Hunting Anthology Blues

So a while back (a few months) I decided I’d pick up the gauntlet that had been thrown regarding a hunting anthology. The challenge involved is a simple one: hunting stories tend to be short. Like… really short. Of the submissions in my spreadsheet I have one that weighs in at a hundred words. Balance that with another story at 7500 being the longest I received and yes, this is a problem. I did have something unique to offer the anthology as a publisher, though. I can illustrate it. Which I am doing, and seem to be hitting the right notes with the simple line-art work picturing the various creatures in the stories.

I’d closed out the submission window on June 30, and started to read on July 3, and it’s July 16 and I sent out my last emails for acceptance/rejection late last night, so yeah. Life has been nipping at my ankles and slowing me down, and the contracts were delayed by a week because I simply could not come up with a title to save my life… But there’s another problem.

Look, anthologies can go one of two ways. They can either be a fun idea, but not enough stories come in to fill out a book that will get authors paid, or they can go the other way. The hunting anthology went the other way. I have, in the spreadsheet this morning, some forty stories, from about twenty authors (I solicited multiple submissions, due to the length considerations). Which is amazing, and wonderful, and there are stories in the anthology which are hilarious, or dead serious, and sometimes both in one tale. I’m blown away by the quality of the work sent to me. Seriously, every anthology I’ve done has been a learning experience, and this one just cements my conviction that there are some great writers and storytellers I’m proud to know.

All this is fantastic. I think you can tell I’m a happy woman. However, there’s a problem. It’s a big problem. Anthology is a way to cross-pollinate fan bases. Authors can use this as marketing, to find new fans, and grow their audience. So, in theory, we can justify using anthologies as loss leaders. You might not make any money off that short story, but you will bump up your overall sales. And a lot of publishers front load anthologies with costs, such that the contributors never see a dime in royalties. They will charge for cover art, editing, formatting costs, etc, etc. I don’t do that. I can afford to carry this load, because I’m me, and admittedly most publishers cannot afford to do this, so that’s fine and dandy. But when I say royalty sharing, I mean it. I don’t take off the top for the cover, etc. I just do those things, and I get a share like the authors. Which brings me to the next thing I feel strongly about in anthologies. I want my authors to Get Paid. That’s kind of the point of doing this. It may not be much. The hunting anthology is a wild-eyed experiment. However, if I can maximize the pay for the authors, especially given some of them are first-time authors and the greatest way I can encourage them to write more is to get a royalty check in their hand?

So what I am going to have to do is to make this not one anthology, but two. They won’t be long in words, a mere 30K or so each. However, there will be 15+ stories in each anthology. They will be fully illustrated, and I can set the pricing at a level that will ensure some royalties to authors, where if I have one book with the ebook at, say, 4.99 split 20+ ways, there’s not a lot of meat on the bone for each one. If I do two books, each of them at 4.99, we lose less to the ‘Zon for file transmission costs (downside of illustrating is a larger file size), each author gets a bigger cut, and I’m a happy publisher. The other alternative, of setting the initial price higher… you know I can’t ask 9.99 for an unknown anthology. And paperback? I can set that at, say, 9.95 a copy and fall into the ‘impulse buy’ price band, which would not be the case with a book starting at 19.95.

The first volume of the hunting anthology will be titled How Not to Shoot a Fish and Other Deer That Got Away. I’m open to suggestions for volume 2! Volume one will be published on September 1, the first day of Texas dove hunting season.

Now, I have to figure out publication pacing. And… do I open back up for submissions? I could do that. Hmmm….