So Many Amazing Submissions, So Little Space…

When I first had the idea to start a small press and put out the occasional anthology, my goals were modest. I envisioned receiving 50-60 submissions (if I was lucky) for our first publication – the tentatively named Not Your Average Monster anthology. I mean, I was just a small fish in the gigantic pond of the horror genre with only one moderately successful novel and a benefit anthology that I edited under my belt. Why would anyone take a chance with us?

So, I started this website, created a Facebook group and commissioned a logo from my amazingly talented friend Tom Martin. I posted the Call for Submissions and waited for them to slowly trickle in.

Instead of a trickle, my inbox was soon flooded to a deluge of stories from a wide range of writers – writers just testing the waters to authors who have been published since before disco was dead. We passed 50 stories by the 2nd week. The 100 submission milestone flew by and I was ecstatic. I began reading them in order of receipt and it was quickly apparent that the quality of most of the stories were stellar, and the range of topics were exceedingly broad.

Soon, I started sending out acceptance emails and, regretfully, I also had to reject numerous stories for a variety of reasons. The submissions kept rolling in. 4-5 on an average day. Up to 10 on a busy one. We passed 200 last week and I began to realize that quite a number of stupendously written stories could very well not make it into the anthology due to lack of space. I have already accepted 15 stories (all of which are superb) and I should only need 4-6 more to create a pretty hefty tome. With 120+ short stories/novellas yet to read, some deserving stories would be left on the sidelines.

So I made an executive decision.

If there are much more than enough stories for one anthology, there sure are enough for another book. Long story short, I’ve decided to expand the series to 2 books, published about 3 months apart.

What does this mean?

First of all, if your story has been accepted already, you are still all set to be published in the first volume, sometime in September. Nothing will change.
For those of you who have submitted and not yet heard from me, you now have a greater chance of being chosen than before. I will choose a few more to round out Volume 1, and I will also choose about 20 others to be featured in Volume 2
If a story makes the cut, I will inform the author by email as always. In the email, I will also state in which volume I am offereing publication.
The 2nd volume will be published 3-6 months after the first one at the same rates
If an author feels that 3-6 more months is too long to wait, they have every right to decline the offer and search elsewhere.
If successful, subsequent volumes could be added to the schedule. If that is the case, the new volumes would be printed every 6-8 months.

Here’s to a long and successful anthology series!