Ellora’s Cave: Call For Submissions
January 20, 2008
I am always fascinated in reading these Calls For Submissions. I am into BDSM so the whole submission thing just brings shivers I tell you. Lot’s of interesting things to read about though. Oh, I wish they would just email me this stuff so I can say something in the old blog here.
*Hint* Angela & Treva or any other ePub reading me out there.
What’s Hot in the Market?
We are always open to submissions in all the genres we publish. But there is generally some genre that’s hot in the market right now, for which we are especially interested in seeing submissions. At this time, we are looking for Urban Fantasy (with or without romantic elements) for Cerridwen and Interracial or Older Woman/Younger Man erotic romances for Ellora’s Cave.
*Me and Mrs Jones, Mrs Jones, Mrs Jones
Mrs. Jones got a thing going on*
Hunters for Hire Continuity Series
This series spans both Ellora’s Cave erotic romance and Cerridwen mainstream fiction books. Cerridwen stories could be written as either Futuristic Romance or for the Futuristic/SciFi (non-romance) genre. For EC, the stories must be primarily erotic romances. The background genre is SciFi, but each story must focus on the development of a romantic relationship enhanced with explicit sex, and concluding with an emotionally satisfying committed relationship.
The stories revolve around an organization known as Bounty Hunters, Inc., and take place in the year 2408 on the planet Quartus Seven in the Secundus Solar System. This group of men and women unite for a common goal, to rid the galaxy of the threats posed by the worst of the worst criminals. They are willing to do whatever it takes to capture their bounties and bring them in to collect their rewards. No job is too big or too small so long as the price is right.
*Home is where the heart is. ~ Caius Plinius Secundus ~ Roman naturalist (23 - 79)*
Each story must be able to stand on its own while still being part of the series and using the predefined setting and background. An explanatory Prologue and Glossary are provided for inclusion in each story.
For more information and a copy of the series “bible”, email coordinating author Heather Holland at Heather@Heather-Holland.com .
All submissions for the series must be sent to Submissions@Ellorascave.com; include “Hunters for Hire” in the Subject line along with your story title. (Please do not misdirect submissions to Heather.)
*Do not abuse the Heather. I feel sorry for Heather.*
How to Submit
All submissions for Ellora’s Cave erotic romances or Cerridwen Press mainstream fiction must be sent via email to Submissions@ellorascave.com. Send as a doc or rtf file:
~ Detailed synopsis (2 to 5 pages describing setting and main characters and outlining full plot, including resolution)
~ First three chapters and the final chapter of your manuscript. (If this is a short story of less than 15K words, send full story.)
Include the following on the first page of the document and in the cover email:
Title
Author pen and real names & email address
Genre
Word count of full manuscript
Blurb (200 words)
Note: We are an e-publisher and all our work is done electronically; we do not accept paper submissions or correspondence.
Please be sure your submission has been thoroughly self-edited (and we highly recommend having frank critique partners look at it!), and has been proofread by several skilled and experienced persons other than yourself. It must be basically free of typos and grammatical errors. We do not specify a required format and your manuscript will not be rejected due to formatting. We suggest using one-inch margins and a common, variable, serif font (such as Times Roman, Arial, Book Antiqua).
Notice for previously published authors: We will only consider your out-of-print books if you hold exclusive rights.
Please do not email to inquire about status of your submission. You will receive an initial response within eight weeks.
Tags: Call for submissions, eAuthors, Ellora's Cave, ePublishers
*Me and Mrs Jones, Mrs Jones, Mrs Jones
Mrs. Jones got a thing going on*
[stares hard at the Pig]
Anyway.
The overlap between “calls for submission” and other sorts of submission can cause problems sometimes. Such as the time my ISP installed a shiny new spam filter. To quote from my blog that week:
Of course, I could have been sent an email from someone *begging* for the privilege of publishing one of my stories, and not know about it. My UK ISP finally found an anti-spam filter they were happy with, i.e. one that is biased towards letting spam through rather than risk deleting real mail. There was much rejoicing among the denizens of the newsgroup devoted to complaining about the service. Until… it was discovered that emails were being blocked that should not have been blocked. That it appeared were being blocked because of the presence of naughty words. That in fact *were* being blocked because of naughty words.
It appears that Well-Known American Anti-Spam Company assumes that when an ISP asks for a filter that takes out spam and *only* spam, what they really want is a spam filter plus a net nanny. Not only was the Expensive Spam Filter blocking spam, it was blocking any email containing one or more items from a list of words likely to make corporate America faint. It had not occurred to WKAASC to mention this prudery filter. Needless to say, the discussion in the aforementioned newsgroup contained ample evidence that perfectly legitimate conversations may well contain words likely to shock the sensitive souls in the legal departments of corporate America.
The prudery filter has since been turned off. But I’m left wondering if it’s eaten emails from editors. It would not surprise me in the slightest if it objected to “erotica”, since it objected to “orgasm”. (Yes, much fun was had testing what words are not to be permitted to sully corporate America’s innocent and virginal mailservers.) Given how many of my query/submission emails have words like “submission” and “erotica” in the subject…
Oh, Jules darling, of COURSE we want you. Loowis is waiting for your ms.
I might come up with a more coherent and inclusive submissions policy if I think about it, of course. (Switching hats — so exhausting) I’m in the middle of my own edits for a change, though.
Loose Id, LLC
Established (year): 2004
Pays an Advance (yes/no): no
Pays Royalties: monthly.
Acquisitions Editors:
Treva Harte, submissions@loose-id.com
Guidelines:
Erotic love stories of 20,000–110,000 words. Heterosexual, homosexual, and polyamorous partnerings. Contemporaries and historicals must include strong i/r, multicultural, LGBT, ménage, bdsm or suspense elements. See our complete submissions guidelines at http://www.loose-id.com/prospective.aspx. Send query, synopsis, and three-chapter partial.
Response Time:
All submissions receive an acknowledgment within 48 hours of receipt. Response time for requests is currently running six to eight weeks.
Currently Seeking:
Blazingly hot m/f, m/m/f, and m/m love stories with an unashamedly sexy hook, as well as a few exceptionally sound f/f/m and f/f. Specifically: multicultural and i/r, extremely hot suspense and paranormal, LGBT and ménage.
Please Note:
Loose Id does not accept short stories by authors we have not yet published. Re-releases will not be considered as first books but may occasionally be accepted in conjunction with new submissions. Print publication dependent on sales in e-book format and viability for print market.
I’d suggest looking at our revised guidelines. We really do want some good, hot one-on-one het romance as well as (of course) LGBT and ménage. Make us sweat.
Remove the dot on the end of that link to the LI guidelines, or it won’t work…
Top word count of 110,000? That’s not on the guidelines at the website at the moment. I know, because I went looking for current guidelines a couple of weeks ago when a friend asked me if LI took f/f and novel-length.
Well, since I’m the EiC and I get to play with the rules, I might be persuaded to think about something longer if it really, really worked for us.
I did a post for you Treva!
Thank you for the information and let me know anytime I can help get the word out.
Thanks, my dear. If people have specific questions I can probably come up with an answer.
Jules, I feel your pain, as it stands I can’t send emails to the EC submissions address. I only found out after a month of waiting for an email confirming receipt that never arrived - when 3-4 other emails weren’t replied to things started looking bad.
My problem was a while back, and they fixed it fast once they realised what was going on. But I had several short stories on submission at the time, and it was quite worrying — I ended up sending out a couple emails explaining the problem to markets that still hadn’t responded a while later. That’s why I like markets that say they will confirm, rather than they ones that say assume you were rejected if you don’t hear anything.
[looks at typos] I shouldn’t type before breakfast, should I?
Jules you can click the comment and edit it.