What is Lit Escalates?

Lit Escalates (formerly Shit Escalates) began as a Covid-collaboration between author Pierce Brown and visual artist Joel Daniel Phillips focused on creating high quality, collectible merchandise for fans of the Red Rising book series. Howlers worldwide surprised and delighted us with their voracious response, and we quickly realized that unless a book is made into a movie or a TV show, there is often very little opportunity for fans to see their favorite book world come to life in a physical way.

So we decided to change that...

 

What do we do?

We collaborate with your favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy authors to bring their fabulous worlds to life. We drop limited edition, collectible items quarterly, in addition to building permanent merchandise lines with t-shirts, hats, stickers, mugs and more.

 

Who do we work with?

Currently: Pierce Brown and V.E. Schwab.

Got an author you'd love to see us collaborate with? Shoot us an email at shop@lit-escalates.com!

 

Our story:

We started this company entirely on accident. In early 2020, as the pandemic was just starting screw up just about everything, we launched a spur-of-the-moment fundraiser selling bandanas to help out a few of Joel’s neighbor Tulsans who were struggling to stay afloat when things went into lockdown. We thought maybe we could sell a handful of screen printed bandanas and put in a small order to help keep the lights on for our friends over at Flash Flood Studios. Then the Howlers came in like the gorydamn champs that you are and purchased $30,000 dollars worth of Merch in the first 48 hours, which not only helped some folks with much needed work, but also resulted in a $10,000 donation to United Way. 

After that delightful and chaotic beginning we realized that we needed to turn this into something official, and Shit Escalates was born. Fast forward 4 years and a (slight) name change, and we are so gratified for your continued excitement and support for all of the crazy things we have cooked up. In that time we’ve sent over 25,000 packages to fans in 35 different countries. We’ve worked with incredible artists all over the land and are in the midst planning approximately 1 million more absurd, amazing and unique collaborations.

Thanks for everything,

-Pierce, Joel & V.E.