nut Hatch Press

"This press was aptly named 'The Nut Hatch!' Sometimes I wonder how we're not all chained to the wall, never mind shackled to the typewriter." from the 1992 editorial in In the Future Tense 
Nut Hatch Press was an Australian zine press run by Jane of Australia and her brother Mike Adamson (C.W.M. Adamson). 
Jane of Australia was also the core writer for the press under her various pseuds. 
The press published under a wide variety of names (Entropy Express and DOAW (Discovered on a Website) A very early (June 3, 1999) template for "Discovered on a Webpage" is here . It was, however, it was best known as "Nut Hatch Press," and variations on that name.
The press published both novels and anthologies. The material was both gen and slash, though this content did not mix in specific zines or series. 
Nut Hatch Press published the Adamsons' fiction and art as well as that of other authors. 
The Adamsons also began to create and sell music compilations, wallpaper, photos, and other items on CDs, though these fanworks did not appear to be very popular. 
Nut Hatch also agented for other fanzine publishers. In a 1994 flyer, they advertised that they had "....reprint rights to Tanglewebb Press zines, and we agent for Entropy Express world-wide, and in Australasia for Satyr D'Nite Press and Other Times and Places Press." 
In its early years, "Nut Hatch Press" considered itself an "underground press," but went on to become one of the most intensely advertised fanfiction publishers. From a 1989 statement in Falconhurst: 
Nut Hatch Press published zines and other fannish items until May 2006.
==Some Press Name History==
The press began publishing in 1978 (under the umbrella of "USS Atlantis Productions" and "Futura Productions see Solo, Empire Star, Vendetta, Blaster, Tales from AAgan's Rim, Empire Star Monthly News ). In 1984, it began using the name "Entropy Press." "When Entropy Press first came into existence in late 1984 it was with the launch of the media zine SYNDICATED IMAGES." -- from the editorial of Burning Skies. In 1987, the press was renamed "Nut Hatch" and variations of that name. "The Nut Hatch was born in 1987." - from the editorial in Flashpoint 
==The Press Goes Online and Expands==
"Nut Hatch Press" went online in either 1997 "We've been online for about seven years now. In that time we've grown from "just" fanzines, to software, audio and artwork, and at the time of this upload (May 2003)." --About or 1999 "I thought you might like to know that Nut Hatch just went on-line with a big, beautiful website. In the "pilot upload" we've featured THE PROFESSIONALS, DUE SOUTH, HIGHLANDER, RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON, MASK OF ZORRO, XENA and HERCULES, ST:TNG, UFO. There's a whole on-line zine catalog, plus downloadable fiction, feature articles, lots of rare photos, many *hundreds* of links, secure on-line zine ordering... The flyer for a brand new DUE SOUTH zine, Corby's huge novel, THE NINTH CIRCLE... A users' noticeboard, trader's page, classifieds... News of new (and overdue) Nut Hatch zines... JJ's personal "where the hell have I been for so long???!" page. To expand the site, which is obviously multimedia, we need links and resources for THE PROFESSIONALS, X-FILES, THE SENTINEL, JAG and more -- and lots of feedback to know what people want to see. Visit the site at this url: http://www.users.senet.com.au/~jammer/doaw/home.htm ...to enter the "locked" Nut Hath [sic] zone, you'll need a password! When you arrive on the page that prompts for your password, here it is: proteus Just overtype "nhbridge" in the Netscape Location field, so that the URL reads proteus instead of nhbridge, and hit enter! Please share this news with your fannish friends, even forward this email, because we'd love to get the site really rolling. Take care, JJ." -- February 9, 1999 post to CI5 Listserv with a website and secret passwords. "Well, stop worrying, it's "locked!" Your kids can't get in, and neither can your parents or your spouse ... without a password, and for that you'll have to email us! With your password in hand, you can then readily access the locked sector, where Nut Hatch is like "a site within a site." All the flyers are there, and also --" -- Premier Issue Editorial 
In 2003, the publisher's website had this announcement: "Welcome to a special 2003 "swarming" issue of DOAW ... We're not one single website now, but a couple of dozen "daughter sites," all of them accessed from your choice of two dead-simple "launchpad" pages" 2003 Discovered on a Webpage 
In later years, the press' website included essays, commentaries, and flyers, all in the very wordy style that was Jane's. For a typically byzantine tour of the website, see FAQ.
==Some Wayback Links, Editorials, and Essays==
* links to 216 Wayback pages
* copyright statements
* Yes, they're printed in Australia, for some very good reasons.
* Premier Issue Editorial: Nut Hatch and Entropy are probably the last fannish presses in the world to go on-line, and the reasons were many... 
* How much do the zines cost in 2001, and why? (1999)
* March 1999 Editorial, "Greetings from the bridge! JJ is in the United States as of March 10th, and for the next two months I, Mike, shall be your editor, publisher and guide to the ins and outs of DOAW."
* May 1999 Editorial: "Right on schedule, JJ is back, and more or less in control! DOAW is due for a major facelift, and I hope that the site will be more easily navigable now. To begin with, it's getting bigger and bigger ... and even I myself am starting to get lost!... If you're interested in the on-going saga that takes place behind the scenes at Nut Hatch, the whooooole story so far is online, compete with a mini-web about The Wedding! Yep, I'm married, happily. It was wonderful."
* July-September 1999 Editorial, much about two topics: 1) spotting predatory fraudulent agents and publishers, 2) a fan named "Lunar" and a crackdown of that fan's Xena fan art site
* November 1999/January 2000 Editorial, "It's JJ again, back from the States after three months of something very close indeed to wedded bliss, and trying to pick up the pieces fast! The trip back was a whirlwind week ... 40 hours in transit from Fairbanks to Adelaide, hit the ground running, buy a new computer and a car, get Nut Hatch into gear, kickstart my business..."
* March-June 2000: "Happy Birthday, DOAW! That's right, this gateway site has just entered its second year on the web, and is still growing, diversifying, maturing (like a good wine!)"
* September 2000: Nut Hatch-Entropy is under some financial duress. 
* A Wedding in Fairbanks
* January 2000 Editorial, The New Aussie Web Censorship Laws: "Australia becomes the first country other than Communist China to exercise state-censorship of the Internet."
* Welcome to Nut Hatch ... : the staging base; ABSOLUTELY FINAL WARNING!!; 2004 info, talks about the secret passwords (2000)
* a sample security gate
* April 2003 Update, includes some Mel Keegan info
* May 2003: "The last couple of years have been busy, stressful and traumatic, by turns. We've had every conceivable challenge, from emergency room visits to hundred-hour working weeks. We're frankly amazed that we've managed to get done as much as we have... Okay, enough back-patting. Many of you will still be wondering if NHE (which is Nut Hatch and Entropy Express, in combination ... we changed our name in 2002) is still under financial duress. The answer is yes: it's not quite as bad as it was, but we're still several thousand dollars in the hole, and trying hard to dig our way out!" And "We'd originally conceived the notion of putting zines on CD to keep the price down. Prices are blowing out (cheapest slash-safe copying we can get these days is about 12c), and small-batch reprints ae getting pricey. The CDs would have been the perfect way to keep the price down! But it turns out that NHE is about the cheapest out there these days; in fact, we're a bit too cheap, for the product that's offered. It's no wonder we can't make those ends meet!"
* May 2003 update, "We have a new "doorknocker," and a whole new way of getting into, and getting around, the site. If you've been on our e-newsletter list for the last couple of years, you will already know that DOAW has been "swaming" since late 2000: the main site had become a behemoth..."
* GST SPELLS K.A.O.S. but Entropy Express will probably survive! ("The Goods & Services Tax is Coming!")
* The Case for Print Media Publishing
* Interview with Jane of Australia
 
* ...now shopping at DOAW comes with choices!, and Welcome to DOAW Online Ordering!, both include the "fiendishly clever" "Three Email Trick"
* a lot of zine flyers
* September 2000 Editorial, contains much about The Nut Hatch Fundraiser and the cease and desist letter the press received
* The Compleat Shipping info at the fingertips...
* The Nut Hatch Reader, "With the permission and cooperation of The Circuit Archive, it is our enormous pleasure to bring you Jane and Kathy, on-line and very nearly "live" at Nut Hatch!"
==Some Self-Description==
Here is a major self-description from 2001 or before: The FAQ.
===2001===
From the publisher's website in about 2001: 
===2002===
From its website, likely 2002: 
From the website in 2002, in the introduction to Jane's republishing of Gerry Downes (Jane's mother-in-law) zines Stardate: Unknown and Alternative: Epilogue to Orion: 
From 2002: 
===2003===
A 2003 description from its website:
==About "Braid Binding" and Other Binding Choices==
==Some 1992 Submission Guidelines==
==Some 2002 Disclaimers==
==Technology, Weight, and Location==
The press constantly struggled with the reality of their location: shipping zines from Australia to fans outside of Australia was extremely expensive.
From the editorial of Sword of Damocles: 
From a 1992 ad regarding the postal service and material distribution: 
==CONSTANT Financial Worries==
According to the always very, very lengthy editorials in the print zines and later on its website, "Nut Hatch Press" was always on the verge of financial collapse, in financial collapse, or climbing back from financial collapse. Reasons cited were the economy, cost of shipping from Australia, zine piracy, equipment failure, cease and desist letters "imagine our surprise when we were contacted out of the blue by a firm of lawyers with instruction to "modify our content." Mike, as editor of Entropy Express, was contacted by the New York attorneys representing the widow of the late Don Pendleton, creator of the bestselling "Mack Bolan" series of adventure novels. FLIGHTPATH #7 featured a story by Sara Lansing (The Siam Sanction), which crossed Gerry Anderson's UFO with Mack Bolan. Probably a web search had brought to the attention of the attorneys the flyer for FLIGHTPATH #7, and they detected what they deemed the unauthorized use of the Bolan copyright!" -- Nut Hatch-Entropy is under some financial duress. (September 2000) , circuit stories vs. zines, the circuit itself, the GST GST SPELLS K.A.O.S. but Entropy Express will probably survive! (1999) , and other variables. Jane and Mike Adamson also cited theft by other zine publishers around 1985 "Is there anyone out there who remembers something called Syndicated Images? That was the one that started it all... In late 1984 a small press called Entropy Express was launched to publish a multimedia zine carrying a selection of favorites of the day, and over the following two years or so eight issues were released. Some years ago the first two were rereleased under one cover as a special, including any rewrites the authors cared to make, plus new art by moi and a completely new DTP typeset and layout. This was one of the titles Bill Hupe handled, and according to him we sold only a tiny handful. It so happens he sold a large part of the print run and pocketed the cash..." -- from July-September 1999 Editorial by Mike Adamson at the Nut Hatch Press website and in the early '90s, see Many of you may be aware that considerable problems have revolved about this press in the last year!.
In a long, long personal statement in 1986 that was printed in Universal Translator #32, Jane said Entropy Express was closing down shop due to zine piracy: 
In 1988, from the editorial of Unfinished Melody: 
From the 1989 Falconhurst: 
In an editorial from a 1991 issue of Fantazine, the editor wrote that she was concerned about finances, a common worry for many zines: 
In June 1992, Kathy Keegan had good news. From the editorial to In the Future Tense: 
In November 1992 in the editorial to Elvensongs, Jane commented on a turn for the worse and on what she felt shut down Entropy Express: 
In 1992, from Flood Tide, a statement she used on a number of Nut Hatch zines: 
In 1995, Jane admitted that the press had had a bad year, citing miscalculations in fandom zine interest, bad business decisions, the purchase of a photocopier, and much more: 
From a the 1999 editorial, GST SPELLS K.A.O.S. but Entropy Express will probably survive!: 
In September 2000, Mike Adamson and Jane of Australia wrote of cease and desist letters, and of theft in two essays, one Nut Hatch-Entropy is under some financial duress. and the other other The Nut Hatch Fundraiser: 
From the editorial in Double or Nothing (2002), Jane of Australia, writes of the fundraiser for the new printer and of some of its results:
===Open Letters and Essays About Financial Stress===
* Many of you may be aware that considerable problems have revolved about this press in the last year! (1991)
* GST SPELLS K.A.O.S. but Entropy Express will probably survive! (1999)
* GST SPELLS K.A.O.S. but Entropy Express will probably survive!#The GST is here, but...!: 2000 Follow-Up Essay by JJ (2000)
* The Nut Hatch Fundraiser (2000)
* Nut Hatch-Entropy is under some financial duress. (2000)
* How much do the zines cost in 2001, and why? (2001)
==The "Private URL"==
In the early to mid 2000s, the press explained their policies for admittance to the Nut Hatch catalog: 
==The "Three Email Trick"==
Online ordering in the early days was new and unexplored territory, and Nut Hatch dived in with its usual byzantine wordiness.
From a 2001 (or earlier) message: 
 
Image:threeemailtrick-1.JPG
Image:threeemailtrick-2.JPG
Image:threeemailtrick-3.JPG
==Nut Hatch-Entropy Multimedia (NHE)==
In the early '00s, Nut Hatch gained another owner -- Jane's husband Dave -- and expanded into a much broader business, NHE Multimedia. At least some new zines were sold both in paper and CD formats, and the CDs had added material as well:
Jane explains in 2003: 
They also expanded out to other physical mediums:
 
==The DreamCraft Connection==
Beginning in 1996, Jane's fanfic (as well as many other items) were sold on the site called "DreamCraft." -- 
The creator of "DreamCraft," the website, is who created Mel Keegan's website. In 2002, from Mel Keegan's website: "The Mel Keegan Online site was built by DreamCraft from fictional text supplied by Mel Keegan and artwork by Jade. The site design and function are copyright by DreamCraft. All parts of the site are strictly copyright. Mel Keegan: Home See The DreamCraft Connection. Keegan purchased DreamCraft "for a peppercorn" from Jade and Dave in 2014. "Mel bought DreamCraft for a peppercorn ... yes, MK has owned DreamCraft since 2014..." -- See much more at Mel Keegan.
==The Press Shuts Down: 2006==
Jane left fandom in a classic swan-song flounce on May 17, 2006, in a message to Zinelist (and other lists?) in which she expressed her unhappiness with complaints over unfilled zine orders and attributed them to malice and fandom's unwillingness to stand up to negative elements. Saved email from Zinelist, dated May 17, 2006. Accessed January 10, 2009.
"[The Nut Hatch] was closed, and its website removed from the internet, following an apparent misunderstanding on one of the discussion lists in April/May 2006. Jane declared that she was leaving Pros fandom, and would not be giving permission for anyone else to reprint her stories or zines. This means that stories printed by the Nut Hatch Collective, unless they had been previously archived online, or unless writers other than Jane give permission for their work to be printed elsewhere (and it is suspected that Jane wrote under many pseudonyms), will only be available via secondhand zines." Paley Loitering 
Some of her Pros fiction is at The Circuit Library.
== Zines ==
As:
* USS Atlantis Productions 
* Futura Productions
* Entropy Press, Entropy Express 
* Nut Hatch (and variations of that name)
* as agented for Tanglewebb Press and others
===Airwolf===
Hellfire
=== Due South ===
Terms of Surrender | Chicago Beat | Heaven and Hell | Paisano | Terms of Surrender
=== Multi-media ===
Bed and Bored | Fantazine | Full Circle | Red Alert | Space Happy | Syndicated Images
=== The Professionals ===
Affairs of the Heart | Book of Strife | Bound to Please | The Cassidy Legacy | Clan of the White Fox | Cleopatra's Nose | Cross My Heart | Czardas | Dead Reckoning | Deep Fire | Diamyien | Doubletalk | Echoes of Elfland Horns | Elvensongs | Encore! | Eternal Wind | Fair Blows the Wind | Falconhurst | Fancy Dancing | Fantazine | Flesh and Steel | Flood Tide | For Auld Lang Syne | Goblin | Knife's Edge| | Gentle on My Mind | Hellburner | Hostage London | Hostage to Peace | The Hunting | The Hunting: The Lost Stories | The Hunting Companion | In the Future Tense | Killing Orders | The Kingdom of Summer | Legends | Long Shot | A Madrigal | Magickal | Magickal Collected | Miguel | No Vanity | Operation Assegai | Out of This World | Perfect Gentlemen | Power and Magick | Professionals 2000 Gambit | Rainbow Chasers | Rainy Days | Soul and Storm | Sparrow Through the Hall | Stop the Presses | Strangers on the Shore | Sword of Damocles | The Swordsman | Taemon's Cuckoos | Time and Motion | A Throw of the Dice | Worlds Apart | Unfinished Melody
 
=== The Sentinel ===
Cascade Visions | Ménage a Enterprise | Shaman 
=== Starsky & Hutch ===
Double or Nothing | Firesigns and Other Stories | Flashpoint | A Gift from the Past
===Star Trek: The Next Generation===
Hell's Forge | Ménage a Enterprise | The Sunbeam Strike
===Star Trek: The Original Series===
Federation
===Star Wars===
Blaster | Burning Skies | Empire Star | Empire Star Monthly News | Solo | Tales from AAgan's Rim | Vendetta
===UFO===
Doubletalk | Flightpath
===Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea===
Crashdive! | Operation Sea Dragon | Skyfall | White Gold Highway
===Xena===
The Xeniad
== References ==