Hello All,
Welcome to my Stencil Press web page. This is the entity I created after Rhemalda ceased operations and I needed a place for my reprints (I've got a book coming out with Perseid at some point too by the way).
Most of you are here because Shane Porteous (he of "The Battle of Ebulon" fame) wrote the following post on the Heroic Fantasy Facebook group:
"There seems to be a lot of active authors in this group and I was just wondering if the Heroic Fantasy group has ever done an anthology? If not the Moderators should organize one. (hint, hint) Ha ha"
Well, as sometimes happens, the thread blew up and it seems like this project is gathering steam. First Shane said he'd contribute, then Janet Morris, and from there it just snowballed. Here are some of the works of the other authors who have expressed interest so far:
The Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles, Alex Butcher (next on my review list)
A Song of Betrayal, Jesse Duckworth (I'm doing a compilation with Jesse at some point soon as well)
Waters of Darkness, Joe Bonadonna (I linked to his author page)
Veil of the Dragon, Tom Barczak (One of my fellow Ebuloners)
King's Envoy, Cas Peace (One of my fellow Rhemalders--this is a great book by the way)
Legends Reborn, Douglas Brown (One of my fellow Rhemalders--this is a great book by the way)
Seed of Vyldur, Fawkes Paz (This guy's a hack, but I'm including him out of nepotism...gonna cry now Fawkes? Gonna cry?)
A couple more maybe...
Here is the concept:
Each writer submits a Heroic Fantasy themed short story. This isn't a "shared world" collection. The only thematic link between stories is that they all are an example of heroic fantasy (no spaceships). It's a pretty loose assignment, I understand that. I want to see how you attack it and I want you all to feel free to write whatever you want. Some erotica and violence (probably a lot of violence) is OK, but no child abuse stuff please. Word count is a "soft" 5k (which means you can go as high as 10k I suppose, but seriously...5k is a nice length right?). I feel that 50,000 words is a good number for a kindle book (I want to keep the option open for paperback too, but it will start as kindle). If the book gets too long, I might publish it as two kindle volumes and one paperback volume.
Royalties:
This is an exposure book, so I don't plan on paying out royalties. I do plan on spending the proceeds 3 ways: 1. Covering the publishing expenses (I anticipate those will be around $75--more details later). 2. Promoting the book 3. Promoting the Heroic Fantasy Facebook Group. I do intend to include a cover image and link to the kindle version of a different book by each of the participating authors. I want to make it super easy for people to purchase your books after discovering your work in this one.
For promotion, I'm planning on purchasing a Facebook ad for $100 or so and launching it on the day the book is set for free. I haven't ever tried this before, so it will be a fun experiment (I'll make sure to let everyone know how it works). I'll do the same tactic when I generate enough money to promote the Heroic Fantasy Facebook Group.
The $75 in expenses are from two things: editing and the create space worldwide distribution option ($25). The $50 I plan to spend on editing is going to go to a friend of mine who lives in Peru (I have a connection to Peru, if you know nothing about me, you can spend a month or so reading this page...then you'll know too much). You may not think you can get a good editing job for $50, but expenses are low in Peru, and this friend of mine loves to do it. He's an ex PhD candidate and he knows what he's doing. Plus, I'll be doing most of the heavy lifting, I plan on turning over a pretty clean manuscript (but lord knows I miss stuff, Janet can attest to that).
I'm looking forward to the opportunity to work with all of you in this fashion and if we find it works, maybe there will be a chance to do some other projects. If it doesn't work out (i.e. you can't stand interacting with me), this project should be a relatively small time commitment on your part (and you still get some publicity) so I think this is a good deal.
The Kindle version of the book will be priced at $1.59.
Contract
Janet is putting together some contract language. We want to keep it simple, but that's impossible with anything legal. If you object to the contract, you can take your story back with no hard feelings.
Deadline
Please confirm your participation and write me an email: walterrhein@gmail.com. If you want to get started, you can send me a 640 pixel (or greater) .jpg of the book cover you want me to promote (I'll be changing it to black and white when I upload it to kindle), and an author bio. I'll need your story by January 1st, 2014. That seems like a long ways from now, but remember there are a lot of holidays coming up and those SUCK your time--so start daydreaming about this project as you drive around. I'll send you all a group email periodically just to stoke the fire.
If you have any more questions, shoot them at me in the comments or through email.
Now lets all stand and give Shane Porteous a round of applause...I guess I know whose name will be on the acknowledgements page :)
