Submission Guidelines for the Pain/Pleasure Anthology
I confess that when Berkley asked me to put this together, I thought I would have to strong arm some people (20 of them) into writing me a short story but there is quite a bit of interest in contributing to this collection.
I am looking for stories of 5,000 word length (you can go slightly over but you won’t be paid more) about the concept of the twin emotions of pain and pleasure. The submissions must be full (the story complete) and turned in to me litte. jane at gmail dot com by October 1 as an MS Word Attachment with the subject line: Pain/Pleasure Anthology Submission.
The submission can be, generally, anything with a strong erotic content. There is no limitation on genre. I definitely want a lot of variety such as m/m, femdom, diversity in characters. The work can have been published on your website but it cannot have been sold in publication.
I will be paying $500 for each contracted submission with .25% royalty in exchange for world digital, audio and print rights.
Let me know if you have any questions either by emailing me or leaving a comment.
Did you mean .25% royalty or 25% royalty? 0.25% seems a bit mean!
ETA: Oh, multiplied by 20 it seems more reasonable! Sorry for my dim moment.
This sounds very exciting and just the sort of anthology I’d love to submit a story to.
I bet you get *hundreds* of submissions! :)
@Ros: I was thinking the same thing. ^^ I didn’t know people got royalties for short stories – I assumed they were upfront fees unless it was something of a novella length. Good to know for the future, though!
I wish I could submit a story, but erotica is not within my jurisdiction. @[email protected] Good to see you’re putting in m/m. Yay for the gay!
Now to wait for the day when I can actually submit something *grabs Hollywood Wives by Jackie Collins* Comfort food.
@ros and @John – I think royalty for shorts are rare and I I’ve no idea whether there will be any but figured if there was I would offer up one
Jane: I hate to think of the amount of reading you’re going to have. Good luck with this. Hope no gingerbread men come knocking.
@Jane: change the way you wrote the email address, you are going to get a crapload of spam in it! “Spambots” scour for the @ and your blog is high traffic.
I think this is fascinating. What a neat crossover between publisher/reviewer/author. I can’t wait to see what else forward thinkers in publishing come up with. It has seemed like there has been such a divide between the reader and the publishing model that this excites me.
I agree. This is very interesting!
Jane, for what I understood, this is a Berkley's Submission call of a Pain/Pleasure Anthology for which you will be the editor, right?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, I want to forward the opportunity to others, and I would like to have all the correct information.
Thanks.
Can this be any genre such as paranormal, urban fantasy or historical?
This is very cool.
Can you blog about the process/status generally as you go along or do you have to be super secret? Anyway, I hope you can at least share numbers: x number received, x number accepted.
@MaryK I think I can probably blog about the process/status as I go along. Why not? Although I don’t know how interesting it will be.
@katiebabs Nope. As I said in the post, there is no limitation on genre.
@Joanna Terrero This collection will be published by Berkley Heat for an unnamed erotic/erotica anthology for which I will be the editor.
Coolness! I will keep this in mind.
@Jane:
I can picture the first report post: Day 1 – I received 8.3 million submissions … thank God they were all received via e-mail …
*giggles*
@Jane: :D
I was mostly thinking about how Angela James tweets about stuff. “Can you believe somebody sent me such-and-such?” Though I’m also interested in your choosing strategy – will they be your favorite stories or the ones that best fit together and with the theme – that kind of thing.
It’s the closest I’ll get to having loads of people send me stories to pick my favorites from so I hope to enjoy it vicariously. ;)
re: I will be paying $500 for each submission
I think you meant:
I will be paying $500 for each contracted submission!
Good luck. I will be tweeting this for you.
Jane, thanks a lot, I will tell the authors I know.
Hello Jane\
do you accept submissions from other countries?
thanks
Sounds exciting, Jane!!
Royalties from short stories are not uncommon, esp. in the digital publishing world. They tend to run 35-40% for e-books. When it’s an anthology, that percentage gets split between the authors.
I’ll get something your way, Jane. This is my speciality area.
@Angelia Sparrow Ah, I had heard for those “Best paranormal books of 2010” or “Best SCIFI” etc. collections that royalties are a rarity.
Is there a level of graphic detail you’re looking for, or a certain restraint in what you hope to publish?
Count me in! I will make my submission by the end of the week.
@Jane, it really varies with anthologies. Ellora pays royalties. Kerlak pays flat fee. (With collections, you only have one author involved) I have no idea how Berkely operates.
Torquere did flat fee for a long time, because anthologies just weren’t earning out for the authors. Now they’ve gone to royalties for certain anths, specifically the Toybox line.
And most shorts published as stand-alones earn royalties too.
@Jane: How much is “slightly” over? I have a 6k story that I’d like to submit, but I’m not sure where I can pull the wordage without hurting the story. Should I try to pare it down anyway, or submit it as-is?
@Nonny Morgan submit as is.
Thanks, Jane! :)
It seems silly to ask, but I’ve learned from experience that diversity that includes M/M often does not include F/F. Are you okay with a range of LGBTQ themes?
@Sacchi Green: Yes a range of LGBTQ themes will be considered.
Sacchi I am so glad you asked that. I had the same thought. So many places now will take m/m but still won’t accept lesbian erotic stories.
This project sounds great. I’ll see if i can get a story together in time. ^_^
Can one author submit two stories? I have two ideas and don’t want to have to pick!
@Kyle: Yes, you can submit more than one story.
Will the final decision about each story be made after October 1st or will you be letting authors know sooner than that whether their story is suitable or unsuitable for the anthology?
This is probably a dumb question, but everyone has different rules, so I figured I should ask. :) What do you need in the e-mail accompanying the submission? Just a brief “attached is my submission…” or summary, publication history, etc?
@Mary G: Sorry I didn’t answer this previously, but I am letting people know in october.
@Lori W.: Just a brief summary of the story and your name and contact information on the submission itself.
Hi Jane, other than .doc format, how do you want the mss formatted? Each of my publishers has different requirements that’s why I ask.
Oops, another question. Are you so on overwhelm by now that you don’t want any more submissions?
@Savanna Kougar: I prefer italics to underlining but I am not a hard ass about this. As long as it is readable, I will read it and consider it for the collection.
Jane, thanks.