A journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Newman's first two books were Ghastly Beyond Belief: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Quotations (1985), co-written with Neil Gaiman, and Nightmare Movies: A critical history of the horror film, 1968-88 (1988). Newman and Stephen Jones jointly edited Horror: 100 Best Books, the 1988 horror volume in Xanadu's 100 Best series, and also Horror: Another 100 Best Books, a 2005 sequel from Carroll & Graf. Both books comprise 100 essays by 100 horror writers about 100 horror books and both won the annual Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction. Newman acts as one of several contributing editors to the UK film magazine Empire, as well as writing the monthly segment, "Kim Newman's Video Dungeon." His first stage play scheduled to open in 2017.

"Newman's style is refreshingly literate...[Anno Dracula is] a book that looks as good as it reads.​" - Rock Shock Pop "[Anno Dracula is] a​ real treat" - SciFi Pulse "Exactly [what] I wanted as a die-hard fan of the novels." - Comics Alliance "Exceptional" - Comics For Sinners "The whole thing is so cinematic." - Mark Kermode