CALLIHOO Newsletter ----------------------------------------------------------------- Vol. 7 No. 10 Editor: Julia West July 27, 1999 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Web page: http://www.sff.net/people/julia.west/CALLIHOO/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS Last reminder about the mini-retreat 30-31 July at Gerry's house. Bring writing implements, food, and sleeping bags. Write all night! DEADLINES Check out the CALLIHOO website, listed above, for more information on these contests, magazine issues, and anthologies. (Where it says "GLs in Vol. X No. Y," these are volume and issue of the CALLIHOO newsletter.) =ByLine= contest, 1st chapter of a novel - Deadline August 5, 1999. [Opening chapter of unpub. novel. Mainstream or genre; adult or YA audience. Maximum 25 pages. =Entry fee $5=. Prizes: $70, $35, $20. (GLs in Vol. 6, No. 36)] =On Spec= Theme issue: Future Crime, deadline 31 August 1999. [SF to 6000 wds, pays to $180C. (GLs in Vol 7, No. 2)] Writersblok Short Story Contest, deadline 31 August 1999. [Any genre story to 15,000 wds, =$25 entry fee=, pays $1000 1st, $250 2nd $75 3rd, E-mail subm. okay, http://www.writersblok.com/ contest.html. (GLs in Vol 7, No 9)] =ByLine= Contest, genre fiction - Deadline September 4, 1999. [Short story to 5,000 wds, romance, sci-fi, confession, mystery, western, etc. No children's stories. =Entry fee $5=. Prizes: $50, $30, $15. (GLs in Vol. 6, No. 36)] =Divas of Darkness= anthology, deadline 15 September 99 or when filled. [H by female writers, 750-3000 wds, pays 1/4 cent/wd. on pub., deadline 15 Sep or when filled, no E-mail subm. or sim sub. (GLs in Vol. 7, No. 8)] =Writers of the Future=, 4th quarter 1999, deadline 30 September 1999. [$1000 first, $750 2nd, $500 3rd place. =No entry fee=. L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, P.O. Box 1630-JBW, Los Angeles, CA 90078. (GLs in Vol. 6, No. 10)] =Technology: The Price We Pay= Fiction Contest, deadline 1 October 1999. [Stories abt. technology, to 10,000 words, =no entry fee=, 1st prize $300 and pub in =Pulp Eternity=. (GLs in Vol. 6, No. 38)] The Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Writing, deadline 15 December 1999. [SF/F by undergrad. students in college or university, 1,000-10,000 wds, 1st place $500, =entry fee $5.00 per story=, no limit to number of entries per person. (GLs in Vol. 6 No. 44)] =PRISM international= 15th Annual Short Fiction Contest 1999, deadline 15 December 1999. [Canadian contest, $2,000C 1st prize, 5 $200 runners-up (+pmt for pub), =$20 1st entry fee=, $5 all others, max. 25 pp. (GLs in Vol. 6 No. 44)] =Pulp Eternity= Volume 9: I Am Cat. Deadline 15 Dec 1999 or when filled. [SF cat stories, to 10,000 wds, pays 3 cents/wd. on pub. http://www. pulpeternity.com. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 5)] =Starlight 3= anthology, deadline end of 1999. [SF/F, pays 7-1/2 cents/wd., no upper word limit, (GLs in Vol. 6, No. 38)] =Extremes: Fantasy and Horror from the Ends of the Earth=, deadline 1 Jan 2000 or when filled. [Limited edition CD anthology, F/H outside USA, pays 1/22 of profits, lwpub@aol.com, http://www.dm.net/~bahwolf/extremes.htm. (Gls in Vol 7 No 10)] ANTHOLOGY =Extremes: Fantasy and Horror from the Ends of the Earth= [Limited edition CD anthology, F/H outside USA, no word limit, pays 1/22 of profits, deadline 1 Jan 200, mult, sim and E-mail subm okay] Editor: Brian A. Hopkins Lone Wolf Publications 13500 SE 79th Street Oklahoma City, OK 73150 brian_a_hopkins@sff.net lwpub@aol.com in (for submissions) =Extremes= is an author-publisher cooperative venture on CD-ROM. Each contributor will receive 1/22nd (4.5%) of all profits, payable as the money rolls in (an estimated total payment of $130.32). Email or write the editor for a detailed explanation [actually, see below], but essentially there will be 20 contributors, an artist, and the editor/publisher, all splitting the profit equally. All contributors will receive monthly financial statements from the publisher. Looking for fantasy and horror stories which take place outside the normal envelope of the continental United States. Story locale should have a direct bearing on the story itself -- don't take the story you just wrote, change its location to the Fiji Islands and send it in thinking it will cut the mustard. The editor is a stickler for details. Put in some research time. Know the area you are writing about. Make sure there's a reason why this particular story could only take place where it did. In addition, all the rules of good storytelling apply. No word limit. No taboos. No reprints. Looking for one artist to design the CD-ROM package [See below--has signed an artist]. Interested artists should contact the editor with samples of their work. The CD-ROM will be a signed limited edition. Only 321 copies will be produced. Submissions will be accepted via email, but you MUST query first to make arrangements. Do NOT send a story to the email address shown above [brian_a_hopkins]. Deadline is January 1, 2000 (or earlier if the 20 contributor slots are filled). Publication date will be April 1, 2000. FAQs and Things the Publisher Neglected to Explain Adequately in the Original Guidelines 1. How will contributors be paid? As =Extremes= makes money, the contributors will make money. Essentially, the publisher will take care of all expenses associated with producing the CD, selling the CD, and shipping the CD. Any income above and beyond that required to repay the publisher's expenses will be divided equally between the 21 contributors (20 authors and the artist) and the publisher, each of whom will, therefore, receive 1/22nd (4.5%) of all profits. The publisher has estimated this as $130.32 per person, computed thus: 321 total copies: 21 contributor's copies provided at no charge 200 copies sold at a retail price of $17.95 (postage included) 100 copies sold at a 40% dealer's discount (postage included) Gross income: 200 x $17.95 + 100 x 0.6 x $17.95 = $4,667 Expenses: $600 Shipping and handling $600 Materials (CDs, jewel cases, etc.) $600 Printing (CD Brochure, flyers, etc.) Total $1,800 Profit: $4,667 - $1,800 = $2,867 Profit per Contributor: $2,867 / 22 = $130.32 The publisher will provide monthly financial statements (via an Excel spreadsheet which has already been created and may be reviewed on request) to all contributors, detailing all expenses, income, and payments. The estimate above assumes all 300 retail copies of =Extremes= sell and that the direct retail to dealer ratio (2 out of every 3 copies sold at retail) remains as predicted. If expenses are less than estimated (and the publisher intentionally estimated on the high side), contributor payments will be higher. The publisher is a firm believer in the K.I.S.S. theory of accounting. 2. In addition to payment, will contributors receive free copies of =Extremes=? Will additional copies be made available and at what cost? Each contributor will receive one gratis copy of =Extremes= (hence, the odd numbering of 321). Additional copies will be made available to contributors at the dealer's discount rate of 40% off the retail price. 3. How will =Extremes= be advertised? Distributed? As a specialty press item limited to 300 retail copies, the publisher anticipates that =Extremes= will sell out by word of mouth alone. As shareholders in the project, the publisher expects each contributor to notify his/her fan base of the existence of =Extremes= and aid in pushing the product. Little or no advertising is planned. Distribution will be handled solely by the publisher. 4. What will be the format of the documents on the CD? Either HTML or PDF that decision has yet to be made, though the publisher has a preference for PDF due to the fact that it locks down the document's format and presents it much the way the pages in a real book appear. The publisher has successfully produced one PDF-formatted CD collection of fiction, =Flesh Wounds= by Brian A. Hopkins, and plans to produce others. 5. Will authors receive galleys for review prior to publication? As an author himself, the publisher understands how writers want to be treated. Of course you'll receive galleys! These will be distributed via email (in fact, the publisher hopes that the entire publishing process can be handled via email, saving us all a lot of postage expenses) after final formatting but prior to burning on CD-ROM. 6. Will submissions be accepted via email? What format? Definitely! Submissions may be emailed to Lone Wolf Publications at lwpub@aol.com in any of the following formats: Wordperfect, MS Word, ASCII, or RTF. (Query first for other formats.) Queries and other correspondence should be directed to the editor at brian_a_hopkins@sff.net -- the Lone Wolf address is ONLY for submissions. Alternately, submissions can be snail-mailed to Lone Wolf Publications, 13500 SE 79th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73150. Please note that stories sent as hardcopy, if accepted, must be supplied as soft copy at a later date. All postal submissions must include a SASE for the editor's response. 7. What rights are you buying? The right to publish the story for the first time in North America in the English language -- what one normally refers to as First North American Serial Rights (FNASR), though with =Extremes= not being a serial publication that's not technically correct. Once the CD is published, all remaining rights revert back to the contributors. Of course, there's always the chance that =Extremes= will go over big and the publisher will want to produce more copies or that a print publisher will want to pick up the volume. In that case, Lone Wolf Publications will, naturally, negotiate a new contract with all contributors. 8. You say this is a signed limited edition? How will contributors sign the CD? Because there is actually not enough room for all 21 contributors to autograph the CD itself, contributors will autograph the brochure which slips into the front of the jewel case. These signature pages will be distributed in "round robin" fashion prior to publication. Each CD will be hand numbered with the same number that appears in the brochure. 9. So, there will only be 20 contributing authors? Who have you already signed? These are the stories for which I have signed contracts on file. I've included the primary location where the story takes place. (Hint: I will probably try to spread out the geographic locations of the 20 stories. I'm less likely to accept a tale set in an area where I've already accepted one.) #8 Tim Lebbon, "The Repulsion" (Amalfi, Italy) #10 Patricia Lee Macomber, "Juxtaposition" (Viet Nam) #20 Ken Rand, "The Find" (Antarctica) #31 Janet Berliner, "Aftermath" (Israel) #38 B.J. Thrower, "Original Child" (Hiroshima, Japan) 10. Will you adopt Steve Algieri's excellent idea of an online story queue where those who submit can see the status of their submission? Yeah, okay, Steve's a farking genius and I suppose I can be as professional and writer-friendly as he is. For those who don't know how this works, essentially when you submit you are assigned a queue number. You can then watch the status of your submission. [The queue is available on the website.] 11. What do you need in the way of art? The artwork has been assigned; I just had an offer I couldn't refuse. Chad Savage has agreed to do the art for =Extremes=. Yippee! 12. Any problem with multiple submissions? With simultaneous submissions? No and no; however, if you send more than one story to the lwpub@aol.com address, please send them as separate emails, as AOL has trouble separating multiple attachments. 13. What's your response time? It's been running less than two weeks. This could change as more submissions pour in; however, in no event do I expect to hold an author's story for more than a month. I don't apprecate it with my own work; I don't imagine that you appreciate it with yours. [http://www.dm.net/~bahwolf/extremes.htm] MARKET GUIDELINES =The Firefly: a Journal of Magical Experiences= [Print mag, F/DF/SF 1000 to 3500 wds, pays 1 cent/wd, no E-mail or sim subm., reprints okay.] Bobbi Sinha-Morey, Editor P.O. Box 6301 Concord, CA 94524 IsedMorey@aol.com (no e-mail submissions) Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Science Fiction, Folklore, Mythology, Wicca. Size: 5.5" x 8.5". 60 - 80 pages. Price: $4.95, including shipping. Published 2 -3 times a year. NEEDS: Fiction - Originals and reprints. =The Firefly= will be a fiction and poetry zine with an emphasis on poetry. Material should be light, lively, dark, surreal, and imaginative. It needs to evoke a sense of wonder, an "Oh!" as if sherbet is melting in your mouth, or if something dark and beautiful surprises you with a magical rhapsody. In mythology and Wicca there is a lot of beauty to explore along with dark avenues as well. Go ahead and try to scare me. As it is, dark fantasy is a plus. Think of Darrell Schweitzer's =The Shattered Goddess= or the work of Ray Bradbury and you'll get the picture. Also consider Mary Stewart's gothic fantasy =Touch Not The Cat=, her Merlin series and Thornyhold as well. Nothing for children and nothing derivative. Romance is also fine as long as it's kept in good taste. No porn or taboos. Will also want to see genre related stories about foreign countries. Unicorns, harpies, rakshasas, chimera, and all other mythological creatures under the sun. Nonfiction - Articles, essays, interviews, and book, CD, video reviews will also be used. Guest columnists included. Poetry - Please submit up to only four poems at a time. Long poems are fine, but no epics. PAYMENT/LENGTH: $2.50 - $10 per poem. One cent a word for fiction; stories 1,000 to 3,500 words. (And, of course, a contributor's copy.) ART: Black and white line artwork as well as photos and computer generated art to accompany fiction and poetry. Also used as filler. Query with samples. Payment: $5 for a half page (4"x5") illo, $10 for a full page (5"x8") illo, and $20 for the cover illustration. No email subs. No simultaneous submissions. Always include an SASE with submissions and always include bio and credits in your cover letter. Deadlines for 2000: 1st issue: Jan 2 (for publication date of Jan 31) 2nd issue: May 2 (for pub date of June 30) 3rd issue: Oct 2 (for publication date of Oct. 31) [DarkEcho, 22 July 99] =Planet Relish E-Zine= [Speculative humor webzine, to 5280 wds, pays $5 on pub, only E-mail subm. Sim subs okay, no mult subm.] Mark "Wrapper" Rapacioli, Editor editor@planetrelish.com =Planet Relish E-zine= is the Web's first on-line magazine devoted exclusively to speculative humor**. We accept short stories, and only short stories. No serials, no dirty limmericks, no non-fiction, no novels, and absolutely, positively, no poems about Mike the Headless Chicken. Oh, yeah, and no erotica or outlandish sex humor -- I want my grandmother to read this magazine. In the "Laughter" Section, =Planet Relish E-zine= will publish up to four stories each month. Fiction is limited to 5,280 words, but shorter is definitely better. Short stories must be science fiction, fantasy, or horror, and must make me laugh. Your humor can be anything from undead slapstick, to bleak futuristic satire, to fantastic Pythonesque chaos. I'm not very picky when it comes to the style of humor, but beware, your writing must hold my attention. It isn't enough to just toss a few jokes together and call it a story. Reprints and simultaneous submissions are OK, just let me know up front. July 22, 1999 Update: As of July 24, we will not accept multiple submissions for the "Laughter" section. If you do submit more than one story, I will hold only the first one, and return any others. Also, for simultaneous submissions, please mention the other market(s) to which you submitted the story. In the "Insanity" Section, =Planet Relish E-zine= will publish one Feghoot or "shaggy dog" story each month. Limit, 1000 words, but again, shorter is better. Please, don't use the original Ferdinand Feghoot character -- but, feel free to use the "Admiral Jim Feghoot" character or the Planet Relish setting. (A "Feghoot" is a drawn-out joke that involves time travel or an encounter with strange creatures, but ends in a very groan-worthy pun. They were popularized by Reginald Bretnor in his "Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot" series, which appeared in F&SF in the '60s and '70s.) Don't know what a Feghoot is? [Check the website] for a sample from the preview issue! July 22, 1999 Update: Multiple submissions are permitted for the "Insanity" section. Payment is a flat fee of US$5 for each piece of fiction. Payment is on publication, by personal check, unless other arrangements have been worked out prior to publication. (For non-US writers, payment may be made by other means, such as US stamps for your SASEs. Others may want credit toward a paid advertisement. Feel free to e-mail the editor if you have any other suggestions.) Submissions will be by e-mail ONLY to editor@planetrelish.com. Submit it as the text of an e-mail, or attach it as a Word 95 (not Word 97) or text (.txt or .rtf) file. Don't worry about margins, or fonts, or widows and orphans, etc. I save all submissions as text files anyway, so don't bother making them pretty. Please include your (pen) name, e-mail address, and word count. Put the word "SUBMISSION" (or for Feghoots, "FEGHOOT") in the subject line, along with the title. Don't worry about cover letters, bios, credits, or even snail-mail addys. I don't need them, and an impressive list of published stories won't get you published here -- only an impressive, funny story will. If you get accepted, I'll ask you for a bio, a mailing address, a home page link, pictures of you in the shower or bath, and whatever else I may need. =Planet Relish E-zine= buys Exclusive First Web Rights (or Exclusive Web Rights for reprints) for a period of 33 1/3 days. That means that, while your piece is on-line at =Planet Relish E-zine=, it may not appear anywhere else on the Web, including as part of an on-line anthology. All other rights (print, e-mail zines, CD-ROMs, on-line novelizations) remain with the writer. Did I mention no Mike the Headless Chicken poems? **What is speculative humor? Speculative humor is speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror) that makes you laugh. =Monty Python And The Holy Grail= is speculative humor (sword and sorcery, Python style). =Young Frankenstein= is speculative humor (especially the orgasm scene). And, God help us all, =Spaceballs= is speculative humor (well, "humor" is such a relative term). For you literary folks who don't get out of the house much, think of =Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy=, or Piers Anthony's Xanth series, or Robert Rankin's Brentford series. [http://www.planetrelish.com/submission.html] MARKET INFORMATION =Crossroads= In a rejection letter to an sff.net writer, the editor of =Crossroads= said that the magazine's next issue will be its last. [sff.writing.response-times, 12 Jul 99] =Haunts= The magazine =Haunts= is not open to submissions from June 1 to Jan. 1. [sff.writing.response-times, 9 Jul 99] =Nasty Snips= =Nasty Snips= is a small press anthology being put out by Christopher Teague. His email address for subs is: chris@smb.clara.net The anthology is around 150-200 pages and consists of short-short horror pieces. He is interested in "horrific" horror and the antho is open until September 1st. [sff.writing.response-times, 26 Jul 99] =Odyssey= More information on the demise of British magazine =Odyssey=. Liz Holliday, editor, says, "This [the decision to "kill" =Odyssey=] was by mutual agreement between me and the publisher. The publisher will be relaunching its role-playing magazine, =Valkyrie=; I will once again be book reviewer/fiction editor. We'll be publishing one story per (bimonthly) issue. I'll be looking for stories under 5000 words, for which we'll be paying 3c a word. However, I'm going to be =very= overstocked, so please consider =Valkyrie= closed to submissions till you hear from me otherwise." [sff.writing.response-times, 8 Jul 99] =Storisende Verlag= E-mail from Michael Plogmann, 6/21/99: "No, =Storisende Verlag= is not closed to submissions. We are still publishing one story each month on our website as a German First. What we are reconsidering is the way these stories will be published in a German print version. Up till now these stories had been collected to be published in trade paperback editions. The two planned editions are closed by now and will be published in the next few weeks. We don't know as yet if the stories we are buying at the moment will be published again in trade paperbacks or in a new magazine which would be launched some time next year. We are still in the process of checking the feasibility of a German mass market SF magazine. "So we do still accept submissions, but in our contracts we leave the terms how such a print version will appear deliberately vague. And ... at the moment it takes us quite some time to reply to submissions we receive." [http://www.speculations.com/rumormill/topic84.htm, 21 Jun 99] =Writers of the Future= There's a new web address for WotF: http://www.writersofthefuture.com/. They include a list of all 1998 winners (including Utah's own Bruce Thatcher). Also, if you make it through the article on the 14th annual awards ceremony, you'll find Utahn Maurene Jensen in the picture of all the award winners and finalists. The most up-to-date contest rules are available here (they'd become very out of date on other Author Services sites). So if you're still eligible, check this out! DEAD MARKETS =Speculations= magazine has an online dead fiction markets list (and place for chat about same) at http://www.speculations. com/dead.htm. It's updated sporadically, but has a pretty comprehensive list, so you might want to check it out before sending a story off to a magazine you're not sure about. ==End of the CALLIHOO newsletter for 27 July 1999==