What I'm Looking For
Stories anywhere from 1000 up to 10,000 words around the theme: Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever.
You're kidding, right? Bear with me. It's a theme that hasn't been done to death (yeah, pun intended), and it's not as limiting as you might first imagine.
Think about it. Just how really "gone" are species when we can still study their bones, their pictures, the imprints they made on this earth? Why are we so fascinated by their past existence and why do we mourn their loss?
What would it have been like to run with the last of the mammoths? What is it like to fight governments for dwindling habitat or confront a poacher for his prize? What will the future hold for third-world countries if all the bees should die out?
Perhaps your story will envision rewilding Siberian tigers today or saving them through genetic engineering tomorrow. Perhaps it will examine flood geology of the past or look to the day the megavolcano simmering beneath Yellowstone Park finally erupts.
It could be revisionist history where a fateful asteroid strike 65 million years ago never happened and mammals were hunted by the reptiles to extinction. Or it could be the story of a modern-day Dian Fossey risking all to protect a dying breed.
Whether set in the past, present or future, as long as your story's theme touches on the subject of extinction, it's welcome.
So if I submit a story, it's in, right? Not so fast. There will be standards applied and editing performed. And if I don't receive enough quality stories to pad the volume out nicely, then maybe we'll just publish ALL the stories, unedited (and unpaid), to a dedicated blog instead. And, yeah, I'll choose which stories make the cut for the ebook.
The "13 Stories" on the cover will change to reflect the actual number of stories accepted.
The Good Stuff: What It Pays
Pay is 1/4-cent per word (that's a penny for every 4-word thought you have) on publication and a prorated part of 25% royalties paid on net whenever any significant amount builds up. Your actual percentage will depend on what the ratio is between the number of words you contribute and the total number of words in the volume.
To do the math, if you contribute a 4000-word story, that's a $10 advance. And if the volume has 60,000 words and earns out its advances, then you would get 15% of the 25% royalty -- or 3.75%. In real numbers (the U.S. $ kind), that's $3.75 for every $100 in sales.
Realistically, will there be any royalties? Who knows. It likely won't amount to much, and there's an option (highly encouraged!) of investing back into the book -- using a combined pool of payments to promote sales (blog tour prizes, gift cards, etc). After all, this is a proving ground for us to figure out what works in promotion and what doesn't.
Hey, isn't Amazon paying 70% royalties -- is this a scam? Not at all. The 70% rate only applies to books priced $2.99 and above. Let's face it, close family may pay that, but not too many other people will. The rate is 35% for books priced $.99 to $2.99 and there's a nominal book delivery fee Amazon tacks on plus administrative/production costs (mine) coming out of that, too. Things like rights to the picture for the cover. Plus, we'll probably promote the book for free at times to generate interest and see how that affects future sales. You can grab your contributor copies during one of the free periods. If we do play with the price point and sell some copies at $2.99 or above, you'll get your cut of a pooled rate of 60%.
Rights remain with you. I'll initially put the book on Amazon (US and UK sites). Here are some other venues I'll look at targeting:
* Barnes & Noble's PubIt!
* Borders
* Kobo
* iTunes
* iPad
* Android
* Diesel
* Smashwords
* Sony
* eBook.com
* BooksOnBoard
* Powell's eBooks
* Fictionwise
* Apple iStore
If anyone wants to publish it out on other sites, that's great, too, so long as royalties come through me first so I can track and divvy and make sure the formats and price points comply with those pesky contracts online publishers require you to abide by.
What about a print version? Always a possibility. Let's see how the e-version does first, though, shall we?
Deadline
I don't want to cut too much into NANOWRIMO and holiday time, but I also don't want to drag out the deadline. Since Kindle prices have come down, there will likely be much gifting of them again this year during the holidays and they'll be in the hands of readers eager for quality fast reads come spring.
So let's make the deadline: January 30, 2011.
If there are tweaks to be made before a story can be accepted, I'll let the author know by February 11 and will need the edits back by February 28.
Best case scenario: I'll announce the final cut by March 4, edit for a couple of weeks, ensure proper formatting, etc., and upload to Amazon on March 20 (the first day of spring -- or fall, depending on your GPS at the time).
How to Submit
Standard manuscript formatting. Submit as an .RTF file. Include your email address in your page header.
Subject Line Format: Submission: Story Title - Last Name
Send to: phoenixsullivan @ yahoo.com.
More information here.
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