Men for Hire - an anthology

Marvellous news – I am about to start a new development in my writing career – that of coordinating an anthology!

I proposed an idea to one of my publishers, Luminosity Publishing, who opened their doors last year and have yet to do an anthology – and they accepted! I have used one of my story ideas ‘Men for Hire’ – the concept being that a woman called Jennifer Archer runs a firm in London that hires men out for whatever reason (not sex since it isn’t about running a brothel!) – but in the course of the work they have passionate sex and may even fall in love! So that leaves it wide open for authors to come up with ideas of what these men might be hired to do….

My job in this project is to read all the submissions (if we get thousands I might have created a ‘rod for my own back’!) and to choose which ones best fit with the concept and the other stories. I am excitedly looking forward to that! (Of course, Luminosity gets the final approval but based on my recommendations). The downside is it will be my job to tell those I am rejecting and give them feedback. But it will be a fabulous opportunity to learn another side to the business of writing novels.

The questions people have been asking me so far have shown me what things people need to know, eg, royalty percentage, numbers of stories per anthology, how long their stories will be contracted to the publisher, if we were splitting the anthology into different types of sexual orientation – down to plot queries like American authors being unfamiliar with UK slang/lingo or UK settings.

In answer to those questions:

• Royalties: 40% from the Luminosity website. (Split equally between all authors) 50% net from distributors. (Split equally between all authors)

• 5 stories max to allow the successful authors a decent royalty on book sales

• 2 years contract

• Yes to splitting into different anthologies if we get a lot of different types of submission: one MF, one MM and one ménage.

• No reason their characters cannot be Americans living in or visiting the UK. But I would also suggest using plain speech for English characters if you are not familiar with English slang.

• Lastly, I was asked if the ‘men for hire’ firm was international! I’ve said I would certainly read any submission where they had the owner of the firm visiting the USA (or other countries) and was asked for her expertise whilst there. Or she opened another branch in another country. Try me! If it’s a good enough story and it works with the other ones they could be successful.

• Actually, I was also asked if the owner of the firm needed to be included as a character – I said it depends on the story. I can certainly envisage stories where the ‘man hired’ turns up at his workplace without having to go through an interview at the firm….

The scope is deliberately wide. I want to see unique and erotic situations in this anthology. The plot should be strong, even though it is short, the characters notable, the romance powerful, and the sex PASSIONATE!

If you are interested the deadline for submissions is 1 April and the link for more information is here: http://luminositypublishing.com/submission-calls/