zarf wrote:
My concern: in the book world, it's bad form to run a for-profit anthology based on competition submissions. If you posted somewhere saying "send us your short story, we'll publish it, you don't get any royalties! Most of you don't even get an advance!" you would get a flood of authors saying "*ripoff*" and little besides.
Um, I kinda think you're talking through your hat, actually - most writing competitions charge an entrance fee and profit *directly* from their hopeful contributors, regardless of whether the resulting anthology sells or not. That's a negative royalty plus no exposure. And semi-prozines, like the ones I've had fiction published in, pay a small, token amount to classify as such, but it's not a royalty. And that's because, in the book world, profits on anthologies as rare as profits on apps.
And honestly, I don't think it is a rip-off: we've worked hard to gather a panel of publishers, agents, etc. Submissions will go in front of them. The winners will be published, worldwide, to as much marketing acclaim as we can muster, in a top-quality app. That kind of exposure can be worth a colossal amount. I'd love to have that on my own writing CV.
I'd accept that full-time professional authors might not be interested. I hope some are, but I'm okay with it if they're not. But I'd be stunned if new writers aren't. We're running this partly because, if it had existed ten years ago when I was starting out, I would have fallen over myself to enter. I wanted opportunities at this kind of level and couldn't find them. Now I get to make them.
All of which said, free or not, Future Voices isn't for-profit.
jon
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inkle: interactive stories
http://www.inklestudios.com
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