Today, we're proudly showing off the front covers for History and Mystery, Oh My! and History and Horror, Oh My! We hope it gives you authors some inspiration and incentive for stories to submit! See our submissions page to learn themes and deadlines for each anthology.

Something else that we hope our authors will find pleasing: we cut the first two tiers of royalty rates, and will now pay 35% royalties for the first thousand books sold. This is an increase in payouts to authors, so we hope it will be a welcome change. The authors for stories in our anthologies will still  be paid pro rata, but the slice will be bigger.

This change will start with Strangely Funny II and continue with History and Mystery, Oh My! and History and Horror, Oh My!. Keep sending those stories in - we love 'em.

Well, I've been reading entries till I'm as cross-eyed as our little bat, but we still have plenty of room in Strangely Funny for more stories. So, if you ever wanted to write a story about an Italian chef who has to quit making garlic bread after becoming a vampire, give it a shot!

In other news: we are working on the guidelines for All Hallows' Evil. Once again, we will be offering a free print copy of the antho to all authors, but we are considering other rewards as well - royalties or a flat fee. 

We do want to reward our authors, so as the press grows, we hope to offer more to our contributors. 

Stay tuned...

Well, our poll told us a few things. First, that most authors would prefer a print copy of the publication to a $5 check. 

We've also had questions about other considerations, such as an electronic copy and author's discounts. Gwen and I have both had numerous publications through POD presses, and nearly all of them offer an electronic 'proof' of the product. Most also offer a discount to authors who want to purchase print copies of the books they've contributed to.

We intend to offer those options, too. The poll was simply to find out whether people preferred money over a trade paperback copy. The amount listed was a small sum because Strangely Funny will be the first offering from a brand new press. We have no profits from previous publications to draw from, and we're making a significant outlay of money up front for ISBNs, cover art, specialized software, etc.

What about royalties, you ask? Okay, maybe you didn't, but I've been there as a writer. The problem with royalties for an anthology: unless the antho is very popular, no one is going to make much after the profit has been divided between 15-20 writers and artists. 

Our long-term plan is to offer a monetary payment AND a free trade paperback copy of the finished product to our contributors. We are authors ourselves, and we put ourselves in your stocking feet every day.

The current compensation is: a free trade paperback copy of the anthology you're in, an electronic proof of the antho, and a 40% author discount on trade paperback copies. I hope this helps clarify things further.