EBP Launches New Anthology

At long last, Elephant’s Bookshelf Press is launching a new anthology effort!

So, what is the genre? Science fiction.

In a sense, it’s a way for me to go back to my beginnings, because when I started writing, my primary focus was on science fiction.

The best EBP anthologies to date have all had an overarching theme, and I think we have something unique and interesting to shoot for in this anthology.

The unifying theme of these short stories will be Flight.

One of the reasons I like this theme is because it’s a term that has multiple meanings and therefore multiple interpretations. Of course, flight can involve human or alien spaceships, heroes with super-human abilities, winged creatures, but it just as easily could include flight from danger. Heck, I bet there’s a clever person out there who can make a flight of stairs into a vital element of a science fiction story.

I don’t want to be too restrictive in this description. The story should incorporate flight; I leave the details to you.

For our anthology, the stories can be up to 5,000 words long. No erotica.

The submission deadline is January 15. There is no payment, though the published authors will receive both a paperback and electronic edition of the completed anthology.

(This will likely be the first EBP paperback since the demise of CreateSpace, but I’ve been told that this process will be as straight forward as what we had grown accustomed to.)

An early spring publication is my target.

Our team will review the stories as they come in.

Feel free to ask any questions. Send them to matt@elephantsbookshelfpress.com, and I’ll reply as soon as I can.

The Genesis of the Elephant

In the six years since I created Elephant’s Bookshelf Press, I’ve seen my personal writing time winnow down to a dribble.

I’m not making excuses. I chose to focus my creative time on publishing.

This year, however, that has changed. I’ve been working on two different writing projects and one major edit/revamp effort, too. In a sense, I have spawned a similar problem. Once again, I have taken large bites and tried to chew too quickly.

So, with the second quarter of the year a little past midway, I’m slowing things down a little. On the bright side, you’ll probably see more of me on the blog this way.

I want to talk about our genesis. Think of it as a “why we exist” post.

In the beginning was the word... and the word was “elephant.”

When I was a small child, I fell in love with elephants. When I learned to talk, and people asked my name, I would say, “Elephant.” I didn’t have a big nose. I was possibly small for my age, but the name wasn’t intentionally ironic.

I simply loved elephants.

As the son of a scientist who worked at perhaps the premier research laboratory of its day, I grew up among books and learning and smart-ass older brothers. Eventually a smart-ass sister would enter the mix, too. I enjoyed educational experiences that I only learned to fully appreciate years later.

And there were lots of elephants. Stuffed. On the pages of books. (I had a wonderful collection of Babar books, and many of the volumes are in my attic.)

My grandfather bought me a Dumbo that I played with so much his felt wore off, and he eventually wore a baseball-playing elephant shirt that I’d outgrown. My mother even created an elephant pillow that my daughter now sleeps on or cuddles depending on where her dreams take her in the night.

I grew up among loving parents and loving extended family members. We played together (lots of Wiffleball), prayed together, and stayed together. When sad or bad things happened, we got closer. Still do.

As genesis stories go, it’s not much. Just another happy kid from a privileged upbringing with lots of books in an unfair world.

My biggest challenges growing up, I realize now, were related to ambitions. All I wanted to do was write or play baseball.

As hard as I tried, I simply didn’t have the skills to reach the major leagues as a ballplayer. The writing came more naturally.

I’m fortunate that in my adulthood, my ambitions of making a living as a writer never left me, and I should feel proud that I’ve been living my dream of being paid to write. I do. But…

But like most dreams, they’re not quite what you expect. The nightmares are rarely as harrowing as they seem at the time. And the “normal” dreams carry more portent and potential than we might recognize.

Back to Elephant’s Bookshelf Press...

Assuming some of the readers here are friends I’ve made at AgentQuery Connect, you’ve probably heard this before, but I’ll share it anyway.

EBP arose out of e-conversations between several of my fellow moderators at AQC. We decided in 2011 that we wanted to find out what the whole e-publishing revolution was about. And while some of us had gained agents, many of us were finding the reception to our queries not so encouraging.

I couldn’t tell you when I last sent a query to an agent. Struggling with perfectionism, I was still plugging in the electrodes on my moribund manuscript waiting for lightning to strike so I could cry out, “It’s alive! Alive!”

So, I was happy to volunteer to lead the effort that became Spring Fevers, the first anthology from Elephant’s Bookshelf Press.

Initially, it was to be an e-book only, but we decided a few weeks after initially publishing that it would be fun to have a paperback.

I can’t remember which came first, the decision to publish a paperback or the decision to publish a second title, The Fall. Either way, I’d bought myself several ISBNs because I had already decided that mine would not be a one-book adventure.

Unbeknownst to me, I was developing new ambitions.

You see, Elephant’s Bookshelf Press was borne from a desire to help other writers. We wanted a way to share our stories, literally and figuratively. I built a platform, and initially I wasn’t fully aware of what that would mean.

Starting in 2015, but especially last year, I’ve spent a lot more time developing systems for EBP and determining what new products we can create. I’ve looked to develop new services for writers, not just to help them as writers, but also because it’s abundantly clear to me that being a writer in the twenty-first century is not simply about writing.

It’s about creating.

Creating books, sure. Creating websites. Creating blogs. Creating courses, perhaps. Creating partnerships. Creating relationships with readers.

Creating an audience.

Sharing and amplifying a voice.

It has been slow going. Mostly because I haven’t always understood what EBP is really about.

I know what we do: we publish books.

But why?

At Elephant’s Bookshelf Press, we love stories. We love telling them. We love hearing them. We love sharing them.

Stories are as old as humanity.

In the beginning, God snapped a finger and blessed a walking ape with an extra sense of self and a new level of curiosity. That ape started thinking in stories.

Language evolved.

Soon, that imaginative ape attracted a similarly gifted mate, and so sparked humanity.

We’re attracted to authors who tell interesting stories and tell them in an engaging manner.

Like elephants, we tend to travel in herds; at EBP, we call them anthologies. We haven’t published an anthology in a couple years now, but we will in time.

Because Elephant’s Bookshelf Press isn’t just about selling books; it’s about helping authors meet and mingle with their audiences.

Not the end.

Novelists, Meet Filmmakers. Filmmakers, Novelists

By R.S. Mellette

Right now, there seem to be two schools of production in Hollywood – those companies that make movies based on short stories or novels, and those that don't. I haven't run the numbers, but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the first group is doing a lot better than the second.

The companies making films based on published properties tend to be either major studios or mid- to upper-end independents. A few of these companies started as uber-indies and were smart enough to acquire published work, and are now playing in the big leagues. Temple Hill with the Twilight series comes to mind.

But most uber-indie production companies don't mess with published works. I know this because I've been a screener and/or programmer for the Dances With Films Festival in Los Angeles since 2001. I can't tell you the number of submissions I've screened where I think, <em>why did the filmmakers decide to tell THIS story</em>?

I'm also a novelist. I have novelist friends all over the world who have wonderful stories they've told on paper. They would love to see these works made into films, but they’re completely baffled by the filmmaking community.

This article is intended to help both sides bridge the gap, meet each other, and hopefully work together on mutually beneficial projects.

I'll start with the filmmakers:

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to think long and hard about why you chose filmmaking as a career. Deep down in your soul, is the answer to that question, "I want to make movies," or "I want to tell stories?"

Don't cheat. If you had to choose between just making movies and just telling stories, which would it be?

Knowing thousands of filmmakers, I have a feeling that most would never give up the set. They love the sweat, pressure, art, camaraderie, adrenaline, thrill, and insanity of making movies. Creating the story on the blank page is secondary to making the story come to life, and that's fine. That's why you're filmmakers.

Sure, some would rather gouge out their eyes than make someone else's story, but most are just as happy to make any story – as long as it's good, or the pay is high.

So, filmmakers, don't feel like you must also be the story creator. You're a storyteller, for sure. No doubt about it, but you don't have to tell a story that you created. Better that you should find someone who has the same passion facing the blank page that you have facing an eager cast &amp; crew.

That someone might be a screenwriter, sure, but many screenwriters have the same answer to the "why did you get into this business?" question as you do. So many of them – even some very good ones – want to make movies more than they want to tell stories. If you ever do take a meeting with a screenwriter, tell them you're not going to make the movie, you're just going to publish their story. See how they react.

Novelists, on the other hand, are 100 percent pure storytellers. Their passion is what they've put on the page. Your turning it into a living, breathing thing is wonderful, mostly because it means more people will be exposed to their story. And, let's not lie, they'd also be into increased royalties, participation deals, etc.

But their passion is the page, not the stage.

Now to novelists:

Men and women of letters. There is no way around it, filmmaking - as both a business and an art - is a social endeavor. Film sets have been accurately compared to a royal court. Navigating them can be hazardous to your health.

Still, the best way to meet filmmakers is not when they are dressed nice, celebrating the premiere of their film at a festival, but when they are covered in blood, sweat, and tears while working as a Third Assistant Director on someone else's project.

Why? The filmmaker who has just premiered has two years of trying to sell that movie to the public before they can even think about their next film.

They also have a slew of people who have been pitching them like crazy, and they've burned all their favors on that first film. The second one will be ten times more difficult to launch.

Meanwhile, the hardworking crew of that film are owed some favors. If they want to step up to the plate as a producer/director, their chance is next. You just have to hope they didn't answer "to tell my stories," to the question of why they got into this business.

But how do you get on the set? How do you get to meet filmmakers when all they do is work on each other's projects and go to festivals?

That's easy. Every film needs people. From extras to PAs (Production Assistants), filmmaking is social because it takes so many people make them. And there's more good news.

Because of the availability of cheap, high-quality, digital cameras, you don't have to live in Los Angeles or New York to find a filmmaking community. Chances are, there is a filmmaking group in whatever town you live in.

Hit the internet, find them, and join up. If you do live in a filmmaking hub, and you can afford to take a low-paying job, sign up to be an extra. The pay is terrible for non-union (and the work isn't readily available for union), but you're usually fed well and it's a lot of fun.

But what do you do once you're on the set, or in a meeting of filmmakers at a group? First, don't try to be what you're not! The industry is full of those people.

Don't tell anyone you're a screenwriter. Everyone is a screenwriter. They need another screenwriter like the Sahara needs more sand.

Just tell the truth. You're a novelist. You don't know anything about filmmaking, but you'd like to meet some filmmakers to maybe talk about some projects. I think you'll find filmmakers think novelists are as mysterious as you think filmmakers are.

Okay, novelists have a way to meet filmmakers, but how do filmmakers meet novelists?
Filmmakers. Novelists write. They also read. If you're going to reach out to a novelist, you're going to need to read them.

But your buying all the best sellers and slogging your way through them until you find a writer you like is just like a novelist trying to network with a major filmmaker. The big novelists don't need your uber-indie eager help with their major works.

So what's the answer?

Short stories. Anthologies. You can get to know ten to fifteen authors reading an anthology in the time it takes to read one novel. And if you reach out to pretty much any author with, "I read your short story…" you will immediately have their attention.

Short stories are like short films. They are a labor of love. Sure, they might also be a way of testing out an idea, or just getting something done, but just like your short films, they are gems that you never forget.

I often call Elephant's Bookshelf Press the Sun Records of publishing. Just the way Sam Phillips discovered Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, etc. Matt Sinclair has published <a href="http://www.stevencarman.com/">Steven Carman</a>, <a href="http://rclewisbooks.com/books/">R.C. Lewis</a>, Robert K. Lewis (well, actually Don M. Vail), <a href="http://www.mindymcginnis.com/">Mindy McGinnis</a>, and many more.

Are they as big in the writing world as Sam's discoveries are in music? No. Not yet. If they were, you wouldn't be able to work with them. But they are just as talented.

Filmmakers, if you're looking for a story to tell, anthologies are a good place to start. <em>Roller Ball</em>, <em>Running Man</em>, <em>Stand By Me</em>, <em>Breakfast at Tiffany's</em>, <em>Brokeback Mountain</em>, <em>Children of the Corn</em>, and so many more feature films started life as short fiction. Fire up the Kindle app on your phone, download some anhologies, and get reading. EBP is a good place to start. When you find a writer you like, reach out. You never know what beautiful friendship might begin.

R.S. Mellette is the author of Billy Bobble Makes a Magic Wand and Billy Bobble and the Witch Hunt, both from Elephant's Bookshelf Press. He also has written several short stories that have appeared in EBP anthologies.

Horrors: Real, Imagined, and Deadly

Perhaps more than any previous EBP book, the upcoming horror anthology created a myriad of monsters that haunted my summer. But we have managed them (you never quite tame powerful monsters) and are ready to reveal the stunning cover that graces the stories within. Created by the multitalented Charlee Hoffman, this cover conveys a level of creepiness that I'd only hoped to capture. Well done, Charlee!

Catching Up

I never realized when I launched Elephant's Bookshelf Press back in 2012 how busy I would become. Without a doubt, a big part of all that activity is due to my love of short stories and my belief that great shorts can pave the way for wonderful novelists. (Case in point, see A.T. O'Connor's Whispering Minds and R.S. Mellette's Billy Bobble Makes a Magic Wand; and we'll see it also in Cat Woods' Abigail Bindle and the Slam Book Scam later this year.) Another big part of it is because there is so much that goes into the production and promotion of books that it never seems to stop.

While this blog has been relatively quiet for much of 2015, we haven't been. In fact, EBP is taking giant strides to getting our books out in front of more and more readers. If things go as planned, we'll be on shelves in a couple independent bookstores in New Jersey and another down south.

I think it may happen in time for the releases of Abigail Bindle in late August/early September and the as-yet-unnamed horror anthology in late September. Plus, we're editing the next installment of the Billy Bobble series.

In the meantime, we're still accepting submissions for the horror anthology. If you haven't heard back recently, don't dismay: we're still reviewing stories and we've learned over the years not to send acceptances out too soon. But the deadline is fast upon us; they're due on June 8, which is right around the corner. I haven't even revised my own story yet to submit to reviewers yet, so I'm sure you'll be able to get something together.

We hope to hear from you all soon. Lord knows you'll be hearing from us throughout the year!

Cover Reveal: Tales from the Bully Box

I’m so excited to share this cover with you! I simply love what author and designer Sarah Tregay created for the latest Elephant’s Bookshelf Press anthology, Tales from the Bully Box, which launches our “Colors for Causes” series. Sarah also has a story in the anthology.

Bully Box, which was edited by the wonderful CatWoods, is a collection of anti-bullying stories for middle grade readers. As Cat writes, "I wanted to share the work of amazing authors who work hard to make this world a stronger, safer place for everyone regardless of where they come from or what they look like. In the process, I chose ordinary stories with ordinary characters, because bullying is an ordinary event that happens to ordinary people."

The result is an extraordinary collection.

The genesis of this project was a teenager who wanted to stop the bullying she experienced in her school in Minnesota. She created what is now called Building Relationships Against Violence Everywhere (BRAVE). Cat, who in many ways was the catalyst behind my establishing EBP, suggested we create an anti-bullying anthology for middle grade readers. I’d never heard of such a thing before, but one of the advantages of being a small publisher is we can – and I’d argue must – do things differently.

As many of you know, EBP is a for-profit publishing company, but we have the soul of a nonprofit organization. We endeavor to help developing writers achieve their goals of achieving publication and developing an audience. At the same time, we have found ourselves working with authors who want more than simply seeing their book published: they aim to make a difference. For example, the proceeds from our novel Battery Brothers by Steven Carman (who also has a story in this collection) will go to the Sunshine Foundation, which was the first wish-granting organization in the United States.

Bully Box is in production now and will be available through all the usual vehicles within a few weeks. In the meantime, feel free to share this cover and let people know what we’re doing. We aim to get this collection in schools and work with educators to help them fight back against bullying in their schools. I will discount prices for teachers who can share the books with their students. And a healthy portion of what EBP brings in from Bully Box will help organizations working in this field.

Our next anthology will be published in 2015. It also will have a cause at its heart, and I’m looking forward to sharing more about that soon.

Author Q&A With Shawn Proctor

It's amazing how being busy can make you look like you're not doing anything. With 2014 came a beefed-up commitment to Elephant's Bookshelf Press, but as a result I had less time to work on the blog that in some ways is its public mouthpiece. So, while I have a minute (and if you don't mind my typing while I knosh on a sandwich), let me start to catch up with some of the posts I'd begun in 2013 and didn't get a chance to set loose upon the world.

First up: an interview with Shawn Proctor, whose story "Just a Perfect Day," appeared in Summer's Edge.

Elephant’s Bookshelf: Lots of us writers don’t like this question, but I’ll ask it anyway: what genre do you feel is the best fit for your writing?

Shawn Proctor: There’s big a shift toward a style that uses literary fiction’s craft and mixes it with genres like horror, science fiction, fantasy, and neo-pulp (think superhero stories.) That’s me in a nutshell… Now please let me out of the nutshell now before I suffocate!

EB: You’ve had several stories published over the years, including a few in 2013. Is “Just a Perfect Day” a fairly typical Shawn Proctor story or was this an example of you experimenting?

SP: In some ways typical, but in others it’s a departure. I visited Berlin in 2007 and loved the city, especially the weird mix of urban heaviness from the Cold War and the hopefulness of the future. Originally, I had conceived of this as a horror story, but it never wanted to be that. Ultimately, the romantic arc felt stronger and truer to this piece so I went with it and cut a huge overblown Lovecraftian ending.

All writing is an experiment—this was certainly one of my more risky ones.

EB: I have to say, I don’t think any first line of a story from the summer anthologies caught my attention like yours (“At sunset, they returned to shave each other’s pubic hair.”) Was that your original opening or did you shape that over time?

SP: I had it from the start, but needed to really figure out who the people were, why they were there. Writers are drawn to the taboo. We love to explore where we’re told not to go.

When I was a kid, pubic hair was not an acceptable term. It just unnerved my parents to hear it, and I could tell that it is something that people don’t want to talk about at all. Naturally, as a writer, I’m drawn to that. Tell me not to say it, not to talk about it, and I will completely fixate on the idea. But more than trying to shock, I wanted to pull you into this intimate scene where they are making themselves physically -- if not emotionally -- vulnerable. I hoped to take this shocking sentence and make you question why it shocks…after all, hair is just hair.

EB: The characters in your story are difficult to like, yet there was something compelling or at least curious about them that made me want to find out what was going to happen. In general, do you like the characters you discover in the stories you write, and does it matter to you whether you think they’re likeable people?

I tend to write about people who are flawed or broken, and this couple is in trouble from the start because they are blind. In one respect they are blind to understanding one another in a deeper way and blind to the city they choose for their honeymoon. The image I return to over and over again is a tunnel—they only see the bricks, not the tunnel, and when the train comes toward them they are helplessly unprepared.

So, to answer the question, I may not like them, but I love them. I identify with the blindness they have because I see it in others and see it in myself at times. It’s like, “Why didn’t I know that person was toxic for me?” Because we’re all trying to see the world as it is, but we have our own ideas and perspectives blinding us.

EB: I find that really interesting. What are you working on now?

SP: I’m always balancing two things: a novel-in-progress and new short stories. I was raised a short story writer, and I can’t let go of that fun of sitting around a campfire and telling scary stories. It’s in my blood. But I recognize that there is power in building a world and crafting a long narrative, like my novel Stand-In Heroes. It’s about two thirtysomethings who rekindle a friendship one night. Unfortunately, it happens to be the same night that someone murders the world’s only superhero. They each end up with half of his powers, which they have to learn to use before the killer finds them.

It’s a challenge to take a hybrid medium like comics and translate it into a non-visual medium like prose. I’ve only got 26 letters and a couple pouches of punctuation in my Utility Belt, and I have to leap off that building to fight crime. Some days I think I should sew myself a writing cape.

EB: While I look for some thread so you can get sewing, let me say thanks for sharing some time with us!

Cover Reveal: Winter's Regret - What Might Have Been

In between shoveling and more shoveling, we were able to get a cover created for our upcoming anthology. So without further ado, may I present to you the beautiful cover of the final anthology in the Seasons Series from Elephant's Bookshelf Press. Thanks to Charlee Hoffman for creating such a wonderful image. I'll have more information soon about when and where it'll be available. One thing I'm fairly sure of: it'll still be winter, at least where I live, when it is published.

Request for Submissions: Winter Anthology

Submissions are now open for the 2013/14 Winter Anthology.

Regrets, I’ve had a few…

To be human is to have regrets, to question decisions, even to doubt our own abilities and capacities. Whether it’s because of a path not taken or a decision made for selfish or –  perhaps worse – unselfish reasons, we all have had moments we regret. We might regret not recognizing an opportunity. Or we regret being too quick to clutch a seemingly easy victory that left us unable to grab the better opportunity behind it. I’ve known folks who have later regretted making the right decision. Of course, like most things in life, the difference between a right decision and a wrong one can be a matter of perspective.

That’s where you writers come in. The theme for the winter anthology is “regret.” We’re looking for stories that, in some sense, convey regret. As always, we’re looking for quality short stories, but this time the theme is a little different. As in the past, stories can be in almost any genre: no erotica.

I suspect we’ll see a few romance stories, and certainly some young adult and maybe some new adult pieces. I could also imagine some middle grade stories. Children can learn about regret in such poignant ways, after all. And of course, I’m a sucker for traditional contemporary and literary fiction as well as science fiction.

With the flood of submissions we received for what became the two summer anthologies, we’ve decided to change things around a little. First, the word limit is now 5,500 words. (I almost trimmed it to 5,000, but sometimes a story is well-served with a couple more pages.) Second, given that we’re launching our first novel, Whispering Minds in October, we’re that much more time-pressed than we’ve been before, so don’t be shocked if it takes several weeks before you get a decision about whether your story has been accepted. I think it may easily be 4-6 weeks before we send you a yes or no. We’ll try to let you know earlier.

We’re looking for one submission per author. And we're unable to pay for stories, though published authors will receive a copy of the anthology. No previously published stories. If it’s appeared on your blog already, let me know, but that is not an automatic kill in my book. Send submissions to anthologies@elephantsbookshelfpress.com. The deadline is October 15.

For ease of formatting and time-saving on the copyediting and final proofing, please adhere to the following format styles:

§  Use Times Roman;

§  12 pt. type;

§  1" margin all around;

§  Double-spaced lines;

§  Do not add extra line between every paragraph;

§  When you want to denote a scene break, please use a single “#”;

§  Paragraphs indented 0.5". Please use the autoformat settings on Microsoft Word for paragraph indentations rather than manually inserting a tab or individual spaces. This feature is found under the ‘Paragraph’ format window;

§  Use a SINGLE SPACE following a period at the end of a sentence, NOT two spaces;

§  Use STRAIGHT QUOTES rather than SMART QUOTES. This is an autoformat/autocorrect feature in Word that, if checked, turns straight quote marks and apostrophes into ‘curly’ quote marks and apostrophes. This can cause formatting issues when the text is converted to a final font and style for publication. Under WORD OPTIONS, click on PROOFING, then on AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS, then make sure the line that says ‘Replace straight quotes with smart quotes’ is UNCHECKED.

Should you choose not to adhere to these guidelines, your story will still be considered. It’s a potential annoyance and challenge for some of the e-publishing formats, but it’s not a deal breaker. We’ll work with the copy. But the more you can do in advance, the faster the editing process will go and the cleaner and more consistent the final published book presentation will be.

Because that’s part of what we’re always looking to create – a clean, consistent book that readers enjoy by authors whose work they want to read again and again. Ideally, you’ll discover that Elephant’s Bookshelf Press produces books and anthologies that entertain the reader and keep them thinking – and when appropriate, laughing too.

And if you're on the fence about whether your story is good enough, do your best not to regret your decision, whatever it may be.

Thanks in advance to everyone!

Now They Can Be Revealed!

I don't know about you, but for Elephant's Bookshelf Press and me, June flashed by faster than a four-year-old. I had so much to do and I still do, but at least I have a pair of covers to share with you all!

Introducing, for the first time as companion anthologies, for your viewing pleasure, the covers of Summer's Edge and Summer's Double Edge!

They are due to be released by our happy elephant mascot, Pachelbel (more on that name to come...) on July 15th.

There's still much to do in the days ahead, but I hope you like what you see on the cover and we all at Elephant's Bookshelf Press look forward to presenting you with the stories within.

Thinking About Summer (and Short Stories)

You ever see a Facebook friend’s relationship status change from “in a relationship” or “married” to “it’s complicated” or even something more definite (“ass handed to me along with a frying pan to the head”) and wonder, “Uh oh, what happened there? They seemed so happy.”

When I see it, I’m usually sad for those people. But then again, perhaps the relationship was not in a good place anyway. After all, who really knows everything that goes on behind someone’s closed doors?

Well, in fiction, the writers do. That’s where you come in.

It’s time to announce the next anthology from Elephant’s Bookshelf Press. As always, we’re looking for quality short stories, but this time the theme is a little different. As much as we all like to think about what might have been, we all know that not all relationships were meant to last. For you, perhaps it was a May to September romance that still tastes sweet, or a one-night stand that lasted too long, or maybe the haunting pain associated with a parent or child who died too young.

In the next anthology from Elephant's Bookshelf Press, we explore the short-term relationship.

For the summer edition of our four-season series, we are looking for stories that share a love or relationship that is or appears to be short-lived or not long for this world. You might say it’s a combination of Spring Fevers and The Fall: Relationships facing apocalyptic change.

This need not be negative. And I pray that it’s sometimes funny. I mean, sometimes getting burned is okay, isn't it?

We’re looking for previously unpublished stories of up to 7,500 words (Yes, that’s shorter than we allowed earlier, but those 10,000 word “shorts” can be pretty hard to get through in one sitting unless they really sing.) They can be in any style except erotica. I expect we’ll see several Young Adult and New Adult pieces, maybe even a Middle Grade or two. Romance, steampunk, steampunk romance, traditional literary, science fiction, science fiction with a lusty alien or two… you get the point. [Edited 1/17/13: I cannot offer payment for published stories at this time, but all authors will receive a print or electronic version of the finished work. Also, all rights -- including reprint rights -- revert to the author.]

If there’s something in your trunk based on that guy or girl who left you in the lurch not long before you wrote it twenty years ago, give it a good once-or-twice-over and make sure it can handle walking around in the twenty-first century (unless of course it’s supposed to be set in the twentieth, or sixteenth, or the dawn of time. I seem to recall Adam and Eve had some issues to get through.) As I’ve said before, inspire your manuscript with a healthy dose of vitality.

We’re looking for one submission per author. No previously published stories. If it’s appeared on your blog already, let me know, but that is not an automatic kill in my book. Send submissions to anthologies@elephantsbookshelfpress.com. The deadline is April 19, but I’ve already received a story and will gladly accept others ahead of the deadline.

For this anthology, we have secured the talents of copy editor Laura Carlson of American Editing Services, who already has impressed me with her work, and I know other writers who are impressed by her too and recommend her highly. I'm very much looking forward to working with her, and I believe all the writers in the anthology will be pleased also.

For ease of formatting and time-saving on the copyediting and final proofing, please adhere to the following format styles:

·         Use Times Roman;

·         12 pt. type;

·         1" margin all around;

·         Double-spaced lines;

·         Do not add extra line between every paragraph;

·         When you want to denote a scene break, please use a single “#”;

·         Paragraphs indented 0.5". Please use the autoformat settings on Microsoft Word for paragraph indentations rather than manually inserting a tab or individual spaces. This feature is found under the ‘Paragraph’ format window;

·         Use a SINGLE SPACE following a period at the end of a sentence, NOT two spaces;

·         Use STRAIGHT QUOTES rather than SMART QUOTES. This is an autoformat/autocorrect feature in Word that, if checked, turns straight quote marks and apostrophes into ‘curly’ quote marks and apostrophes. This can cause formatting issues when the text is converted to a final font and style for publication. Under WORD OPTIONS, click on PROOFING, then on AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS, then make sure the line that says ‘Replace straight quotes with smart quotes’ is UNCHECKED.

Should you choose not to adhere to these guidelines, your story will still be considered. It’s a potential annoyance and challenge for some of the e-publishing formats, but it’s not a deal breaker. We’ll work with the copy. But the more you can do in advance, the faster the editing process will go and the cleaner and more consistent the final published book presentation will be.

Because that’s part of what we’re looking to create, too – a clean, consistent book that readers enjoy by authors whose work they want to read again and again. Ideally, you’ll discover that Elephant’s Bookshelf Press produces books and anthologies that entertain the reader and keep them thinking – and when appropriate, laughing too.

After all, just because your love life or life in general is on the rocks, it doesn’t mean you can’t splash it with a little water and add a beer chaser. God knows, sometimes a sip of something stronger than you can shake you back into a happy place, and it might even allow you to salvage that relationship. We’d be okay with that. Who doesn’t like a happy ending?

If you have additional questions, feel free to post a comment here, or you can send it to the email address above. A comment will allow me to respond for everyone. Because if you were confused, it’s possible others were too.

Thanks in advance to everyone!

The Next Big Thing (Week 28)

I'm very grateful for being asked to participate in The Next Big Thing, which Jayne Denker is spreading across the blogosphere.

1- What is the working title of your book?

The latest is The Fall; we’re also launching the submission request for the next anthology, which has a working title of Summer Burn.

2- Where did the idea come from for the book?

This time last year we were finishing up what became SpringFevers, the first anthology from Elephant’s Bookshelf Press. We didn’t have a title for the collection yet. All we had was an organizing framework. Spring Fevers is a collection of relationship stories. But as we were coming up with Spring Fevers, our editorial team suggested that we do more anthologies and use the seasons as a connecting theme. From there sprouted The Fall, which as a title lent itself to sharing tales from the apocalypse. Of course, with the hoopla and concern about the Mayan calendar predicting a massive change in the world as we know it on December 21, 2012, we thought this would be the perfect year to do The Fall, so we hustled ourselves right into another project.

In a sense, Summer Burn will be somewhat of a mix of the previous two anthologies, in that we’ll focus on relationships that are by their very nature short-lived. The emphasis will be on the burn rather than the summer. One of the questions to be explored is whether a relationship is meant to last or not.

3- What genre does your book fall under?

It’s an anthology, and the stories in The Fall touch on a variety of genres. We have what might be considered “traditional” apocalyptic tales – stories of individuals and communities dealing with war or plague or some version of destruction and its aftermath – as well as atypical apocalyptic tales that share a sense of humor. I think readers will be pretty surprised to find a lot of laughs on the path to Armageddon. But to be more specific, you’ll find Young Adult, Steampunk, Romance, Fantasy, and some straight forward

4- Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Hmm, that’s actually difficult for me. I’ll try to answer for the story I wrote, “The Last Day of Fall,” which focuses on four people who decide they need to leave the relative safety of where they live after a devastating string of terrorist attacks left it a fallow field. I have images in my mind of who these people are, but I purposely left the physical details of the characters rather vague. I picture the main characters, Michael and Beth, to be in their mid-twenties. In my mind, he’s slim, dark-haired, probably still fights off the occasional pimple. She’s small and lithe with an athlete’s build. I suspect there’s any number of young up-and-coming actors who could fit those roles. I’d need to do a casting call and whip through their comp cards before setting up an audition.

5- What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

The Fall is an exploration of the apocalypse, with glimpses of ancient prophecies, technological Armageddon, failures of government, a distracted deity, and yes, zombies sharing the moment with love, yearning, humor, and hope.

6- Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The Fall, like Spring Fevers, is published by Elephant’s Bookshelf Press, which is the LLC I launched earlier this year. They both contain stories by agented authors as well as those who are still seeking representation. I do not have an agent currently, but I do intend to seek representation when my novel-in-progress is ready to submit. I value the control of independent publishing, but I also respect the advantages of traditional publishing.

7- How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The short answer is about six months. After the necessary prep work we did as a team, we launched a request for submissions back in April and made decisions on stories as we received them. The submission deadline was in August, but we’d already been editing the previously approved stories before then. We were scheduled to publish on October 29. If that date sounds ominously familiar, it’s because Hurricane Sandy swept through much of my home state of New Jersey that same day. 

I lost power in the midst of applying for the copyright online and had to delay publication a few days. Even as they expressed sympathy for my situation, everyone involved in the publication of The Fall found a certain level of irony that a collection of stories about the apocalypse was itself affected by a disaster of almost apocalyptic proportions. In the days immediately after the storm, I was able to do what I needed to publish  aided by the generator at the first aid squad where I’m a member.

8- What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

This is a horrible thing to admit as publisher, but I’ve not fully compiled that comparison. I think it’s a small field because it’s not very lucrative. Instead, I’m competing against the enormous number of inexpensively produced independent publications, so spreading the word has been critical. Indeed, that’s really what we’re trying to do overall in Elephant’s Bookshelf Press. My goal with these anthologies is to help build awareness for each of these authors. Ultimately, when the first of these writers attracts broader attention with their debut novels, their new fans will look for their earlier works. We’ll be here and good readers will continue to be exposed to the family of writers in the Elephant’s Bookshelf Press catalogue. Personally, I love the idea that my little company could help readers discover not only the early works of authors they know from novels they love but also other talented authors who might not yet have a publishing deal.

9- Who or What inspired you to write this book?

The first anthology, Spring Fevers, arose from an email conversation between writer Cat Woods and me. I’d been thinking of exploring independent publishing and an anthology seemed like a good way to get started. I decided to be a bit more entrepreneurial with the project and created a publishing company. The goal of Elephant’s Bookshelf Press is to help emerging authors establish themselves. We’ve published the first stories of writers I think will eventually be able to make a fine career out of their writing. We also have stories by several agented writers whose debut novels are scheduled to be released within the next year or two.

10- What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

The final story in The Fall is one that readers will either love or hate. It’s called “The Last Sacrifice,” and it’s written by a South African writer. It’s a disturbing tale that depicts a tribal high priest whose faith to his gods is total, despite a series of disappointments when the gods seem to disapprove of the sacrifices that have been made. I think readers are going to either love or hate that one. There won’t be much middle ground. It’s very intense.

Tagged for next week (Week 29) are some of my very talented writer friends. Check out their blogs next Wednesday, December 19, when it's their turn to post answers to these same questions about their own works-in-progress!


Ryan Graudin (Ryan Writes)

The Fall: Tales From the Apocalypse

Faithful followers, you have not been forgotten. With the summer now in the rear view mirror and October upon us, I present to you the cover of The Fall!

Designed by Calista Taylor, the cover conveys exactly the feel I'd hoped to share. While the orange-hued clouds might be reflecting the fires of destruction in the distance, they might also be tint of the dawn of hope. The collection of fourteen stories by thirteen authors (it just worked out that way, I swear!) includes its share of dystopian images (and yes, more than a couple zombies), but it also includes humor, romance, and the promise of new beginnings.

The book is slated to be released on 10/29 and will be available in electronic form as well as print. If you enjoyed Spring Fevers, you'll be happy to see stories from Mindy McGinnis, Cat Woods, J. Lea López, A.M. Supinger, R.S. Mellette, and myself. But you'll also find several writers who will see their first Elephant's Bookshelf Press stories published, including Jean Oram, R.C. Lewis, Amy Trueblood, Alexandra Tys O'Connor, Patricia Carrillo, Ryan Graudin, and Judy Croome.

I'm very proud of what we've been able to produce, and I want to thank my production team of Cat Woods, Calista Taylor, Jean Oram, Mindy McGinnis, and R.C. Lewis who provided invaluable assistance through the entire process.