Hi everyone- I'm Kyle Jones, mentioned above. I'm happy to answer questions and address any concerns people have, and didn't even realize you were discussing our site until it popped up on a vanity google search.
Where to start?
Yes, we're two lawyers (and off-and-on aspiring writers) who work together in Texas. No, we're not scammers trying to take money from aspiring writers. No, we're not intending to get people to sign up and then change the terms and conditions to steal intellectual property from people who have submitted their unfinished novels.
Here's the deal- Scott and I are good friends and coworkers who have both written fiction extensively, but never published any works and have many unfinished novels. Talking about this over lunch one day we discussed how reading through our old stuff, we realized that there were really good stories in there, but we'd lost our motivation for one reason or another. That led to further discussion that if we had such works, there had to be many more authors out there (more talented than ourselves) who were in the same boat. And if we could find the best of those unfinished stories, then we could publish an anthology that would be unique and compelling. Would everyone like it? Surely not. But we would be interested in reading such a compilation and, I can tell your from reading the submissions we've already received, it's very interesting reading the very beginnings of an unfamiliar story.
Thus, we came up with the website- wrote out the terms and conditions and sent out initial releases with our information. We've been very happy with the response so far, but we understand some people are skeptical. So here's some information about us:
1) This is our first foray into publishing. Our goal is to generate interest in a unique idea to generate interest in the book. Hopefully there will be a large enough interest and we can explore a large print run. Nobody is trying to hide anything. If we were, we wouldn't have even mentioned Teton River Productions or used our real names. We're two guys with an idea we think is good. We're pursuing it.
2) We're not seeking any money from people who submit works. I don't know what the "poetry scams" are, but I want to make clear- we won't charge anyone submitting stories any fees whatsoever. There will be no reading fees, editing fees or requirements that the published authors or submitters buy copies of the book. In fact, all authors published in the anthology will be receiving copies of the book at no expense. There is not going to be a minimum sales requirement under the guise of a cost of recovery, and the royalty contract will pay off from the sale of the first book. The bottom line is this- we're assuming all the financial risk and asking no one to share in it. We think that a reputable publishing company bears all the risk of loss and does not try to foist it off on the authors.
3) The option period is intended to give us the ability to use submissions in future anthologies, if the first is successful. From responses already received, we anticipate that there will be "genre-specific" anthologies in the future (assuming we can make a go of this). Also, this is for abandoned novels-- not for works in progress. We want people to submit the book that they stopped working on several years ago-- not actually writing something just for our site. If you have a work in progress that you are currently writing with the intent to publish, don't submit it and give us a three year option to publish it. What we're asking is that if you have an abandoned novel, submit it to us for consideration.
4) As for publishing the material on the website- this is something we're contemplating as a way to generate interest in the project, and nothing more. We're considering taking some of the ideas and posting them up for comments or consideration. Maybe having polls for consideration of two or more good beginnings.
Okay, it seems I've written a novella in trying to respond to everyone's questions. I'm more than happy to answer more. Either post them here and I'll make sure to check back, or IM them to me and I'll answer promptly.