Submissions for Romance Anthology Wanted

Vanilla Heart Publishing Romance
Anthology 2010

Call for
Submissions



What
We're Seeking:



Stories
from 1,000 words to 10,000 words (close is good) with significant romantic
elements. Prose only, please, no poetry for this one.


Include:
manuscript (of 1,000 to
10,000 words) with a
synopsis (or blurb if
piece is shorter than 3,000 words),
an author bio including
where to find you on the web,
your full name/pen name,
email addresses, and website address, if any.

Submissions are open
until August 17, 2010 and the final decisions will be made by
August 30, 2010. Please send your submission to
VHPRA2010@VanillaHeartBooksAndAuthors.com and include Passionate Hearts Anthology in the
subject line.


Please note, we are not
accepting multiple submissions for this anthology. Each author selected for the
anthology will be contracted specifically for the anthology.

Each author with a
submission selected for inclusion in the print and electronic editions of
Passionate Hearts will receive a small payment (via Paypal only), a
contributor copy of the print edition upon publication, mention in all marketing
and promotion, and author bio and information on the Vanilla Heart Publishing
Website Passionate Hearts page,
www.VanillaHeartBooksAndAuthors.com.

What is the benefit of being included in something like this? Can you point to specific rewards that helped previous anthology authors in their goals? I know that it's all "exposure," but what did such exposure lead to? I am genuinely curious, as I'm aware there are a lot of anthologies out there, so obviously, someone is getting something out of them.

For unknown authors in a small press publication, I don't see a lot of benefit other than minimal exposure and one more book to ad to the list. For the publishers of these anthologies, the contributing authors buy lots of the anthologies because they are nice to give as gifts (not quite so self-serving as one's own book) and the publishers may note a new author of merit for whom a book may be in the future. They are also nice to display at book signings for one's one novel: look, I am published here also.

Another benefit to a new author is having their short stories vetted for quality. Most anthology publishers have many great stories to choose from, and being selected for publication is a sort of validation. It's also a good starting place for an author changing genre and needing a place to try out their work.

A colleague of mine whose novels I do not enjoy was in an anthology with me. His short story simply blew me away with its substance and quality. I discovered he truly could write fiction. I still shed a tear remembering the emotional impact from those few thousand words.

I could ad more, but these are a few pro and con observations of mine. I am in several anthologies to which I contributed to enhance branding, to reach a wider audience, to be in the company of some great writers and for a platform to present some short stories that were meaningful to me when I wrote them.

I would do it for the exposure, perhaps more from the blogs about the book than the book itself. If one has other books out there, being listed in blogs and tweets along with one's book title is probably a good thing.

Of course, it turns into a better thing once some of the authors in the anthology have more and more of an audience. Then, one's name is linked to their's, and maybe the anthology actually sells a few copies.

Malcolm