Red Squirrel Publishing / Unsung Stories

[Axordil]

http://www.unsungstories.co.uk/
http://www.redsquirrelbooks.com/

I'm having difficulty researching this British indie publisher and their fiction imprint (launched June 2014) for

"science fiction, fantasy and horror, but especially the fuzzy bits between these genres: hard and soft sci-fi, high and low fantasy, slipstream, alternative history, steampunk, cyberpunk, weird fiction and anything else that defies expectation."

They seem to have a submission stream for standard length shorts with semi-pro rates, book-length submissions, and a sort of odd in-between that is what I'm kind of interested in:

"Works of 4-30K words will be considered for our range of ebooks, giving writers a chance to place their works that are too long for journals but too short for traditional book-length publication."

I'm guessing the ebook line pays royalties, but like some other British sites I've looked at, details on money (beyond the pay rate for their standard short feature) are hard to come by.

They are listed on Duotrope. Anyone else have dealings with them?

 

[Weirdmage]

Red Squirrel's site seems OK, but a bit strange, at first glance. They look to be a Non-Fiction publisher, but there are no books listed recently in their store. As far as I can see the website has been dead since January 2015.

I found a person whose name rung a bell on the Unsung Stories sit, Anne Zanoni (, the name of her blog looked familiar when I went there so it's probably from there), however clicking on her name leads you to her blog and there is no link to Unsung Stories or Red Squirrel there.
At least one of their books seem to be award nominated, but I can't say I've heard of any of the titles.

Checking other online stores for their books would be my next avenue, but I don't have time for that right now.

 

[Axordil]

Good idea though, I'll do that!

Okay--Amazon does have listings for the ebooks (and in some cases the paperbacks). There are reviews of their latest release (March 2015) from Strange Horizons and The Guardian. They have a release slated for May. I'm thinking it's tiny but legitimate?

They also have a short story collection from an author. Which is rare as hen's teeth, or it was last time I checked such things.

 

[veinglory]

Well... if Amazon is their major retail venue their books, which having Kindle ranking between 800,000 - 1,500,000, are basically not selling. (I say that as a person whose books mostly have about the same rank. It is what it is.)

 

[Axordil]

Them having their own store makes it a little harder to say for sure, but I suspect you're right.

 

[chopper]

IIRC Unsung Stories had a stall in the dealers room at Fantasycon in Nottingham last year. i know they sent a couple of giveaways up to the York Pubmeet last year too.

 

[CaoPaux]

FYI, Unsung Stories has struck out on its own. (annoucement)