Two’s Company on Flashes in the Dark

For those of you that missed it the first time around, my conjoined twin love story is reprinted today on Flashes in the dark.

Its a moving little tale of a man, a woman, an evil mutant conjoined twin and a hacksaw.

You can read it HERE

The big anthology con

I am going to get on my soapbox here and have a bit of a rant, so apologies in advance.

It seems to me, that there are an increasing number of calls for anthology submissions from small presses. Certainly, there are more listed on places like Duotrope, or within the various horror related message boards, than there were last year.

There are a few things that these anthologies tend to have in common.

1: They do not give contributor copies

2: They are all produced by sites like Lulu or Createspace

3: They either don’t pay their contributors, or provide a token payment of about $5 or 1.5c per word.

4: They all cost between $12 and $20 a copy.

Now, as a new writer, I was thrilled to get my first story included in a printed anthology. There was something exciting about having my story in a printed book. It made my progress as a writer seem more real somehow, than ezine publication. I bought myself a copy, one for my parents, and sent another to my sister.

Over the period of a year, I had another two stories published in antho’s – one in a “Best of…” edition, and another that I was asked to contribute to. I purchased my copy, and again, sent one to my parents (my sister lost out due to lack of funds).

Then the penny dropped.

These antho’s paid me a grand total of $10 combined (I donated my $5 fee from one of them to charity). I had spent roughly $100 buying my contributor copies. It was essentially costing me money to be a part of these books. I did’nt mind this too much as two of the antho’s were for charity and Toe Tags was being put together by a couple of writing buddies and I was happy to support it. However, this was not something I could afford to make a habit of.

Now, unlike some of my peers, I don’t have a problem in giving my work away for nothing. Free ezines gave me my start in writing, gave me the confidence to push on to bigger and better things, and gave me a core readership (although, admittedly, quite a small one). These sites are hosted, updated and maintained by people who love what they do, and some of the work on them is very good indeed. I am happy to support these places.

Anthologies however, are something else entirely. I have my suspicions that the only people who actually buy a lot of these books are the people that contribute to them, plus their family and friends. While the ezines are doing it for the love of the craft, these books are, in some instances, taking advantage of the authors. You give your work away for nothing, or as near to nothing as makes no difference. You then pay the publisher for the honour of having your work in print. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few good publishers out there, but there are also some really dodgy ones too.

So…what exactly is the difference between submitting something to an anthology, and just packaging up your various short stories and creating your own collection on somewhere like Lulu?

Out of curiosity, I ran the wizard on Lulu and the cost per book for a standard 300 page paperback came out at £5.50, or £7.10 for a larger book (A4)

That comes in at almost half the cover cost of many of these anthologies – so in essence, the publisher is making between £7 and £13 per book that you buy.

Doing the maths on this, assuming a 22 story anthology sells 2 copies per author, then the publisher is making £308 per anthology. Take off the £5 that they pay each author, and they have more or less £200 left over, with Lulu, Amazon etc taking the rest.

Hardly seems worth it to be honest. You have to wonder why alot of these guys bother.

There are, of course, some other publishers that pay a modest sum for the story and provide a contributors copy. Great! I’ll send my story to them instead I think.

I have submitted four stories over the past year to anthologies of this nature. I have had no rejections from any of these stories.

However, I have also had no acceptances either.

This is because, without exception, every single one of these anthologies has been cancelled, put on hold or simply vanished into the ether.

Three of the stories were reprints, so, to be honest, I did’nt care. I watched with amusement as the publisher announced a new anthology at the rate of around one a week, and announced that submissions were closed and anthologies were put on hold at roughly the same rate. Clearly I am not going to be wasting my time sending them anything else.

There was one, however, that I had high hopes for. It paid semi pro rates, and a contributor copy. My story was as polished as I could make it. The publisher, while a small press, had a good reputation and I was genuinely excited about the chance of inclusion in the book.

Acceptances / Rejections were promised by January. This was pushed back to March. Then I got a mail informing me that my story was shortlisted at the end of March, with a promise that a final decision would be made within the next three to four weeks. Updates were made on the publishers website, stating that acceptances and rejections were being sent out. It looked good. Then, in April, the updates stopped and nothing was heard, despite several of the authors prodding the editor on the forum.

Then, today, the editor announced that he was resigning from the project, and that the anthology may not happen at all. 8 months of waiting, checking emails and forums for absolutely nothing. Another anthology bites the dust.

So, my writer friends, consider this. If you want your work in print, then it will probably be cheaper for you to create your own book on Lulu that you can give out to your loved ones, and have lying around on the coffee table. The “for the love” antho’s are often vanity publishing that you are paying twice the going rate for. Sad but true.

Even anthologies from reputed publishers vanish up their own arses at an alarming rate, or at the very least, leave you waiting for months and months for any feedback.

Personally, I am not bothering with anthologies any more. My work will go to a mix of free ezines and some paying sites and magazines. If you do decide to submit your stuff to an anthology, I wish you the best of luck, but be prepared for it to hit you in the pocket, or for your story to vanish from the face of the earth for months at a time.

Rant over…as you were

Fears of a clown up at New Flesh Magazine

My flash fiction story “Fears of a clown” is live at New Flesh.

This is probably one of the creepiest stories I have done. It has given at least one person I know nightmares.

Well, what do you expect. Clowns are creepy enough. A demonic clown that stalks you…

You can find the story HERE or in the stories section of this site.

Have fun and don’t let the clown get you.

Mr Whiskers at Liquid Imagination

My flash fiction story, Mr Whiskers, is live today at Liquid Imagination #6

The link to the story is HERE

There is a fantastic narration of the story, performed by Bob Eccles, at the top of the page. I especially love that he did the sound effects.

This story is dedicated to anyone who believes that their cat is evil – if you see a pattern emerging between Mr Whiskers and your beloved ball of fur, claws and hatred, then beware.

I had a lot of fun writing this one, I hope you enjoy reading it (or listening to it) as much as I did.

Book Review: Darkness on the edge of town

A good friend of mine recently pointed out that its generally considered bad form to have a blog and just talk about your own writing. So, I’m going to talk about someone elses for a change.

I read Brian Keene’s “Darkness on the edge of town” yesterday, and thought I would share my thoughts with you.

I will start this review off by stating that I am a big fan of Brian Keene’s work. While some of his books have been a little hit and miss, he has also produced some absolute blinders that have stayed with me for months after reading them.

The premise is this. The inhabitants of a small town called Walden wake one morning to discover that the sun did not rise. All utilities are out, there is no communication with the outside world, and on the outskirts of town lays a thick curtain of darkness.

Any of this sounding familiar yet? A little bit like Stephen King’s “Under the dome” perhaps?

While the basic idea is similar, these two books are very different beasts. While King’s novel was a beautifully described rambling monster of a novel that suffered from some pacing problems, “Darkness” is a fast paced, adrenaline fuelled rollercoaster ride that comes in at less than a quarter of the size of “Under the dome”.

Fans of Keene’s earlier work will see an expansion of his Labyrinth mythology that has been a common theme in many of his books. There are quite a few references to other books, without this one being directly linked to any of them, or requiring prior knowledge of them to enjoy. With Keene’s adherence to the multiple alternate realities theory, fans of the series could almost consider this to be a “What If…” sequel to Ghost Walk, where the protagonists in that book failed to stop the threat.

However, there are a couple of niggles that I have. First of all, because of the style of the narrative (first person, past tense) we are limited to a fairly narrow view of proceedings. The author’s choice, to write the novel in the style of a “found notebook” means that we are always going to be limited to a single character’s point of view, and a fairly ambiguous ending that will annoy some (although there are clues within the story that make it a little more obvious as to what happens to the characters after the story ends).

There is also a fairly hefty chunk of exposition prior to the last act, where we get brought up to speed on the aforementioned Labyrinth mythology, which slows things down and gives a lot of information that readers of his other work will already be familiar with.

The biggest issue, however, is with the final act of the book. I am not talking about the ambiguity of the ending here either. There is a great deal of potential for conflict that just does not get used. Nothing is really resolved and the characters do not even directly participate in events. As a result, the ending sort of fizzles out without any real climax to speak of.

Those things aside, I enjoyed the novel, and read the whole thing in a day, which is always a good sign. Fans of Keene’s work will devour this book; however it’s not his best work by a long shot.

Overall score – 3 out of 5

The Daily Commute on FITD

My flash fiction horror story “The Daily Commute” is now live on Flashes in the Dark. I actually did’nt realise that it was being published until I saw Lori’s facebook notification, so my apologies for the late update. The story was actually live yesterday. Doh!

The story behind this flash was pretty straightforward to tell you the truth.

One morning, after an early start and not enough sleep, I stumbled off a bus and staggered towards the office in search of my coffee.  I realised that I was surrounded by hundreds of other people, all lost in their own little sleep and caffeine deprived worlds, shuffling towards their destinations…a bit like…well, I won’t spoil it for you.

You can find the story HERE

I will post it on the stories section later on.

Three Wishes on Flashes in the Dark

My little flash fiction fairy story, Three Wishes, was published today on Flashes in the Dark.

You can find it HERE

or alternatively, you can access it via the stories section of this site. The URL is HERE

Enjoy

Trans-Antarctica on The New Flesh

One of my older stories, Trans-Antarctica, is live today on The New Flesh ezine.

You can click the link HERE to go to the site and read the story, or alternatively its available in the stories section of this site, for your enjoyment.

Trans-Antarctica came about as a result of a flash fiction challenge on a writers site that I used to use. The prompt was simply “Train”.

I started off with the idea of something being loose on a train. Something with large pointy teeth and a bad attitude that slaughters the passengers.

Now, if I was on a train that had a monster on it, using the passengers as chew toys, the obvious course of action would be to jump off and take your chances with the fall. I was not going to let my characters get off that easily, so I made the environment at least as bad as the monster. Hence the Trans-Antarctic bullet train from Sydney to Buenos Ares was born.

And the ending…well, you know me. I like to throw the occasional surprise into the mix.

Hope you enjoy it. If you do, then check out some of my other, older work in the stories section.

As ever, feedback is gratefully received

Friday Give-Away – The Unclean.

Seeing as how it’s the end of another week, I thought I would give you all a little freebie.

This story was my entry into the extremely successful “Toe Tags” anthology, editied by Brian Barnett and William Pauley III. The artwork to the piece that you can see on the right was done by Mr Josh Day.

The rights to this one reverted back to me recently, so, rather than try and sell this on as a reprint, I thought I would share it with you all.

Hope you enjoy it, but be warned – this is not one to read on your lunch break.

You can still purchase Toe Tags from HERE

Click HERE for the story.

Quick Update

Its been a busy month for me so far, but there has not been a massive amount to report.

I am now back home after working for 6 months in Edinburgh, which is good in that I am home again and get to spend more time with my other half and my pets. Oddly, I am finding that I have less time in the evenings to devote to writing, although I am still squeezing it in where I can.

In terms of things coming up, I have a new comedy horror flash called Mr Whiskers being published in Liquid Imagination #6 at the end of the month, and The New Flesh are reprinting one of my older stories (but one of my favorites) on Monday 17th May.

I am still on the shortlist for Necrotic Tissue with a nasty, creepy little flash tale called “Are we there yet?”, and my Werechickens in Space, 4000 word comedy horror story, “Squawk at the moon”, has made it into the final 30 stories for Graveside Tales upcoming anthology, The Beast Within 2: The Beast Unleashed.

In other news, High Moor is coming along. I am about 1/3 of the way through the first draft and I am very happy with the way that it is going. There are two scenes in particular so far that make very uncomfortable reading, but its not all darkness, so I am making sure that there are liberal doses of humour in there, to give the darkness a counterpoint.

Anyway, I will post more updates as and when I have anything to say.