Contest winner, two new anthology opportunities, and more

“The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business”  John Steinbeck

The winners of my contest are 

Jenna Bayley-Burke 

Cynthia Boris

Koko Brown  

 

You’ve each won a Platinum Membership to Auto-crit. Someone will contact you via email about this soon. If anyone else wants to check out Auto-crit, go to http://www.autocrit.com

 

Thank you so much to everyone who entered.

 

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Samhain Publishing has put out a call for Submissions for two new anthologies:

Red Hot Fairy Tales To be released in Summer 2010, this anthology focuses on “super-hot fairy tales.” Stories can be any subgenre of erotic romance, though they must have a happy ending.  Stories should be 20,000 to 25,000 words. They’ll be released individually as ebooks in August 2010 and  in print in Spring 2011. Submit the full manuscript with a 2-5 page synopsis. Submit only one manuscript per anthology. When you send your manuscript, please be sure to use the  naming convention FairyTales_Title_MS or FairyTales_Title_Synopsis.  Deadline for submissions is February 1st, 2010 and final decision will  be made by February 15th, 2010. Please send your submission to  editor@samhainpublishing.com and include Red Hot Fairy Tales Anthology
 in the subject line. Questions and queries can be addressed to Laurie
 M. Rauch (laurie@samhainpublishing.com)

 

Steampunk Romance Anthology Samhain plans to release this anthology in Fall 2010. ” Don’t know what steampunk is? Think League of Extraordinary Gentleman and The  Wild, Wild West. Even Joss Whedon’s Firefly and Serenity have steampunk elements transported into space. For more information about  steampunk, you can check out the entry on Wikipedia.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk.”  All sub-genres of romance and all levels of sexual heat are welcome in this anthology, as long as the ending is Happily-ever-after or “Happily for now”.  25,000 to 30,000 words. The stories will be released as individual e-books in November 2010. Send the full manuscript with a 2-5 page synopsis and a letter of introduction. When you send your manuscript, please be sure to use the  naming convention Steampunk_Title_MS and Steampunk_Title_Synopsis.

 

Deadline for submissions is April 30, 2010. A final decisionwill be made by May 31. Please send your submission to  editor@samhainpublishing.com and include Steampunk Anthology in the  subject line. Questions and queries can be addressed to Sasha Knight  (sasha@samhainpublishing.com).

 

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Pill Hill Press  is holding a short story contest with the theme Love Kills: My Bloody Valentine. Winners will be published in an anthology. In addition, the following prizes will be awarded:

 1st Place – $125.00 + 1 contributor’s copy of the book
 2nd Place – $50.00 + 1 contributor’s copy of the book
3rd Place – $25.00 + 1 contributor’s copy of the book
Runners-up – 1 contributor’s copy of the book

 

The editors are looking for scary stories. “Stories should take place
 at or around Valentine’s Day. Think obsession, lust, heartache,  stalkers, etc. Serial killer stories welcome.  We prefer stories with atmospheric suspense vs. gore. Gruesome and/or  sexy scenes are acceptable as long as they are essential to plot  development.”  They prefer stories written in third person. Stories should be 2,000 to 6, 000 words, though they prefer stories in the 3,000-5,000 word range. Dealine January 15, 2010.  Stories can take place at any time (past, present, future, alternate),  and can take place anywhere (Earth, sea, outer space, other planets,  etc.) as long as they fit the theme of Love Kills: My Bloody Valentine. Find all the details about this and other upcoming Pill Hill Press anthology projects at http://www.pillhillpress.com/open-submissions.html 

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My website has been updated. Check out my upcoming projects and bookcovers at http://www.CindiMyers.com

 

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As always, feel free to pass along the information in this blog. If any part of it is reproduced or quoted, please give me credit, and please include a link to this blog.

 

Harlequin’s new e-pub venture, new short fiction market and more

“Be persistent. Editors change; tastes change; editorial markets change. Too many beginning writers give up too easily.”  John Jakes

The big buzz this week is about Harlequin’s new e-publishing venture, Carina Press.  Headed by veteran Malle Valik and edited by Angela James, formerly of Samhain Publishing, the e-book only publisher expects to release its first titles in the Spring of 2010. Though the parent company is Harlequin, Carina Press is structured as a separate entity. They’ll have an e-book store just for Carina Press. Contracts will be similar to other e-publishing contracts: i.e. no advance but higher royalties. Royalties will be 30% of cover price, paid twice a year.

Plans are to publish “a broad range of fiction with an emphasis on romance.”  They will look at almost anything except young adult, poetry or nonfiction, including: romance, women’s fiction, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, adventure,  thrillers, horror, futuristic and erotica. They are interested in complete manuscripts only at this time, but ask that you query first. Send your query to submissions@carinapress.com Fine the complete submission guidelines here.

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Markets for short genre fiction are hard to come by, so it’s always nice to be able to share a new one. The pay is not great, but if you have a short story you’d love to find a home for,  Untied Shoelaces of the Mind might be for you. The editors are looking for genre and literary stories between 100 and 2000 words. Payment is 3 cents a word up to $30.  They’re interested in romance, humor, science fiction and fantasy, thriller, mystery, horror and mixes of the above. Find all the details at the website.

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Thank you to everyone for your great blog comments. Keep them coming. The contest is open until Sunday, November 15. Post a comment on the blog and you could win one of three platinum memberships to AutoCrit.com.

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Her Christmas Wish is available from eHarlequin.com now and will be for sale in stores soon. This is the last of my Crested Butte mini-series for Harlequin American. Think romance in a snowy ski-resort town. Perfect for curling up with in front of the fire or under the Christmas tree — or while you’re digesting that Thanksgiving feast.

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I’m guest blogging today at RomCon. Please stop by and say hello.

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Thank a veteran today. Their service means so much.

 

Spotlight on Bethany House, Contest and more

“I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.”  Peter De Vries

I’ll start this first week in November with a look at the Spotlight on Bethany House from the Romance Writers of America conference in Washington, DC.

David Long, Sr. Acquisitions Editor for Bethany House presented this spotlight. Bethany House is owned by Baker Publishing Group. Baker is the fourth largest Christian publisher in the world. In 1979, Bethany House published Love Comes Softly by Jeanette Oke, one of the very first inspirational fiction titles. They are pioneers in the field. Bethany House is known for its beautiful covers.

Bethany House today publishes best-selling and award winning authors. They publish in a variety of genres. Historical romance is a big part of their list. Of the approximately 40 books a year they publish, 18-20 are historical romance. They are usually set in the 1800s in the US. They publish prairie romances, as well as other historical time periods. They do a few books set in England in the Regency and Victorian eras.

They also publish historical women’s fiction or multi-generational sagas. There may be a romance element to these stories, but romance is not central to these books.

An emerging genre of successful inspirational fiction is Amish fiction. Every major Christian publisher is publishing these books right now, which have proved very popular with readers. Bethany House publishes Bev Lewis, one of the first successful authors or Amish fiction.

This has led to other books about closed communities, featuring Mennonites, Shakers, the Amana Colonies, etc.

Bethany has not done a lot of romantic suspense, but they are interested in romantic suspense. Long cited romantic suspense as the area at Bethany where there is the greatest opportunity for new authors. They don’t do cozy mystery type stories. The stories should be darker and more intense and he’s very interested in historical romantic suspense. He’s not so interested in typical roles such as FBI agents and law enforcement characters or serial killers.

Bethany has not published straight contemporary romance but they’re interested in contemporary women’s fiction with romance as a subplot. They don’t do Chick Lit or Mom Lit. They do some romantic comedy.

They also do suspense and mystery and some speculative fiction aimed at teens and twenties. (But no vampires.)

They don’t have a hard and fast word count. They’ve published 120,000 word books (though not a lot) and 65,000 word books.

Bethany’s books are carried in Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) stores, in mass merchandisers such as Walmart, Sam’s and Costco as well as the Christian Fiction sections of general interest booksellers such as Barnes and Noble and Borders. Walmart is the number one retailer of Christian fiction in the world.

Bethany House has no formal list of dos and don’t. Content concerns are addressed on a book by book basis. “If you’re looking to get into the inspirational market, that’s something you’re going to have to face and reconcile as a writer,” Long said.

Bethany House is looking for books that has Christian themes woven in in an organic way. They arise from the characters and the issues in the book.

“We are a house that values new writers and new voices.” They continue to buy new authors. They don’t accept unsolicited submissions. They generally prefer agented submissions. However, if you meet an editor at a conference or another Bethany House author recommends you, you can send a query or any requested material.

For more information, visit their website at http://www.bethanyhouse.com

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To celebrate the launch of this blog, Autocrit.com, an editing website for writers, has donated three Platinum memberships for me to give away to three lucky readers of this blog.  You can find out more about Autocrit at http://www.autocrit.com.

Here’s how the contest works. Anyone who posts a comment this week or next week will be eligible to win. The cutoff day for posts is Sunday, November 15. I’ll draw the names and announce the winners sometime after the 15th. Good luck!

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Strangetastic (http://www.strangetastic.com) is a new online publication looking for all kinds of supernatural fiction, from dark fantasy to light horror.  Stories should be between 1000 and 6000 words. Payment is $25. Find all the details at http://www.strangetastic.com/submissions

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Her Christmas Wish is available from eHarlequin.com now. This is the final (for now) installment of my Crested Butte series. You can order the book here: http://www.eharlequin.com/storeitem.html?iid=20572&cid=244  Or wait for it to show up in stores December 12.

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Feel free to link to this blog or reprint or share the information with others. All I ask is that you give me credit and print the link to the blog.

 

Spotlight on Dorchester

” I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, ‘To hell with you.’”  Saul Bellow

This week I’m taking a look at the Spotlight on Dorchester Books from the Romance Writers of America conference in Washington DC.  

Senior Editor Chris Keeslar presented this Spotlight. He has been with Dorchester for 14 years. Dorchester is one of the last independent publishers of mass market fiction. Dorchester publishes all types of fiction-romance, thrillers, westerns, science fiction, fantasy and horrorAlicia Condon, Leah Hultenschmidt and Chris are the three romance editors at Dorchester.

Imprints include Leisure Books and Lovespell. They distribute Hard Case Crime and Wildside Science Fiction and Fantasy but don’t handle editorial for those imprints. They usually release 6 romances a month–3 hsitoricals, 2 paranormal and one that’s something else. Dorchester is a small company, but has wide distribution in all major outlets. They’ll also expanding into all formats of e-books.

Dorchester is very editorial driven. Being a small house, they can act quickly to move into areas that interest them. Instead of doing what marketing tells them to do, the editors can do what they love. “We’re very passionate about what we do,” Chris said.

They try to promote a family atmosphere with authors and editorial. “The authors are the biggest part of what makes Dorchester great…we just get to be lucky enough to buy them.”

Bestselling authors who have been published by Dorchester include Katie McAllister, Nina Bangs Lindsey Sands, Christine Feehan, Cheryl Wilson and many more. But they are always looking for new authors also to add new voices and ideas. They published 12 first-time authors in 2009. Chris judges a lot of contests and says he thinks this is a great way to get your work in front of an editor. He has bought authors who came to his attention through contests — and they weren’t always the contest winners. Currently, Dorchester is involved with a contest with http://www.TextNovel.com

For more information about Dorchester, how to submit to them and their guidelines, visit their website at http://www.dorchesterpub.com, especially their message boards. For example, at the time of the talk you could submit a query through the message boards directly to the editors.

Http://www.romanticreads.net is Leah’s blog about the romance industry and Dorchester. You can also follow them on Twitter.

They publish historicals, time travel, futuristic, paranormal, thriller, romantic suspense, and romantic comedy. Historicals make up 1/3 to ½ their list. They publish medievals, British, westerns, Native American romance, Regency-set historicals. They have done more exotic time periods and settings such as Egypt. He published a book set in 1930s India. But if you’re writing in a less-popular time period, you need a really strong hook. He’s very open to different settings and time periods.

Dorchester was one of the first places to regularly publish paranormal. They publish all kinds of paranormal romance, in tones from light and quirky to dark. They’ve done superhero books and fantasy romance, gothics — a wide variety. He wondered if anyone has a unicorn romance — he might like to see something like that. He really likes fantasy romance.

They seldom publish straight contemporary romance and the don’t publish straight erotica. They do publish “fairly erotic romance”.

“If you’re thinking ‘my book doesn’t fit in any particular slot’ maybe we’re the people you should come to.” But know your audience and who you’re trying to connect with — have a strong hook.

Dorchester now accepts email submissions. Email the complete manuscript and a synopsis of approximately 3-7 pages. Send to submissions@dorchesterpub.com Manuscripts should be 75,000-90,000 words. Response time is 6-8 months. Chris admitted he can take longer. Dorchester accepts both agented and unagented submissions.

If you’re a midlist author published elsewhere, Dorchester would like to see something new from you that you haven’t tried elsewhere.

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ePublisher Breathless Press is looking for Valentine’s Day themed stories for a contest. Deadline to enter is December 1 and there is no entry fee. Two winners will receive a publishing contract, a video trailer and a blog tour to promote their work. Enter in the following categories: 

Flirts: under 1,000 words

Temptations: 1,500 – 5,000 words

Novelette: 5,000 – 10,000 words

Novella: 10,000 – 50/60,000 words

Novel: 50/60,000-100,000 words

Send query to: acquisitions @ breathlesspress.com

For more info, go to http://www.breathlesspress.com/valentines

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My new release, Her Christmas Wish, will be available from eHarlequin.com beginning November 1 — in stores the first week in December. This heartwarming, humorous love story would make a great stocking stuffer or a treat for yourself in the busy holiday season. Find out more at http://www.cindimyers.com

 

Ballantine/Bantam Dell

This week I’m looking at the Spotlight on Ballantine/Bantam Dell from the Romance Writers of America convention in Washington, DC.

The spotlight was presented by Senior Editor Shauna Summers and Senior Editor Kate Collins.

Shauna works on romance, commercial women’s fiction and general commercial fiction.

Kate is in charge of the romance list at Ballantine.

Ballantine/Bantam Dell is an imprint of Random House. Random restructured last year, going from five publishing divisions to three: Knopf/Doubleday, Crown and Random House Publishing Group. Random House Publishing Group (part of Random House, Inc) involves Del Ray, Spectra, Delacort, Bantam Dell, Ballantine, Modern Library, Dial Press and Random House imprints. As Shauna explained, “The way that I like to think of it is that before we were cousins….now we’re like sisters, with even closer cooperation.” The imprints are still separate with separate editorial departments, but they share some internal functions.

Ballantine and Bantam Dell both publish a wide range of romance – contemporary, paranormal, romantic suspense and historical romance. Both editors spent some time talking about the authors they publish. You can see their list at http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/

Shauna emphasized that both Ballantine and Bantam Dell are buying right now. They are interested in authors and don’t have certain slots to fill or a particular number of books they publish each month.

Both said several times that they will buy “really good books.” They seemed reluctant to say they wouldn’t want something, not wanting to limit themselves. However, after repeated questions, Kate said she really likes sexy romantic suspense. She’s not a huge fan of Regency historicals or comedy, but she has bought both. YA, fantasy and urban fantasy and steampunk are handled by other divisions of Random House.

They admitted that the current economy has made all publishers pickier. They will look much harder at new submissions, and the editors must be able to really justify a desire to purchase a book. The days of editors buying a book simply because they love it are no more. But they continue to buy both new and established authors.

They do not accept email queries but you may send hardcopy queries. They generally only accept agented manuscripts but will accept unagented queries. They warned that agented work gets first look, so it will take longer to hear back from them if you don’t have an agent.

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Charles Griesman has taken over the Associate Editor’s position at Silhouette Books previously held by Diana Ventimiglia. Griesman will be working for Silouette Desire. He previously was an assistant editor for Silhouette Special Edition, and befor that worked for Time Warner.

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Karen Woods is putting together a fantasy anthology, with all proceeds going to the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research. She’s looking for fantasy short stories which deal in some way with the consequences of dishonesty.  5000 to 10,000 words, in all sub-genres of fantasy except erotica or erotic romance.  You can find all the details at http://www.sleepingbeaglebooks.com

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Check out my latest books, see upcoming work and link to excerpts at http://www.cindimyers.com

 

Tor Books and more

 

 

 

 

This week, I’m reporting on the Spotlight on Tor Books from the Romance Writers of America’s National Convention.

 

The Spotlight on Tor was presented by Heather Osborn, Editor, Tor Paranormal Romance. Also with her was Melissa Frain, Assistant Editor.

 

Tor has been publishing romance for four years. They publish one romance a month, all paranormal romance. They also publish urban fantasy that is not part of the romance line.

 

Because Tor is primarily a science fiction and fantasy imprint, they like their romances to have a strong paranormal element. They publish all sub-genres: vampires, werewolves, psychics, witches,  fallen angels, futuristics – pretty much anything goes. She loves steampunk. She also loves fantasy romance and space opera type romances. She’d like to see more futuristics set on other planets. She likes everything from humorous to dark. Heather previously worked for Ellora’s Cave, so she’d open to erotic content, though that’s not the focus of Tor’s line.

 

She’s not a fan of time travel or ghosts. Doesn’t like historical western or Civil War settings. And she doesn’t like Gothics.

 

Time travel is an iffy genre for paranormal. The paranormal element must be strong in all the time periods – time travel alone is not enough.

 

They’re okay with stand alone books, series or trilogies.

 

Melissa is looking “almost exclusively for young adult.” She likes YA urban fantasy and YA romance for older teens, dark and edgier. 65,000 to 85,000 words.

 

Tor will accept unagented and unsolicited manuscripts. Don’t just query, send the submission. Submission guidelines http://us.macmillan.com/Content.aspx?publisher=torforge&id=255

 

Include a brief cover letter, a synopsis that includes the beginning, middle and end of the book and the first three chapters. Write Tor Paranormal Romance on the envelope.

 

In addition to paranormal romance, she’s interested in urban fantasy. She’s open to YA paranormal romance and YA urban fantasy. You may submit YA to Heather, Melissa or to the Tor YA editor, Susan Chang. If the romance is really strong, send to Heather.

 

Length 75,000 – 100,000 words for romance. Fantasy is much longer.

 

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Check out the covers for my January books:

Baby, It’s Cold Outside, an anthology with Jennifer Greene and Merline Lovelace: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/imageviewer.asp?ean=9780373837397 or http://tinyurl.com/yly4733 

and The Father For Her Son  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/imageviewer.asp?ean=9780373783571 or http://tinyurl.com/yjtjvt8

 

 

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Shock Totem publishes dark fantasy and horror short stories. Payment is 5 cents a word. Editors K. Allen Wood, John Boden and Nick Contor are looking for mystery, fantasy, suspense, supernatural and morbid humor with a clear horror element. They’ll accept unpublished stories no longer than 5000 words. Find the guidelines at http://www.shocktotem.com/guidelines.html

 

 

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I was honored to be invited to participate in the anthology Broken Links, Mended Lives, a short story collection produced by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. You can get your copy here http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Broken-Links-Mended-Lives/Carol-Berg/e/9780976022527/?itm=9 or http://tinyurl.com/q5f79h  

 

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As always, feel free to pass along this newsletter. If any part of it is reproduced or quoted, please give me credit. Anyone can sign up for weekly notices of new blog postings by sending a blank email to CynthiaSterling-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

 

 

 

 

Welcome to my new home.

Welcome to the new home of Cynthia Sterling’s Market News. The information I used to send in my weekly market newsletter will now be posted here. You’ll still receive updates via email to alert you to new posting. You can also sign up for an RSS feed so you don’t miss anything.

The new blog allows me to reach more readers and to interact with them via comments. I hope you enjoy the new format.