Anthology Builder -- fiction and art
Jan. 20th, 2008 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesInteresting item picked up from the Broad Universe list, that will be of interest to readers, writers and artists: Anthology Builder. This is a specialist POD publisher which uses POD technology to allow readers to put together their own choice of short stories and novellas from those on offer, and get a printed anthology. They only offer reprints from paying markets, so like Fictionwise they're using reprint status as a way of ensuring quality control on short stories.
They're offering a reader up to 350 pages per volume, at $14.95 plus shipping per book, so this is pitched at the higher end of the real price range for small press trade paperback, rather than being the inflated cover prices you see on stealth vanity presses. From the author's perspective, they're offering a pro-rata share in a royalty of $1.50 minimum per book in return for non-exclusive print rights. Cover artists get $0.15 per copy used. Main drawback is that they hold payment until you've accumulated at least $20.
Whether this will come to anything, I don't know. But on a quick skim I saw nothing obviously bad save for that minimum payout, and they're offering a niche service that could actually be useful to readers, at a price that reflects the market. There are reprints from respectable markets in the catalogue (mostly speculative fiction). Oh, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
frankwu is offering shiny cover art. :-) If you've got a suitable story that's sitting around doing nothing at the moment, it might be a fun thing to play with. Actually, when it's built up a bigger catalogue, I might well play with it as a reader...
It's very new, so not a huge selection yet, and heavily slanted to speculative fiction at the moment. They have a system for uploading public domain as well,which might be handy for those who'd like a nicely bound dead tree version of their favourite Project Gutenberg material.
One point for some of you -- the guidelines say "We regret that we do not accept erotica, nor stories with excessive violence or sexuality." Not sure where they draw the line there, given some of the stories you can get in specfic magazines, and that they've got one story which was first published in 1000delights. However, there's an LJ post addressing that, where about half way down it's explained that there will be another imprint opening up later which will be completely unrestricted. In other words, no quality control, no content restrictions. Pretty much like Lulu, only with the Anthology Builder tools to allow readers to assemble their choice of content, including non-fiction. I can see potential problems with that, but so long as it *is* like Lulu and not the pay-to-play places, I can see that being a useful service.
Their LiveJournal is here: http://community.livejournal.com/anthobuilder/
They're offering a reader up to 350 pages per volume, at $14.95 plus shipping per book, so this is pitched at the higher end of the real price range for small press trade paperback, rather than being the inflated cover prices you see on stealth vanity presses. From the author's perspective, they're offering a pro-rata share in a royalty of $1.50 minimum per book in return for non-exclusive print rights. Cover artists get $0.15 per copy used. Main drawback is that they hold payment until you've accumulated at least $20.
Whether this will come to anything, I don't know. But on a quick skim I saw nothing obviously bad save for that minimum payout, and they're offering a niche service that could actually be useful to readers, at a price that reflects the market. There are reprints from respectable markets in the catalogue (mostly speculative fiction). Oh, and
frankwu is offering shiny cover art. :-) If you've got a suitable story that's sitting around doing nothing at the moment, it might be a fun thing to play with. Actually, when it's built up a bigger catalogue, I might well play with it as a reader... It's very new, so not a huge selection yet, and heavily slanted to speculative fiction at the moment. They have a system for uploading public domain as well,which might be handy for those who'd like a nicely bound dead tree version of their favourite Project Gutenberg material.
One point for some of you -- the guidelines say "We regret that we do not accept erotica, nor stories with excessive violence or sexuality." Not sure where they draw the line there, given some of the stories you can get in specfic magazines, and that they've got one story which was first published in 1000delights. However, there's an LJ post addressing that, where about half way down it's explained that there will be another imprint opening up later which will be completely unrestricted. In other words, no quality control, no content restrictions. Pretty much like Lulu, only with the Anthology Builder tools to allow readers to assemble their choice of content, including non-fiction. I can see potential problems with that, but so long as it *is* like Lulu and not the pay-to-play places, I can see that being a useful service.
Their LiveJournal is here: http://community.livejournal.com/anthobuilder/