AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Author:

First, forgive my generic greeting, but I have only a short amount of spare time and a fairly long list of people to contact.

I am writing this as a preliminary invitation for you to grant one time print rights in the English language to Double-Edged Publishing, Inc. so that your story (in the list that follows) might appear in a forthcoming anthology: Distant Passages­The Best from Double-Edged Publishing, 2005.

In return for your granting these one time print rights (a complete contract will be executed, once we have preliminary consent to proceed from the invited authors), you will receive one contributor copy. Additionally, you will be entitled to on-going royalty payments derived from the following rubric:

The price of the book will be set based on production costs (book will be produced using Lulu’s printing services) and a reasonable markup. The difference between the cost of the book and the price will be the basis for the royalty.

Double-Edged Publishing will be assigned five (5) shares.

Each contributor will be assigned one (1) share for appearing in the book.

Each contributor will be assigned additional shares for each page, or part of page, on which his or her contribution appears up to a maximum of ten (10) additional shares. Regardless of page length, the additional shares assigned will not exceed 10.

The royalty earned from book sales will be divided according to shares.

/snip-long royalty explanation here/ Unless we sell thousands and thousands of copies, your cash realization is going to be negligible.

The main benefit you derive from participating in this project is the right to claim your story was selected to appear in the "Best of 2005" DEP anthology. You also get a contributor copy that your agent might find noteworthy. You also get to recycle an already-printed-once story.

So what’s going in this anthology? The invitees from The Sword Review and Dragons, Knights, & Angels include (not to necessarily appear in this order):


Fiction

Last Hurrah -- L. S. King
Old Soul -- Mike Wever
Beautiful Dreamer -- Edward McKeown
Moonstone -- by Joseph Thomas Mahoney
All That Glitters -- Pam L. Wallace
The Choosing -- by Selena Thomason
Dark Angel - Benigno -- by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
Treecutter -- by Scott M. Sandridge
Captain Jack Bowie and the Steel Wolf Renegades -- by Sean T. M. Stiennon
No Greater Love--by Wesley Lambert
The Anointed -- by Rosemary McMillen
City of Deliverance -- by Robert Barlow
***Presence -- Domyelle Rhyse***
Racing the Gap -- Byron Leavitt

Poetry

And on the Seventh Day ... by Marsheila Rockwell
Traveller's Tale -- Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
Rosemary -- Jamie Voss
Welcoming Armageddon With Open Arms -- Mikal Trimm
The Ship -- Terry Weide


Amazingly, some of these authors where nominated for more than one work, and Wade Ogletree’s "A Picture’s Worth" would have been in this list, had it not already appeared in Better Fiction’s Year in Review.

[b]Please reply to this email with your acceptance of this invitation as soon as possible.[/b] If you wish to decline the invitation, then please reply quickly, as well, so work on this project can continue.

In closing, let me thank you for your support of SR and DKA over 2005. This year (2006) is off to a great start with site visits up dramatically! Your continued interest and support of these publications is appreciated greatly. Thank you.

--
Bill Snodgrass

President and Director
Double-Edged Publishing

www.doubleedgedpublishing.com

*** emphasis mine ;)


I AM ABOUT TO HAVE MY FIRST STORY IN A REAL PRINT BOOK!!!!

*happy dances*

(And, yes, I already sent my acceptance! Teehee!)