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Anthology Markets

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

More anthology markets from my list. Note that sometimes you have to scroll down a bit after clicking the links, if the publisher puts all their anthology info on one page.

For non-erotic markets, check out Destination: Future and SHINE, both SF. Also note that Love Wide Open is themed around helping family and friends understand GLBT friends and relatives, and erotica would probably be missing the point :) so that one qualifies too.

[ETA NOTE: I've been getting a lot of hits on these posts, so if you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month, so click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.]

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1 June 2009 — Back in the Saddle — Torquere

Cowboy stories are so popular with Torquere that we had to bring them back in the tradition of Under this Cowboy’s Hat or Cowboy Up! Old west, rodeo, contemporary, or foreign, you name it, we want our cowboys! Stories should be gay male, romantic, and feature happy endings.

Stories are due June 1, 2009 for release in September 2009. Word count of 8000 or more words, with a payment of $75.00, as well as a contributor copy in both electronic and paperback format. Since this is a direct to print anthology, we’re asking exclusive electronic and paperback rights for 5 years. Please send a synopsis, author bio and your story to submissions@torquerepress.com with Back in the Saddle in the subject line.

10 June 2009 — Over the Moon paranormal anthology — Total-E-Bound

* 15K to 20K word count per short story/novella
* Paranormal – Werewolves, MF or MFM only
* Heat Rating: Burning/Melting (see our book rating info)

The Submission deadline is June 10th 2009 for release in November 2009. Submit the full story plus synopsis. When submitting, please enter “Paranormal Submission” in the email subject line.

15 June 2009 — Prince Albert Toybox — Torquere

17 June 2009 — Chain Male Taste Test — Torquere

Publication date September 2009, submissions due 6/17/2009 (Knights on white horses. Squires in chains! Saracens who want to show Europeans how to bathe, among other things. Bring on the knight.)

30 June 2009 — Destination: Future — Hadley Rille Books

SF, hard SF, alien worlds, space operas, alien encounter beyond Earth, exploration and quest stories. No alternative or historical fiction, steampunk, fantasy or horror. 3-6K words.

30 June 2009 — Love Wide Open

All submissions should focus on helping people, especially parents, accept the orientation and sexual identity of their gay, lesbian, bisexual, gender variant or questioning children. Extreme negativity is discouraged. Degradation of any group of people, whether defined by religion, sexuality, age, ethnicity, etc., will not be tolerated. Disagreement with the beliefs and creeds of any religion or ideology must be addressed respectfully.

1 July 2009 — SHINE — Solaris Books

Convincing and optimistic: Imagine that we are the biggest skeptics on the planet, then show us how things can change for the better, and persuade us.

Near-future: from now until 50 years later.

SF: we’re not going to define it. Write what you think is SF, and convince us with the story.

The Gritty:
Length: up to 10k words (not hard, but anything longer than 10k should be mind-blowingly superb).

1 July 2009 — I Put a Spell on You Menage Anthology — Torquere’s Bareback Angels imprint

Love spells? Magic in the air? You bet. All it takes is two boys, one girl and a magical romance, and you have the perfect story for I Put a Spell on You. We’re looking for m/m/f romance and erotic romance with strong characters and great stories.

Stories are due July 1, 2009 for release in October 2009. Word count between 3000-8000 words, with a payment of $50.00, as well as a contributor copy in both electronic and paperback format. Since this is a direct to print anthology, we’re asking exclusive electronic and paperback rights for 5 years. Please send a synopsis, author bio and your story to submissions@torquerepress.com with Spell in the subject line.

1 July 2009 — The Care and Feeding of Demons — Torquere

Demon romance! Demon hunter romance! Urban fantasy, kick-butt antiheroes. This one was requested by Torquere’s authors, who asked and received! All demons, all the time! Stories should be gay male, and should be romance or erotic romance with a hopeful or happy ending.

Stories are due July 1, 2009 for release in October 2009. Word count between 3000-8000 words, with a payment of $35.00, as well as a contributor copy in electronic format. We’re asking exclusive electronic 2 years. Please send a synopsis, author bio and your story to submissions@torquerepress.com with Demons Anthology in the subject line.

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You DO Want Me to Buy Your Books, Right?

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

Okay, so Fictionwise is having a half-off sale and I’m running around filling my cart. There’s this writer I’ve liked before, I read the first book of a series (sort of a psychic-urban-fantasy sort of thing) and it was good, so I look up her name to see if the next book in the series is there. Well, they’ve got number three, but not number two (or even number one) and I’m not about to skip number two because I’m uptight that way.

I see that she’s got another series going, though, another urban-fantasyish setting only this one’s about vampires. I read some of the plot descriptions and they sound pretty cool. Okay, I want to try the first one and see how I like them. Except… there’s no indication on Fictionwise as to what order you should read them in. :/ And in fact, there seem to be two series here (Fictionwise lists them in the SeriesName: BookTitle format and there are definitely two series names) but descriptions from both series mention the same character so… I guess they’re linked? I can tell which series comes first, since Fictionwise tells you what year a story was published in and the second series is 2009, but all the first series books were published (or maybe just hit Fictionwise?) in 2008, so no help there.

I fire up the Google-fu and find the author has a couple of web sites and an LJ. One of the web sites has all the books for the first series (the one I’ve got number one of) in the proper order, but doesn’t even mention the other series. (Either one.) Nothing helpful on the other web site. I check the LJ and… nothing helpful there either. I mean, there are probably individual posts to the journal as each book comes out (I would hope so, anyway) but I’m not about to go paging back through this writer’s journal by hand. The logical thing with a journal is to have some obvious place — like a pinned entry which is always on top, or a listing or link in the journal’s profile — where a reader with money in hand can find things like buy links and lists of what order to read series books in. No luck.

Now there might well be some other web site farther down the Google page with a list of the books in the series I’m interested in, in reading order. I’ve checked the writer’s sites, though, and I don’t think I should have to go wading through fan pages to find basic information. I’m assuming the writer wants me to buy her books and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for her to give me reading-order lists on her web site or journal or whatever, where I can find them without going on a web-wide Easter egg hunt.

And not to pick on this one person — I’ve had similar problems with other writers, both e-published and folks whose books are on the shelves at bookstores, where I’m standing there with my credit card in my pocket and there’s nothing on covers of series books to tell me which order to read them in. At least with a paper book I have in my hand in a bookstore, I can flip through and find the copyright page (which usually gives month as well as year) or maybe a reading-order list somewhere in the front- or backmatter. Although I’ve run into lists of an author’s other books before which were not in reading order, so that can be a trap.

And then there’s the question of aggravation level, diminishing patience, and my willingness to overcome same; it’s probably not going to fall out the author’s way unless they’re just that high on my Favorite Writers List. Take Jim Butcher, to name one person whose books inexplicably say “Book One [or whatever number] of the Dresden Files” until they hit book six or so, and then just say they’re “A” book of the series. [headdesk] The Dresden Files really rock, so I’m willing to grit my teeth and mutter imprecations about Butcher’s publisher for changing the series line at the bottom of the cover, while I stand there in the bookstore juggling five or six of his books, trying to get them into copyright order so I know which one to read next. If you’re much lower on my Favorite Writers List than Jim Butcher, though, I’m much more likely to just give up on your series and move on to the next writer.

Right now, I have money. I want to give it to this writer. (Well, all right, a chunk to the writer, a chunk to her publisher and a chunk to Fictionwise, but still.) These are e-books, we’re doing this online, she has two web sites and an LJ. Is it that hard to post a list somewhere telling me which book to buy first? :/

Sorry. Moving on to the next writer.

Angie

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Bestseller Numbers

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Lynn Viehl, who hit the NYT mass market bestseller list last year for the first time, shares her royalty statement, talks about the hard numbers of advance, royalty, sales and reserves, and discusses what was and wasn’t done to make those bestselling numbers happen. I’ve never seen anyone do this before, so thanks to Lynn for being so open and sharing this stuff with the community.

Check it out — there’s some interesting info there.

Angie

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Anthology Markets

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

I finally started keeping track of anthologies in a file instead of just writing them down in my calendar or bookmarking the link up in a special folder in my browser. While it’s true that I have at times written a complete short story in a few days, or occasionally in a few hours, I’ve discovered that this works best when you get a sudden spark of inspiration and can start furiously banging away on the story right off. Turning the calendar page and seeing that there’s a theme anthology with a deadline on Wednesday and trying to come up with an idea which fits the theme an then writing and polishing it to send in two and a half days later is another matter. [wry smile]

So, with some advance notice, there are seven anthologies with deadlines in mid- to late-May. (Not even close to comprehensive — these are just my publisher’s anthos, plus other calls I ran across and which interested me enough to jot down the info.)

Most are romance or erotica, but also listed are Sword and Sorceress 24 (Fantasy) and Catastrophia (SF/Horror).

[ETA NOTE: I've been getting a lot of hits on these posts, so if you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month, so click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.]

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13 May 2009 — Pushy Little Bottoms Taste Test — Torquere
Publication date August 2009, submissions due 5/13/2009 (Topping from below? Demanding a good spanking RIGHT NOW? You bet. I want bossy little bottom boys! No whining allowed.)

Taste Tests are mini-anthologies consisting of three or more stories ranging from 3000-7000 words each for a total of 10000-20000 words. Monthly themes are posted on the Taste Test submission page, along with deadlines and links to our general submission guidelines. Authors may submit a single story to any open theme, or submit a set of stories as single author collection, suggesting their own theme.

15 May 2009 — Body Paint Toybox — Torquere
Like the Taste Tests, Toy Boxes are small collections of three to four stories ranging from 3000-7000 words each for a total of 10000-20000 words. We’ll post themes that we’d like to see, and authors can submit one story or a whole collection. Entire collections must center around a single toy box item.

15 May 2009 — Wrap Me Up – Erotic Holiday Tales — STARbooks
Do you like to sit on Santa’s lap? Are there eight things you wish you could do to your boyfriend during Hanukah? Does Kwanzaa give you the urge to commune with nature? Or, do you just like to write about people who get horny over the holidays?

There is no limit to the possibilities. Your stories can take place at the North Pole, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, or the Continent of Africa, just to name a few locales. Your characters may be Maccabees, Wise Men, Tribal Elders, Romans, Greeks, or Elves, just to give you a few ideas. Let your imagination roll and think outside the gift-wrapped box, and give us your hottest holiday story. Have fun and give our readers the gift that keeps on giving, so they come back for more.

15 May 2009 — Sword and Sorceress 24
Stories should be the type generally referred to as “sword and sorcery” and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about. See Sword & Sorceress 22 and Sword & Sorceress 23 (or 1-20) for examples. We do not want stories with explicit sex, gratuitous violence, or profanity. We are NOT a market for poetry. We are willing to consider stories set in modern times, but we won’t buy more than one or two of those for the anthology. We always want something short and funny for the last story.

Length: up to 9,000 words, with preference given to shorter stories. The longer a story is, the better it has to be. Long stories should be submitted early in the reading period.

20 May 2009 — BEST GAY ROMANCE 2010 — Cleis Press
For the sensual anthology series BEST GAY ROMANCE 2010 (Cleis Press, Winter 2009) I’m looking for short stories (maximum 6,000 words) that are as sweet as they are steamy, as emotive as they are erotic: fiction (or true stories) about two men (or, who knows, more) falling in love. The wooing and the winning, the blush of a crush, the details of a date, the rush of romance… If sex happens, that’s fine, but the emphasis in these stories should be on what happens on the way to ’sexual congress’ – or what happens after it, happily ever after.Deadline: May 20, 2009. Submissions to BGR2010 [BGR2010@gmail.com]; please put BGR 2010 in the subject line. Original stories or work published from May 2008 to May 2009.

31 May 2009 — Catastrophia — Allen Ashley, PS Publishing
Catastrophia will be a collection of stories loosely themed around the theme of catastrophes, disasters and post-apocalyptic fiction. I will be looking for original, unpublished stories which deal in a modern manner with these classic SF- and Horror-based tropes.

31 May 2009 — Blood Fruit — QueeredFiction
Queer, dark, macabre tales of horror, (blood and gore and rotten fruits welcome) are sought by QUEEREDFICTION. Chill us with your horrifying, sensual tales of gay and lesbian terror. Your submission should be a short story between 4,000 and 10,000 words. We are seeking fiction with positive images of queer characters. We’re not looking for clichés. We do not want reprints. We are seeking first world rights for this anthology. For full details view the official guidelines. Queries welcome.

Angie

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New Market

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Holly Lisle is putting together a new sort of online magazine project based primarily around serials, although with some shorter one-shot stories too, and with issues grouped into “seasons.” She explains it better than I do. :) Anyway, it’s called Rebel Tales, is starting off as an F&SF market, and she has the preliminary writer’s guidelines up.

The guidelines are worth reading even if you don’t plan to submit; she has a refreshingly blunt, take-no-prisoners attitude toward people who submit without following instructions, or without being able to write terribly well, or without knowing what SF or Fantasy actually are, or even what a story is. I got a few chuckles while reading.

Angie

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Expectations

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

I’ve thought for a while that a big chunk of marketing (pimping, promoting, whatever you want to call it) is about managing expectations. Recently the universe has been dropping this concept onto my head like a series of anvils — in a review of a book which wasn’t quite what the reviewer was expecting, although she liked it anyway; in a couple of blog discussions about badly-researched historicals; and in a review I did recently for my publisher — so before I go completely comatose from the multiple concussions, I thought I should talk about it.

About twenty years ago, I was a huge Alan Dean Foster fan; I always looked for anything new by him when I browsed the SF/Fantasy shelves at the bookstore. One day I saw a new book of his called Maori. It was set in 19th century New Zealand, which I’d barely heard of at the time, and it sounded interesting. I’d read a few historical fantasies before and this one seemed new and different, so I bought it and read it. And all through the story I was waiting for the “fantasy” part to begin. And waiting, and waiting and waiting. After a few hundred pages I’d gotten kind of annoyed. After all, if this was a historical fantasy, then the “real” plotline probably couldn’t have begun until we actually, like, saw something magical, right? Well, the writer seemed to be taking a horribly long time to get on with it already, and then I got to the end and he never had.

Of course, it wasn’t a historical fantasy — it was straight historical fiction. It was a good historical, but it wasn’t what I’d expected, so I spent the entire time I was reading it waiting and waiting, getting more and more annoyed and confused, and despite its being a good book, I didn’t enjoy reading it because my expectations had been set up for a different experience.

My expectations had been based on a few things. First, it was Alan Dean Foster. I’d never known him to write anything before which wasn’t SF or fantasy, so it seemed reasonable that this was too. Second, it was shelved in the SF/Fantasy section of the bookstore, which is usually a pretty good hint as to a book’s genre. Third, the cover had the words “The epic historical fantasy of the year!” printed on it. So I don’t feel too bad about making this mistake. [wry smile]

In this case, a good book — and once I was finished, I could look back at the book and acknowledge that yes, it’d been a good story and well-written — was ruined for me because the marketing led me to expect oranges and then gave me carrots. They’re similar — they’re both vegetation, they’re the same color, and they can both be described as “sweet” — but when I’m set up to judge a product by its orange-ness, carrots are always going to fall short.

Some historical romance fans don’t know and don’t care that Arthurian-era Britons didn’t use forks to eat, or that Arthur’s knights wouldn’t have worn full plate armor. They’re just looking for a fun romp they can enjoy while kicking back with popcorn, they don’t want to think too much, and what’s fun for them is reading about two hot people having adventures and sex in cool costumes (and no, the women in that period didn’t wear hoopskirts either) and maybe a couple of sword fights. Too much historical authenticity can actually be a turn-off for these folks; they’ve gotten their ideas about what the Middle Ages or King Arthur’s Court are like from Hollywood and they don’t want to be slapped in the face with the grim, dirty, flea-ridden reality of it.

Other historical romance fans are history buffs, or even have degrees in the subject. Having your Regency lady wearing her gloves at an inappropriate time will have them rolling their eyes and writing snarky blog posts. Describing your character as a Florentine Guelph and then showing him cheering the Emperor (unless of course he’s trying to get close enough to slip that dagger between his ribs) would probably get your authorial persona burned in effigy. (And even without the flames, there’ll be more snarky blog posts.) To a dedicated history fan, details are important, and you always have to assume you have readers who know more than you do, so you need to do your research and be thorough about it, and careful to get things right. Perfection is unattainable, of course, but it should always be your goal if you want to satisfy this group of readers.

Both kinds of books have their audience; each kind is preferred by some people and rejected by others. This is good news for authors who like writing one or the other type, but only if you make it clear what you’re writing, so the readers who’d enjoy your book know that it is the kind they prefer. If you fool someone who likes rigorous historicals into buying your popcorn historical, you get their money that one time, but they’re left with a negative experience associated with your name. There’s a good chance they’ll never buy another one of your books, even if you later start writing rigorous historicals. And they might feel iffy about your publisher, too.

Which isn’t at all unfair, because much of the responsibility for marketing the book rests with the publisher, especially if it’s one of the larger New York houses. If you’re writing a popcorn historical and your publisher gives it serious art, and writes the cover copy to emphasize the sweep of historical events rather than the sex, adventure and humor which are its real strengths, the writer is pretty much hosed right along with the readers.

The problem isn’t always a matter of overt marketing, though. Some writers or publishers become known for certain things; if 90% of the books published under a given label have romance plots, then readers will come to expect romance from those books. Even if a book doesn’t have “The epic romance of the year!” printed on its cover [cough] if every other book a person has read by that writer or that publisher has been romantic, then they’ll probably expect the next one to be romantic too. If it’s not, then there’s a good chance that reader will be disappointed, even if the book was excellent for what it was. When this kind of exception to a rule — even an unspoken one — is made, it’s good for everyone, writer, readers and publishers alike, for the readers to have some way of knowing in advance just what they’re getting. If they’re set up for a genre romance and they don’t get one, they’re likely to be disappointed and annoyed. If they’re set up for a mystery or an adventure or whatever the book is, they’re more likely to enjoy the story because they’re not waiting and waiting for the romance while they read, or left disappointed at the end when the main characters shrug and wander apart.

If you’re selling carrots, make sure your sign says “CARROTS” in large, easily-read letters. Make it clear to the orange lovers that you’re not selling oranges, market specifically to people who love carrots instead, and your customers will be happy. If you want to tap into the orange-lover market, get some oranges to sell; don’t try to slip them carrots and hope for the best.

Which seems to be what Mr. Foster’s publisher tried to do, twenty years ago. They knew his main audience was SF and fantasy fans, so they put “Fantasy!” on the cover of Maori, and the bookstores put it on the SF/Fantasy shelves. It went out of print pretty quickly; I don’t know how well it sold, but I’ve never gotten the impression that it was a fan favorite. And that’s a shame, because it deserves to be a favorite of the kind of readers who are fans of historical novels. Even if some bookstores put a few copies over on the Historical shelves, chances are anyone who preferred straight historicals would’ve avoided it because if the “historical fantasy” text on the cover. Mr. Foster and his book were screwed from both sides.

Looking at a list of all his published books, I just realized that after I read Maori was when I backed away from Alan Dean Foster’s work. I still bought some of his books, but I was more likely to stick with series books I already knew I liked, and less likely to pick up his single-title books. He’d been on my buy-on-sight list before that point, and after that I no longer trusted that I’d always enjoy his work. I didn’t even consciously realize it at the time; it’s only now, looking at the timeline, that I see what I did and when. So whoever made the marketing decisions about Maori lost me as one of Mr. Foster’s raving fans, one of the people who bought everything with his name on it. After that, I was only a regular fan, someone who bought his books occasionally. I wonder whether Ace thinks getting my $4.50 for Maori was worth that loss?

What really annoys me is that if it’d been marketed as the historical novel it was, I’d probably have bought it anyway, enjoyed it, and kept buying all of Mr. Foster’s books. That’s my loss as well as theirs.

Angie

[ETA: comments closed because of spam.]

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Loose Id to the Rescue

Monday, October 15th, 2007

For anyone who hasn’t seen already, check out this post over on Treva2007 on Livejournal. Loose Id plans to bid on the contracts held by Triskelion, which is going through bankruptcy. There was a lot of worried blogging going on about what’d happen to the Triskelion authors (and other authors whose publisher had or is going under) since bankruptcy courts don’t recognize contract clauses which revert rights to an author if a publisher goes under.

Treva says:

If successful in their bid, Loose Id, LLC will release the
majority of contracts at no cost to the authors who entered into them.

In a few cases, new contracts will be extended to the author from Loose Id
in lieu of the Triskelion contracts. If an author chooses to reject the offer
made them, their contract will be released by Loose Id, at no cost to the
author.

This is incredibly cool and I think Loose Id deserves some major kudos, whether or not their bid is successful. If I ever get back to writing het, this publisher will be at the top of my submission list, ’cause you can’t beat working with truly good people.

Angie

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