For the past three Octobers, I’ve put out a Call for Submissions for an anthology to be published by my imprint, Superior Shores Press. That resulted in three collections that have been both critically acclaimed and well received by readers: The Best Laid Plans: 21 Stories of Mystery & Suspense; Heartbreaks & Half-truths: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense; and Moonlight & Misadventure: 20 Stories of Mystery & Suspense. Selecting the stories for those anthologies from some 300 submissions is not for the faint of heart, nor is the amount of work involved in compiling, formatting, creating cover art, promotion etc. etc. etc. As much as I love every collection and loved working on them, and with other authors, I decided to take a “gap year” while I work hard on book 4 Marketville, a standalone suspense, and, “possibly,” a new cozy mystery series, all three projects set aside while I worked on Moonlight. Will I send out another call for submissions in 2022 for publication in 2023? The answer is, I don’t know, though I’m leaning towards yes, at least if my sales support another one.
In the meantime, I thought I’d share a post I wrote for The Wickeds, a fabulous multi-author blog I encourage you to follow. The post, titled “The Natural Order of Things” starts like this:
Before I became a magazine editor and journalist, and eventually, an author, I spent the better part of thirty years working in the corporate world as a Credit Manager and other accounting-related positions. As a result, I have a better-than-average knowledge of Excel, which came in handy when, as Senior Editor, I was managing the freelance budget for New England Antiques Journal, and I’ve used it for my own bookkeeping records. Even so, I never thought I’d use it as a tool to help me determine the order of the short stories in my Superior Shores Anthologies. But that’s exactly what I did. Even better, it works like a charm.
To read the rest of the post, click on THIS LINK. And if you haven’t read all three anthologies, I encourage you to check them out. They’re available in trade paperback, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Apple Books and more. Trust me, you won’t want to put them down.
B&N NOOK BONUS OFFER (links below): From Nov. 6 to Nov. 12, select any SSP anthology, enter the code BNPSSP50X at checkout and get 50% off the retail price of $4.99US.
Very good article on how an ‘old’ job helped with the new. Excel..like mysteries, not for the faint of heart. The editing of short stories a daunting task but looking forward to the possibility ahead.
Thanks Will for the feedback. I’m glad you enjoyed the post!