First, forgive my generic greeting, but I have only a short amount of spare time and a fairly long list of people to contact.
I am writing this as a preliminary invitation for you to grant one time print rights in the English language to Double-Edged Publishing, Inc. so that your story (in the list that follows) might appear in a forthcoming anthology: Distant PassagesThe Best from Double-Edged Publishing, 2005.
In return for your granting these one time print rights (a complete contract will be executed, once we have preliminary consent to proceed from the invited authors), you will receive one contributor copy. Additionally, you will be entitled to on-going royalty payments derived from the following rubric:
The price of the book will be set based on production costs (book will be produced using Lulu’s printing services) and a reasonable markup. The difference between the cost of the book and the price will be the basis for the royalty.
Double-Edged Publishing will be assigned five (5) shares.
Each contributor will be assigned one (1) share for appearing in the book.
Each contributor will be assigned additional shares for each page, or part of page, on which his or her contribution appears up to a maximum of ten (10) additional shares. Regardless of page length, the additional shares assigned will not exceed 10.
The royalty earned from book sales will be divided according to shares.
Once preliminary agreement is given by the authors, the book will be roughed together and shares will be determined. The actual official contract will include specific information about book length, price, and shares / payment per copy due. However, until I know who will accept the invitation, such calculations cannot be made.
What does this mean, in regards to payment? Well, if you look at the list below, you will see that there are 19 items we want to use. So, with DEP’s 5 shares, the work begins with 23 shares. If every item is only 1 page long, we are up to 42 shares, and of course, many of the items are going to max out. But using just 42 shares as a starting point, if there is a $5.00 markup on the book, then each share is worth only about 12 cents. More likely, a share is going to be worth a couple of pennies. Feel free to play around with the numbers. I believe I have come to the point I intended to make: Unless we sell thousands and thousands of copies, your cash realization is going to be negligible.
The main benefit you derive from participating in this project is the right to claim your story was selected to appear in the "Best of 2005" DEP anthology. You also get a contributor copy that your agent might find noteworthy. You also get to recycle an already-printed-once story.
So what’s going in this anthology? The invitees from The Sword Review and Dragons, Knights, & Angels include (not to necessarily appear in this order):
Fiction
Last Hurrah -- L. S. King
Old Soul -- Mike Wever
Beautiful Dreamer -- Edward McKeown
Moonstone -- by Joseph Thomas Mahoney
All That Glitters -- Pam L. Wallace
The Choosing -- by Selena Thomason
Dark Angel - Benigno -- by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
Treecutter -- by Scott M. Sandridge
Captain Jack Bowie and the Steel Wolf Renegades -- by Sean T. M. Stiennon
No Greater Love--by Wesley Lambert
The Anointed -- by Rosemary McMillen
City of Deliverance -- by Robert Barlow Presence -- Domyelle Rhyse(<~ this is my fantasy pseudonym)
Racing the Gap -- Byron Leavitt
Poetry
And on the Seventh Day ... by Marsheila Rockwell
Traveller's Tale -- Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
Rosemary -- Jamie Voss
Welcoming Armageddon With Open Arms -- Mikal Trimm
The Ship -- Terry Weide
Amazingly, some of these authors where nominated for more than one work, and Wade Ogletree’s "A Picture’s Worth" would have been in this list, had it not already appeared in Better Fiction’s Year in Review.
Please reply to this email with your acceptance of this invitation as soon as possible. If you wish to decline the invitation, then please reply quickly, as well, so work on this project can continue.
In closing, let me thank you for your support of SR and DKA over 2005. This year (2006) is off to a great start with site visits up dramatically! Your continued interest and support of these publications is appreciated greatly. Thank you.
--
Bill Snodgrass
President and Director
Double-Edged Publishing
www.doubleedgedpublishing.com
who cares about the money (at least this time around): i am going to get to physically hold a book in my hands that has MY story in it!
you better believe i sent in my acceptance already.
me. published. in a real book! WOOT!
(i've been sick since last night, and i still can't stop chair dancing! heeeeeeeeee!)