Moving on south (South Jersey, that is)

I'm sure I will be posting more about the moving process, but the big news in my life is that, for the third time in three years, I am again changing homes, though I will still be a Jersey girl, this time a little further south, closer to Atlantic City. It's an area I don't know much about, but am looking forward to learning. So I'm once again packing up my seemingly endless collection of books, this time paring down from around 35 boxes to 10, as I promised to do last year when we moved.

My nonfiction sex books I'm donating to the lending library of Minneapolis sex toy store Smitten Kitten. My young adult and children's novels I'm donating to the wonderful New Jersey-based nonprofit I just started volunteering with, Bridge of Books. But needless to say, between teaching my current LitReactor erotica writing class and soon will be promoting my next one, which starts in August (stay tuned!), editing Best Women's Erotica 2016, moving and my usual deadlines, things are going to be more than a bit hectic for the next month or two. Please bear with me, and stay tuned to @raquelita on Twitter and Facebook and my newsletter (sign up on the left-hand side of this blog or at rachelkramerbussel.com) for updates and giveaways, as I will definitely be doing more book giveaways.

I'm a word girl, but sometimes a photo says wonders, like this book, Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte, I checked out from my local library.



These are books I'm eager to read but realistically won't get to before my move. I have to make sure this time around to properly label my boxes so these are easy to find. Shoutout to excellent book site The Debutante Ball, where I won Come Away With Me by Karma Brown as well as Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton and The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy E. Reichert. Follow them for lots of great author posts and contests.



In more cheerful news, I'm hosting a bingo party soon and I can't wait!

Why I'm paying $100/story to authors in Best Women's Erotica 2016

Since issuing the Best Women's Erotica 2016 call for submissions, I've been asked about two aspects of it I'd like to address, namely money and word count. I know from having been published in prior editions that the payment to authors in the past has been higher, so I wanted to share how I came to the $100/author payment. I'm not privy to anyone's business details but my own, of course, so this is solely about my experience with this specific book. This is my first and possibly only time editing the series (I don't have a contract for any future editions, though of course I hope I will be asked to edit it again).

Using my entire advance, I can afford to pay for 25 stories at $100 each. I'll leave you to do that math. What that means for me as an editor is that I will pay the contributors the entirety of my advance (I may contribute a story as well if there is room, but have room to purchase 25 stories, without paying myself extra for me), so I will not see any income from this book until the book earns over $2,500 in royalties, so the earliest I will see any money from it is, I believe, July 2016. (I don't know the exact pub date, but am now being told the book will be for sale before Christmas 2015, rather than early 2016 as I had originally thought, but I will confirm this once I know for sure.) As a full-time freelancer, this is the most I can afford to pay. Otherwise, if I spent more, I would be paying out of my own pocket, which I do not by any stretch of the imagination have the funds for. If, and I tend to far prefer to deal in reality than "if" land, but if I am ever in the position to be editing the series and given a bigger advance, I will adjust the author payments accordingly. Only you can decide if that potential payment is sufficient to submit to this book, or any book or publication. If it's not, I completely understand. But since it's been mentioned at least twice that I've seen on Facebook, I wanted to address how I came to that number.

I also hired a lawyer for one hour at $250 to look over my contract, which then helped me to negotiate the best terms I could get, so I have actually invested my own money into this project in the hope/belief that it will be worthwhile. I include that information to let you know that I care deeply about my own value as a worker and about the value of my books, and about my authors, and did not take on this project lightly. I am cutting way, way back on the number of anthologies I edit per year; it used to be 6-8, and that did not make sense for my schedule or for my book sales. I do hope to have other calls posted later this year, but as I said, right now this is the only call I have up and the only new book I'm slated to edit as of now.

Which brings me to word count. I arrived at my 1,500-3,500 word count after doing a calculation of how many stories I can afford to buy and how many I will need to fill the book and not go over or under my assigned word count. This was my best estimate. When I've edited books of extremely short fiction, 1,200 words or less, namely Gotta Have It, The Big Book of Orgasms and The Big Book of Submission, the short word count was the point, and I was able to pay $20/story to 69 authors (actually, 68, excluding myself). I hope that to be able to edit another collection of short short erotic fiction again because I've found those fun to work on and I would far rather say yes more times to submissions than no. But that remains to be seen.

I consider my role here an experiment. Will I enjoy it? Will I produce a book readers want to read? Will I produce the book I envisioned in my head when I was asked to edit it? Will I produce a book my publisher is happy with? Will I contribute something new and interesting to a giant, sprawling genre that's already filled with new and interesting books?

I've been reading the Best Women's Erotica series since it started, and have contributed to multiple editions under the editorships of Marcy Sheiner and Violet Blue. I am a fan of the series and look forward to reading the submissions that have already stacked up my inbox, and the ones that will be coming in. Beyond that, I don't have any expectations regarding content, save that I hope to be awed and dazzled by what I read.

My first allegiance, as I see it, is to my readers. Of course I also want to do as well as I possibly can by my authors and my publisher, but without readers, I will stop creating books, because there would be no point. So, in addition to the above considerations I've given to the authors, I am thinking about the readers as I dive into this project. And now I will go continue printing out the dozens of story submissions I've already received. I look forward to reading many more, as long as they arrive by the deadline of June 1 (yes, submissions received on June 1 will be considered, but I strongly recommend submitting earlier).

Call for submissions: Best Women's Erotica 2016

Please direct any questions about this call to bwe2016 at gmail dot com and please make sure to read the entire thing before asking in case your questions is answered below - thank you! I don't know the exact publication date, though I suspect it will be in January or February 2016, and if I find out more precisely, I will update this post. Also, as I especially welcome submissions from authors who've never been published in the series, and those who've never published erotica before, please do share this widely.

Call for Submissions
Best Women’s Erotica 2016
Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel
To be published by Cleis Press in 2016

For my first year as editor of the Best Women’s Erotica series, I want your best, hottest, most creative and diverse erotica stories, written by and starring a wide range of women, from single to coupled, living in big cities and small towns anywhere in the world, of various ages (18+), races, sexualities, fetishes, jobs, interests, life experiences. Stories in the final book will range from humorous and playful to intense and soulful.

I don’t want to limit your creativity, because I want these approximately 25 stories to be as dazzling, varied and sexy as possible. I want your very best work, the kind that will make readers want to savor your story over and over again. Some things I’m looking to include: stories by authors who’ve never been published in the Best Women’s Erotica series, stories by and about women of color, stories featuring women 40+, romantic erotica (doesn’t necessarily need to have a happy ending, but happy endings are wonderful too), stories involving more than two people, stories in unusual settings, erotica touching on current events (though the story should be one readers ten or twenty years from now will also appreciate), BDSM stories (especially ones with creative motivations and femdom stories, though I also want submissive women who aren’t pushovers), stories that blow my mind. I gravitate toward unique, creative characters, settings, and scenarios. I will consider sci fi, fantasy and paranormal stories, but they will not be the focus of this anthology. For an idea of the types of stories I like, see my women’s erotica anthologies Fast Girls or Orgasmic.

Rights: non-exclusive right to publish the story in this anthology in print, ebook and audiobook form. Authors will retain copyright to their stories. Standard Cleis Press contributor contract.

Guidelines: Submit only original, unpublished stories of 1,500-3,500 words that are not being considered elsewhere. I want only original work that has never been published online or in print. All characters must be 18 or over. No poetry. No incest or scat. US grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) required. Maximum two submissions per author. Submit to bwe2016 at gmail dot com by attaching a Word .doc or .docx file, double spaced, Times New Roman black font with legal name, pseudonym (if applicable), mailing address, and 50-word-or-under third person bio on the front page. All stories must have title and byline included with the submission. Indent half an inch at start of each paragraph. Do not add extra lines between paragraphs or use any other irregular spacing; the entire file should be double spaced. If you cannot use Word, please submit as both an RTF AND include the story’s title and text, 50-word-or-under third person bio and legal name, pseudonym (if applicable) and mailing address in the body of an email. DO NOT submit alternate versions of the same story twice; only the first submission will be considered. Submissions that don’t conform to my guidelines will not be considered.

I will confirm that I have received your submission within 72 hours. I will respond to all submissions by September 30, 2015. If you have not heard back from me by October 1, 2015, feel free to follow up.

Payment: $100 and 2 copies of the book within 90 days of publication

Deadline: June 1, 2015 (earlier submissions strongly encouraged)

Questions: Email bwe2016 at gmail dot com