Is UltraRogue Publishing Woke?

Company Overview

UltraRogue Publishing is a small independent press publishing original fiction and rare historical reprints from Moorestown, New Jersey (209 South Lincoln Avenue; 609-870-2662). The imprint is operated under the Silver Lake Studio umbrella — a small studio whose publishing page describes the mission as original fiction and forgotten historical titles — and its catalog splits into two lists. The fiction side runs to pulp horror and thrillers: The King of Pain, a medicine-show-era thriller its publisher compares to hard-boiled noir, and its prequel The Devil at the World's Fair, set at the 1901 World's Fair; The Witch, The Devil, and The Horseman, three gothic American tales of witchcraft and folklore; a Prohibition-era lake-murder mystery; and an MK-Ultra thriller series. The historical-reprint side is the more distinctive operation: UltraRogue returns out-of-print early-American texts to circulation as prints and ebooks — the original 1930 bestseller Betsy Ross: Quaker Rebel, an 1833 children's history of the American Revolution retaining its 26 original illustrations, an 1896 classic of the Boston Tea Party with all 16 illustrations, and a 1720 witchcraft tract returned to print for the first time in over 300 years with all 57 original woodcuts. Books sell through Amazon in print and ebook formats, with a resellers page for trade buyers.

The two lists feed each other, which is the quiet design of the house: the horror fiction mines the same early-American vein as the reprints — medicine shows, World's Fair shadow worlds, Prohibition lake country, colonial witchcraft — so a reader who arrives for a thriller leaves having been pointed at the actual 1720 source material, and a reader who wants the primary documents gets a pulp gateway drug. That curatorial pairing is a one-micropress education in early Americana, and no committee of a major house would ever approve it.

The house motto is Benjamin Franklin: if you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing. Things worth reading, the site answers.

ESG & Sustainability

No ESG program, no sustainability report, no corporate framework — a micro-publisher's footprint is paper, ink, and a print-on-demand pipeline, and UltraRogue's environmental stance is implicit in its model: print-on-demand and ebook formats mean no remainder piles and no warehouse waste. The reprint list is itself a quiet exercise in reuse — the greenest book is one that already exists, and returning a 1720 text or a 1930 bestseller to circulation consumes a fraction of the resources of commissioning new hardcovers. None of this is marketed as sustainability; it is simply how small publishing works in the 2020s. There is nothing to audit and nothing to object to.

DEI Programs

None. A micro-press has no HR function, no diversity programming, and no corporate statements. Its editorial identity is curatorial, not ideological: the reprint catalog — Betsy Ross, the Revolution, the Boston Tea Party, colonial witchcraft — reflects a fascination with early-American primary sources rather than any modern framework, and the fiction list reflects a taste for pulp. Notably, the press publishes the historical material as it was written, including texts from eras whose language and framings would never clear a corporate sensitivity review today; reprinting sources unbowdlerized is itself a quiet editorial stance about letting readers encounter the past directly.

LGBTQ+ Advocacy

None. No Pride campaigns, no sponsorships, no identity publishing initiatives of any kind. The closest thing to advocacy on UltraRogue's record is the Franklin quote on its homepage — an argument for merit and durability as the only forms of relevance worth pursuing. In a trade publishing industry that runs institutional diversity programs and identity-focused imprints at every major house, an independent press organized purely around genre and archival value is operating outside that conversation entirely.

Political Activity

We found no PAC, donations, or partisan activity associated with UltraRogue or Silver Lake Studio. The catalog's patriotic material — founding-era histories, the first-flag story — is archival curation rather than commentary; publishing an 1833 account of the Revolution is not a statement about the 2026 election. No owner or editor commentary on electoral politics surfaced in our review. The press's only expressed values are literary: things worth reading.

Consumer Impact

UltraRogue scores 1/100 — not woke — and the profile is the catalog. For readers:

• What you get: pulp horror and thriller fiction (The King of Pain series, the MK-Ultra series, gothic American tales) plus genuinely rare historical reprints — a 1720 witchcraft treatise back in print for the first time in three centuries, an 1833 Revolution history for children, the 1888/1896 Boston Tea Party account, and the 1930 Betsy Ross bestseller — sold via Amazon print and ebook.
• Who is behind it: a New Jersey micro-press (Moorestown, 609-870-2662) operating under the Silver Lake Studio umbrella, reachable through its site's resellers page for trade buyers.
• Diligence: standard small-press expectations — print-on-demand production quality, check edition notes on reprints (the witchcraft text is edited for legibility, illustrations retained), and Amazon reviews for the fiction line's fit with your taste.

The values read: this is as un-woke as publishing gets — not because anyone at UltraRogue is fighting the culture war, but because a two-person operation resurrecting 300-year-old books has no stake in it. Readers who want founding-era primary sources without an editor's introduction explaining what to think about them will find that here by design. Every purchase supports a micro-publisher doing archival work the major houses will not touch, which is about as direct as consumer support for independent American enterprise gets.