Unleaded – Fuel for Writers

This is a sort of open letter to the anthology editors out there looking to get a new anthology noticed and get the attention of writers.

Twice in the last few weeks I’ve found anthologies have started following me on Twitter.  Now, I don’t for a second believe that the editors of either are pouring over each of my tweets and finding them fascinating.  Not at all.  But there are multiple ways of using Twitter.  As a social media platform it lets users keep up with friends, acquaintances, and the occasional celebrity.  However, it can also serve as a self promotion tool through the power of the Follow button, and proper application of the Who to follow feature.

Neither anthology was one I had heard of before.  Both are now anthologies that I am considering future submissions to.  The purpose of the follows was not to engage in direct interaction on Twitter, but to serve as a sort of advertisement for the anthology in a hopes of generating submissions or sales.  Now, I’m not going to claim to be an expert on Twitter or have some sort of inside knowledge on how best to market an anthology looking for submissions, but from the perspective of a writer who has been successfully targeted, here’s what I want to see:

• Follow me.  Don’t make me find you on Twitter, I don’t go looking frequently enough, and you’re probably hiding somewhere in the noise.  This can be accomplished by following a known circle of writers, and looking at the names “Who to Follow” brings up.  Look at the bios.  Look who calls themselves an author.  And to writers: call yourself an author in your bio!
• @Reply.  Even if I haven’t directly inquired you, I like to look at feeds of anthologies and see a lot of @Replies to other people who have.  It means the account is actively updated by someone and isn’t just there to be followed and link to submission guidelines.  So keep an eye on that @Mentions tabs, and answer questions when asked.
• Don’t spam.  If your only posts are daily or weekly “hey, these are our submission guidelines!” posts, I’m unfollowing.  Let me know what’s happening to the anthology, news about new artwork, notes about similar anthologies, even the occasional non-anthology note that can let me better get into the mindset of the editor and know what they might be looking for.
• Link to your page in your bio.  It’s that simple.

I like to see this, I really do, and I hope that anthologies will pay attentions to what writers want out of them on Twitter, because that’s the best way to leverage it as a tool for getting a broader selection of submissions.

Oh, and as a bonus, here are the markets that followed me:

The Memory Eater.  Hurry up, the deadline for this one is coming up fast.  In concept it strikes me as similar to the Death Machine anthologies, in that every story must be tied to a piece of magic tech.  In this case it’s the technology to erase memories.  Deadline is July 15th, and payment is a profit split among the authors.

One Buck Horror.  One buck is the price point for the serial anthologies, not the payment rate to the authors.  Oh no no no.  This is a pro-rate anthology, nickle-a-word for up to 3,000 words.  First issue is due out at the end of the month.

I’ve got what isn’t so much blogger’s block as I have something I want to write about that would take a little more research than I have time for today.  So I’m going to do what I always do when I need filler: hit Duotrope and look for new paying genre anthologies!

Detours: Peculiar Places of West Virginia.  The call for submissions page may seem sparse, but remember the call for submissions for Mammoth Book of Steampunk was little more than a LiveJournal entry.  This is an anthology coming from both an established publisher and established editor, so it can afford to be a little less flashy.  It’s also a pro-rate market, with the caveat of a 2500 word limit.  They want real places in West Virginia, real history, and the place must be integral.  Deadline: May 31, 2011

Appalachian Undead. Notice a theme here?  With Mothman still open, and both Detours and Appalachian Undead around, it’s a fine time to be writing horror set in the Mountain State.  This anthology has a listing on Duotrope.  I couldn’t actually find a link within the publisher’s website to the submission details, and had to back out to Google to search for them.  Bad publisher.  Anyway, here’s their link.  It’s another 2500 word limit, this one offering just a penny a word and submitters copy.  Deadline: July 1, 2011

The New Flesh. An established online journal, the New Flesh celebrates the weird.  The really weird.  And they’re gearing up for their inaugural print anthology.  Typically they’re about the unpaid flash fiction, but for this anthology they want 3000-7000 words and a paying a penny each for them on publication.  The details are here, and poke around their site to look at the kind of things they want.  Stories don’t have to be set in West Virginia, though I don’t suppose they’d turn one down that is just for that fact.  Deadline: July 31, 2011 or until filled.

Over on my blog this week, I provided a short book review, and then made beer.  Mmm, beer.  West Virginia population density map courtesy of Wikipedia, released under Creative Commons license.

Today I have a bit of blogger’s block about what to talk about.  So I do what I usually do when that happens: I go trolling for new markets.  And, in light of Renee’s post from earlier in the week, I decided to stick with anthologies.

Queered Visions of Steampunk:  From the website:  “Searching for steampunk stories that have a queered twist. The stories should have at least one glbt main character and/or theme to it.”
What they don’t seem to want: Page numbers.  Go figure.
Deadline: March 15, 2011
Length: 3000-7000 words
Payment: Penny a word.

ePocaylpse: From the website: “The ePocalypse will feature apocalyptic collaborative stories told/narrated exclusively through e-mail. Each story MUST have 2 or more collaborating authors. All e-mails must take place as the world as we know it is ending… earthquakes, floods, virus/disease, meteors, aliens, etc.”
What they don’t seem to want: Zombies
Deadline: To be set when anthology half full.
Length: 2000-10000 words
Payment: None by default, though three entries will get lump payment prizes and one contributor will get a free copy.  As usual, I’m posting interesting not lucrative or pro-scale markets.

Primogeniture Anthology: This is an interesting one.  The anthology is looking to get people to play in a world that the editors have (loosely) set up.  From the website: “Earth has finally developed a ship that has the ability to leave with five thousand people to a new planet. When they arrive at the new planet they are expected to have about ten thousand people. The ship has left the Sol system at least a year ago. At this point there is no turning back, anyone who has decided that this was a mistake, its now to late.”
What they don’t seem to want: Aliens.  The focus is humans coping with the situation, not reacting to alien encounters.
Deadline: April 18, 2011
Length: 5500-7000 words (oddly narrow range)
Payment: A portion of the royalties will be split among contributors based on their contribution.

DL Thurston Additional Note for the Day:   He’s been disappointingly quiet on his own blog this week.  Bad blogger!

While looking for submission targets for some short stories, I hit three interesting anthologies that are tempting me and I thought might tempt others.  In deadline order:

2013: The Aftermath.  From the website: “We’ve all heard the theories about what is supposed to happen in 2012. But if disaster strikes and there are survivors, what will happen to them in 2013? We’re looking for post-apocalyptic stories (science fiction/fantasy/horror) that take place in 2013 or later, based on a theory (any theory) of cataclysmic changes or destruction that occur in 2012.”
What they don’t seem to want: Zombies
Deadline: November 5, 2010
Length: 500-20,000
Pay: $0.0025/word (that’s not a typo, one quarter of one penny per word.  I said “interesting” not “lucrative”), discount copies.

Historical Lovecraft.  From the website: “Historical fiction with a Lovecraftian twist. Stories should be set in a variety of places, cultures and time periods…Please note that for our purposes we consider historical anything up to 1937 (the year of Lovecraft’s death). Please, no stories in contemporary settings where the hero flashes back to the past or finds a convenient diary/letter set in the past. It’s an extra layer of onion we don’t want to peel. If the meat of the story is in 4th century China, then take us to 4th century China without having to detour into New York 2010.” (Their emphasis)
What they don’t seem to want: 1920s New England
Deadline: January 3, 2011
Length: 1000-10000 words
Pay: CA$0.01/word, CA$50 max.  One physical copy, one ebook copy.

The Mothman Files: From the website: “I am looking for fictional mothman stories. The setting is not limited to West Virginia or any other regional area known as mothman territory. I want tales with a solid plot and good character development. Stories should grab the reader’s attention quickly and hold it until the end. I want powerful and emotional tales that are creepy, chilling, disturbing, and moody.”
What they don’t seem to want: Bunnyman stories.  Probably.
Deadline: July 1, 2011
Length: Up to 3000 words
Pay: $0.05/word on publication, contributor’s copy.

DL Thurston’s blog at http://DLThurston.com/blog is currently broken and never got updated anyway. Instead, watch him try to make sense of the War of 1812 at http://200years.dlthurston.com. Rust is available now for Kindle, ePub readers, and iBooks, coming soon to Sony Reader. Protip: do not Google Image Search “submissions” while at work.