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Book Smugglers Publishing

slhuang

slhuang

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The Book Smugglers started a publishing arm this year -- starting with short stories -- and I love their site so I eagerly submitted. It turns out I am to be their inaugural story (eee! :D), coming out next week, and they announced today, so I can now talk about how UTTERLY AWESOME the experience of working with Ana & Thea the past few months has been.

Production Value: I was not expecting anything near the production value they gave my story -- they're releasing it as an ebook as well as on their site, and the proofs look incredible. I am floored. (And I have very high standards!) Seriously, I cannot get over how good the book looks. :D

Cover: IS UTTERLY BRILLIANT. They commissioned a custom illustration for the cover (!!) by a wonderfully talented artist and asked me for feedback / what was important to me every step of the way.

Editing: Marvelous. Their edits improved the story by a lot -- and it had been through rigorous beta before submission. The edit process was absolutely painless partly because their edits were so good that I just flat-out agreed with most of them and partly because it felt very collaborative -- they were always willing to listen to my thoughts on how something should be changed (or not changed).

General Correspondence & Professionalism: Through the roof. I don't know when they sleep, but they were always immediately on top of everything and are absolutely lovely people to talk to.

Payment & Contracting: Very prompt, very clear, and good rates & terms (at least, as far as my research / limited experience suggests; this is my first sale but I have done a bunch of reading on what this stuff should look like ;)).

What They Look For In General: This particular call was for subversive fairy tales, and in general, they particularly seek out themes like feminism, diversity, underrepresented viewpoints, etc.. You can get a good idea by looking at this year's upcoming lineup here:

http://thebooksmugglers.com/2014/09/book-smugglers-publishing-upcoming-short-stories.html

They're going to be announcing their next call this week, and I HIGHLY recommend submitting to them. Truly a joy to work with. I am thrilled to be publishing with them and I'm just over the moon about everything they've done with my story.
 
Becca C.

Becca C.

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Love that cover! The Book Smugglers look like they're going to do a really good job with it. I would submit to them, if I wrote their kind of thing.
 
ssbittner

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That cover is simply amazing and beautiful. You're lucky to get it! Congratulations on getting this published.
 

OJCade

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They bought one of my stories as well, and my experience is spot on with slhuang's. Highly professional, good editing, prompt in payment.

I haven't seen a cover for mine yet (it's out in November, I believe) but I think I'm getting the same cover artist so my hopes are high. The cover slhuang got is beautiful.

Apparently there's another call for submissions opening up this week. I'd absolutely recommend them as a market. Full marks from me so far!
 
aliceshortcake

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Congrats to everyone who's been accepted by Book Smugglers, but does anyone else feel an overpowering compulsion to read their name as Budgie Smugglers?
 
EvolvingK

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I noticed that they pay the SFWA minimum (nice!) but was weirded out by this:

Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult audience submissions are welcome. Good speculative fiction is ageless!
Click to expand...

I mean...yes, I do think so, and there's some amazing spec fic written for MG and YA audiences--William Sleator got me into the whole genre to start with--but I wonder if they're trying to say all ages of MC are acceptable? I ask just because there's a really big difference between an MG story and a story that has an 11yo as the MC. (As you all know, clearly). Especially since they specify that:

Profanity, sex, and other explicit situations are fine as long as they fit within the context of the story.
Click to expand...

Otherwise, they look awesome, and I'm going to think if there's anything I can put into this universe.

Am I being weird and picky? It's very possible.
 
slhuang

slhuang

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EvolvingK said:
I mean...yes, I do think so, and there's some amazing spec fic written for MG and YA audiences--William Sleator got me into the whole genre to start with--but I wonder if they're trying to say all ages of MC are acceptable? I ask just because there's a really big difference between an MG story and a story that has an 11yo as the MC. (As you all know, clearly).
Click to expand...

No, I don't believe it's about the age of the MC, I believe they literally are trying to say that a MG or YA submission is perfectly fine, just as an adult submission with adult situations is also perfectly fine, and that they'd be potentially willing to publish both. Note: I say this not from any special inside knowledge, it's just what I'd assume given that I read their website regularly. ;) They review MG, YA, and adult with equal enthusiasm and have respect for books written for any category.

I suspect they're just trying to reassure anyone who writes a MG or YA story that they are very much open to those as well. :)
 
EvolvingK

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slhuang said:
No, I don't believe it's about the age of the MC, I believe they literally are trying to say that a MG or YA submission is perfectly fine, just as an adult submission with adult situations is also perfectly fine, and that they'd be potentially willing to publish both. Note: I say this not from any special inside knowledge, it's just what I'd assume given that I read their website regularly. ;) They review MG, YA, and adult with equal enthusiasm and have respect for books written for any category.

I suspect they're just trying to reassure anyone who writes a MG or YA story that they are very much open to those as well. :)
Click to expand...

Huh. Okay! :D The YA and Adult audience crossover I can believe, especially within spec fic, but the MG is really throwing me, I'll admit. In my experience, MG is just such a different category, with different marketing needs--convincing parents to buy this for their kids is way different than convincing either parents or teens to buy it for themselves--and my understanding had still been that MG isn't doing much of anything in the emarket. But, hey, been wrong before. Today even!
 
slhuang

slhuang

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EvolvingK said:
Huh. Okay! :D The YA and Adult audience crossover I can believe, especially within spec fic, but the MG is really throwing me, I'll admit. In my experience, MG is just such a different category, with different marketing needs--convincing parents to buy this for their kids is way different than convincing either parents or teens to buy it for themselves--and my understanding had still been that MG isn't doing much of anything in the emarket. But, hey, been wrong before. Today even!
Click to expand...

Ha! I know LESS THAN NOTHING about marketing categories, and I've never written MG myself. But they do review middle grade as well as YA and adult, and I suspect there's nothing more nefarious going on here than that they just don't want to be preemptively exclusionary. ;)

If you'd like to hear their intent from the horse's mouth rather than my guesses ;), you can drop a question in the comments to their call for submissions -- when they posted their first call they were quite good about replying in comments to anybody's questions about their guidelines. :)
 
EvolvingK

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slhuang said:
Ha! I know LESS THAN NOTHING about marketing categories, and I've never written MG myself. But they do review middle grade as well as YA and adult, and I suspect there's nothing more nefarious going on here than that they just don't want to be preemptively exclusionary. ;)

If you'd like to hear their intent from the horse's mouth rather than my guesses ;), you can drop a question in the comments to their call for submissions -- when they posted their first call they were quite good about replying in comments to anybody's questions about their guidelines. :)
Click to expand...

I may just do that. I haven't written MG in *ages* and have *zero* desire to ever do so again, but I'm curious now.

And I certainly don't think there's anything nefarious there. The worst I was thinking of was naive. But it also helped once I opened my eyes and realized that they're not selling collections of stories on themes, they're selling several different stories on themes. In that context, accepting MG makes perfect sense. I was trying to figure out how in the world you'd convince someone to buy an anthology that had both a MG story and an adult one.

It's been a really frelling long week.
 
Polenth

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EvolvingK said:
Huh. Okay! :D The YA and Adult audience crossover I can believe, especially within spec fic, but the MG is really throwing me, I'll admit. In my experience, MG is just such a different category, with different marketing needs--convincing parents to buy this for their kids is way different than convincing either parents or teens to buy it for themselves--and my understanding had still been that MG isn't doing much of anything in the emarket. But, hey, been wrong before. Today even!
Click to expand...

I'd guess that the main audience for all their books will be adults. The blog is generally read by adults. But that's not an issue for sales, as if adults are fans of the blog, chances are very high they're willing to read some MG titles. And then will pass it on to their children if they have any.
 

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Just read HUNTING MONSTERS and bought the e-book - great story, and I think they've done an awesome job of publishing it. Love the added content - really interesting interview which was definitely worth paying for (and I think having the story and essay on the site for free is a brilliant way to draw people to it.)

Will definitely look forward to their future releases.
 
slhuang

slhuang

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yayeahyeah said:
Just read HUNTING MONSTERS and bought the e-book - great story, and I think they've done an awesome job of publishing it. Love the added content - really interesting interview which was definitely worth paying for (and I think having the story and essay on the site for free is a brilliant way to draw people to it.)
Click to expand...

Thank you so much! :D

Yeah, I thought the Q&A was a very cool idea. I'm so glad you found my answers interesting to read -- I strove for that! ;) (For anyone who is wondering, the ebook contains my story, an essay I wrote on the Inspiration & Influences behind it, and a Q&A interview about the story and my writing and me. :D)
 
Shadowflame

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I've got a novella subbed with them right now. It will probably be a LONG wait as I know they will be flooded. BUT, it's worth a shot. :) What I've seen and heard of them has been wonderful.
 
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