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Nickolas Cook |
If I wanted to do an annual themed POD antho, where would I start? |
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Any guidance or advise is welcome...thanks.
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LeatherZebra |
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Start with a business plan
Okay, more complicated, look at your audience and how to best sell it first. (Ask some of the publishers here about their sales because I have learned that some themes and situations have anthos selling like hot cakes and leave others dead in the water.) A close second, figure out how best to produce this antho to make it appeal to and reach said audience. This includes distribution, determining length, making a list of authors who sell well to court, determining pay (which should at least be in the semi-pro range of 3-4 cents a word to attract the level of author you need to sell a first time publisher antho), cost for cover art and printing, knowing how or finding someone who knows how to format a book, determining a book length word count so that you know how long each story can be (such as if you are aiming for a 80-90k total length and want around 10 stories your submission guidelines would be open to stories up to 10k, but if you want 20 stories each could only be up to 5k)...You should make a complete list of costs, listing everything from paying authors to printing, web site and cover art costs. Actually make 3, one of the most you can afford, one of the least you can pay, and one of actual costs. Always look into prices and stuff BEFORE making guidelines. Then consider technical issues, like staff to read slush, web site, eventual ads and promo materials, review sites, again considering what the buyers want and are willing to try. Next comes the guidelines, inviting bigger name authors and managing submissions etc. I know it could go without saying, but I'm going to say it any way, the best piece of advice in this rough and unforgiving environment is Don't Fuck Up, because there is a exceedingly steep learning curve out there these days. |
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dlatham |
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I spent about a year learning how to format books for type, and another year working on covers and the proper cover format for POD. It's really something
you need to learn yourself unless you want to hire someone because it won't be cost effective to hire someone. Covers are fun to mess with, but beauty is
in the eye of the beholder so covers can be pretty subjective. Formatting can be a real pain if you don't have any idea what to do and have never worked
with book blocks and automatic tabs.
I would suggest pay the authors straight out and skip the royalty percentage stuff. By the time (after cost) you split royalties between authors you're probably figuring pennies. I've been in a few anthos with royalty clauses, and I'm still waiting for the non-existent royalties. Have enough money up front, at least five cents a word, and set a word limit, to pay your authors.
Michael In Hell
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purpleverse |
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LeatherZebra wrote: Now that is a 100% solid gold piece of advice. I've been there, messed up and taken the shit. Do your homework, plan things properly and ask yourself "Am I really going to pull this off"? Small press seems to be an ever smaller pond these days with more and more fish in the same water. Just watch out for the sharks! There has been some good advice on a thread I posted recently, well worth a read. If you want to see how "not" to do it, search Phobia and see how badly I did it last time round. Learn from the mistakes of others my friend. Best of luck Vern. |
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Shocklines |
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Speak to the guys who do Horror Library at Cutting Block Press, who seem to be picking up steam (and bigger names and more recognition) with every volume. They
do a quality product. The editor, R. J. Cavender, posts on here (as Horror Library).
Shocklines.com -- your one-stop shop for hell on earth
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SGoudsward |
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Should also chat with the Permuted Press people. They have a good presence in the bookstores. |
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HorrorLibrary |
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Shocklines wrote:LOL Funny you should say that...I was going to suggest he sit down with Boyd for that. I know he and Nickolas know one another. But, thanks for the kind words Matt. I probably know less about the business end of things than Boyd would, but there's been a lot of sage advice dispensed already in this thread. I would suggest talking with Bill Breedlove, too. He's got some really solid ideas and would know from experience some of the pitfalls to avoid. Same with Vince and Chad over at Unspeakable. |
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Lisa Morton |
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You mention this as a POD antho, Nick. Which suggests to me that you're probably trying to save on the outlay of an actual print run.
And that's cool, but...you'll still need to lay out some bread for at least 30-40 review copies, because without reviews and a little word-spreading your book won't sell. If you go through something like Lulu, they provide templates for layouts and covers, but of course that still doesn't guarantee that a book will look decent - only you (and your designers and artists and copy editors) can provide that. When it comes to getting your contributors, my suggestion would be to pay pro rates and do it by invitation only, so you don't get overwhelmed with slush pile stuff. And put some thought into purchasing an ISBN - without one you can't be carried by distributors. Having just edited an anthology myself (MIDNIGHT WALK), I just went through a lot of this with the publisher. There's no easy, cheap or quick way to do it right, so be prepared. |
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gfaherty |
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I agree with everything said here, except for the 'invite only' part. (Apologies, Lisa!)
Invite-only assures you'll get some big names, but it also eliminates / alienates a lot of excellent professional writers. Instead, in order to both sell books by having big names and to also get some fresh blood before your audience, I propose you fill perhaps 40%-50% of the slots by invite, and the other by open submission. You'll have to do some slush work, but it would be worth it in the end. There are a lot of great voices in horror besides the ones on the standard invite lists.
JG Faherty
www.jgfaherty.com 'Everyone has a monster inside.' "Bones," in Cemetery Dance #58 (available now) "The Toll" and "Hybrids" in Wrong World, www.wrongworld.com (available now) "Experimental Subject," in Bits of the Dead "Family First," in Dark Territories |
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Vince Liaguno |
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Some of the things DSP did with UNSPEAKABLE HORROR that seemed to work:
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Lisa Morton |
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I think Vince has just taught a Master Class in publishing with that post!
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Vince Liaguno |
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Lisa Morton wrote: LOL! ~ Vince |
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ghostbrain |
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Long, but fascinating, and I suspect incredibly on-the-ball. Thanks, Vince.
Simon Strantzas
BENEATH THE SURFACE, 2008
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Lawrence Dagstine |
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gfaherty wrote:This. And either way, no matter what the lineup, there's no guarantee you'll sell more than 300 to 500 copies (at most), or something similar to an "Author Mill". Which, one year later, will have you scratching your head asking if it was all worth it. Most of all, if you do go ahead with it, don't reinvent the wheel. If you want outside the box, you need to think outside the box. If you want 21st century, you need to think well ahead of the 21st century. Even if you have a distributor, just another POD antho is going to fall out there along with the people who list on Ralan and Duotrope and... poof! are here today, gone tomorrow. But yes, pay professional rates.
Lawrence Dagstine Homepage: www.lawrencedagstine.com
Order FRESH BLOOD: http://www.genremall.com/anthologiesr.htm#freshblood
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Blunt Ed D |
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It surely is a thankless task. Kudos to anybody who puts that much hard work in for little more than the love of the genre. Every year I run our annual comp -
free to enter, with cash prizes for the winners. Every year I, at some point, end up wondering why I put myself through it.
I've often thought about doing an antho, but I know I wouldn't have enough time to do it justice, and the thought of trawling through all that slush is the last nail. On reading Vince's post, I thought the idea of requiring a formal query prior to submission was pure genius. Undeniably, there are many people out there who are eloquent enough to write a good letter and haven't idea #1 about writing a good story, but at least you'll weed out a good 90% of the illiterates that way. Good luck with it, Nickolas |
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Nickolas Cook |
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Thanks to all. Especially Vince for his detailed straightshooting post. I feel educated enough to take a couple of baby steps on the road to a possible yearly
print antho that ties in with The Black Glove web site. But, first, I need to make sure the blog/mag can get enough monthly readers to make such a venture
worthwhile. We will not be featuring any fiction on the site- it's all non-fiction- so I'm not sure how this disparity may play out down the road.
We'll see. In any case, again, thanks to all. And if you haven't already done so, be sure to 'follow' me on Wordpress. I've got a couple of
folks so far, but would like to see some steady readership for a magazine that will devoted to what makes horror great- old and new.
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Kenwood |
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A bit off-topic here. Nick, you should widen the blog. If you go under Layout >> Edit HTML, scroll down to where it says Outer Wrapper, and mess with
#outer-wrapper and #main-wrapper. They're set to 660px and 410px, respectively. You can bump those numbers up. I have mine set like so:
/* Outer-Wrapper ----------------------------------------------- */ #outer-wrapper { width: 850px; margin:0 auto; padding:10px; text-align:$startSide; font: $bodyfont; } #main-wrapper { width: 575px; float: $startSide; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ } You can see how that looks at http://www.eyesoretimes.com. |
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NicoleCushing |
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LeatherZebra wrote:I recommend you take this advice literally. Go to your local Chamber of Commerce or State (or county) Small Business Administration. Recognize that by taking on this project, you'd be starting a small business. They'll ask you lots of questions, many of which you won't know the answer to. That's okay. The point is to get to a point where you can answer them. Then you'll have your business plan. |
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