So two things…
One: I finished up my final edits to the galley of All Snug and sent them off to Dreamspinner Press just awhile ago. Made a few changes, mostly technical. I hope I don’t have to read it again for a long while! LOL!
I adore the story and it makes me very very proud, but I have read it too many times! Hopefully I am finally done with it.
I can’t wait for it to see “print!”
Two: I just sent a submission to a publisher I have never submitted to before; Silver Publishing. They seem to be a pretty reputable house and I am very excited by the idea of selling them a story.
A dear friend, , suggested that I get my stories sold to as many houses as possible as it looks good as an author resume. She didn’t use those exact words, and maybe she will comment here, but you get the idea.
It looks good to show that multiple houses think you are worthy of publishing.
This story is called A Secret Valentine and I am submitting it to their anthology Never Say Never.
This is what they are looking for:
Any subgenre will be accepted, but must follow a Valentine’s Day theme.
This anthology will feature M/M couples celebrating Valentine’s Day!
We’d love to see something off the beaten path. What have you got for us? An alien being introduced to the customs of Valentine’s Day? Non-human creatures affected by the magic of the holiday? A secret admirer revealed? An ex back in the picture? A wish fulfilled in a new and interesting way? We want to see your best sensual or erotic romance Valentine’s Day story.
Now there are no aliens in this story. It is more like a “A secret admirer revealed,” and I think it is very sweet and romantic with a fearsome HOT love scene. Let’s hope they agree.
Silver Publishing was also accepting Halloween and Christmas stories and wound up closing their submissions weeks (almost two month respectively) early. So even though the deadline wasn’t until January 8, 2011, I wasn’t taking any chances!
I love this little story and I hope they do as well!
And now to bed and tomorrow it will be working on a second draft of my vampire story!
Good night all, and pleasant dreams!
BG
B G Thomas - writer 
Actually, I think my words were “Small presses are notoriously short lived. It’s a good idea to have multiple streams of income.”
And I so know the “I’ve read this too many times” feeling.
We were talking about Amber Allure for one thing. And that I would be more appealing to them come this Spring if they saw I sold a lot of stories to multiple houses…
I can’t wait to see you!!! Just another week or so!
This is useful. I’ve now been published with Dreamspinner, Silver and Torquere. I was planning to just stick with one from now on, but if you are saying that these presses tend to curl up and die quite quickly I would be better still spreading my options.
Some do. I’ve seen about a dozen go under in the six years I’ve been writing professionally.
Torquere has been around for quite a long time, relatively speaking. But, it only pays quarterly. (and I was never one of their better sellers)
I find having some that pay quarterly and some that pay monthly helps a lot.
Who pays monthly? And is it better to write short or long stories?
Sorry, you’re probably sick of people asking you questions.
Ellora’s Cave and Pink Petal Books pay monthly. Ellora is the 800 lb gorilla of on-line romance publishing and consistantly produces the best sales numbers. Other houses’ top sellers tend to sell as many as my lower-sellers there.
I find length doesn’t matter much. My best seller is a novel, but my next best is a novella. After that is a short story that has sold 792 copies between stand-alone sales and the print anthology.
I am a mediocre seller.
My novels sell anywhere 173 copies to 1037.
Novellas range from 900 to 130
Short stories go from 14 to 792.
Publishing house and zeitgeist make a bigger difference than the length.
Just the website at Ellora is overwhelming. Mainly m/f though? I think I’ll cut my teeth on what I know best.`
Mostly. But the Spectrum line is growing by leaps and bounds.
http://www.jasminejade.com/showcategory.aspx?CategoryID=26&SEName=spectrum&aspdnsfid=pGGbjsBZjUo%3d
(Not that one of mine is on the top row of that page, oh no)
Or you go in looking for an author. Those pages are much less overwhelming. My paghe, for example:
http://www.jasminejade.com/m-489-angelia-sparrow.aspx
Two of them are m/f, the rest are m/m.
So do they ever have special calls for submissions, like anthologies or something? Or do you write a novel or novella and then hope they will buy it? Their submission page sure doesn’t say much, like favorite genres and page/word counts or anything.
Also, aren’t they the ones that you can not EVER use words like fag? Even if you have a character that is getting fag bashed or something. The attackers have to say “Hey you gay person!?” or something like that?
But if they sell that well…!
They do special calls. That’s how I got out of the slush pile. I sent in a Halloween story. And they are hot for m/m titles right now too.
The Author Information packet hasn’t been updated since June. So I’m guessing there are no new calls. Check it again in January.
You find the story length by hovering over “Book Length” under a title.
Quickies are up to 15K
Novellas 15-29,999
Short novels 30-44999
Novels 45-69999
Plus novels 70-99999
Super Plus novels 100K+
And yes, this is the one with the no hate speech rule, which extends even to gay people using “queer” as an umbrella descriptor for the community. They prefer not to have situations where someone gets harmed in the books. They much prefer another sex scene.
I can’t wait for it to see “print!”
… neither can I. 🙂
You are so incredibly sweet.
Silver reply back quickly so *fingers crossed*.
Thank you!
OH!
I bought Mine and have read about half of it and so far, hands DOWN, I loved your story the best. You are a very fine writer… I sure would like to know what happened next though! OMG!
Good luck with your submission to Silver Publishing!! Your valentine’s story is wonderful, I don’t see why they wouldn’t want it!!
*hugs*
Thank you so much sweetie!