Notes from the desk of the editor are offered in the interests of personal posterity and transparency for writers and other potential editors who wish to learn from my experience
the editor
Submissions Closed, Second (etc) Review Ongoing, Some Contracts Offered Already
We (I, I suppose) ceased accepting submissions for Dread Mondays, our workplace horror anthology, following its 11/30 extended deadline, and I’ve begun a second review on all submissions.
Everyone’s work received at least one pass by the first Sunday in December, and I was able to offer respectful declining emails to about 1/3 of submitting writers by that point.
Since the start of the month, I’ve been through about a hundred (of about 370) stories that made it through that first pass.
Many submissions—typically those about which I think, “This is really good, but I can’t tell if it fits yet”—have gone into a pile for a third or even a fourth review.
I’ve begun filing all of the cubicle-related stories into a sub-folder in my email inbox so that I can choose one or two at the end. The majority of submissions were of this type. This means those who submitted stories outside the white-collar workplace are at an extreme mathematical advantage over the rest.
I’ve offered contracts to our invited author as well as six others that were like, “YES, THIS IS THE THING WE WANT” sure-thing entries. We’re at 14,049 words accepted so far between those seven authors. Their stories range in length from 240 words at the shortest to 3,681 at the longest.
We’re using a contract very similar to that which we adopted for our first anthology that you can read about here. The only changes were to allow us audio production rights, an option for the author to turn down some or all payment (believe it or not, that’s been a thing and I decided I needed to write it into the contract as a possibility), and a clarification that the payment options for authors are electronic payments and checks but no longer includes electronic transfers.
I’m keeping an eye out for my favorite artists’ premade covers pages so if one pops up that fits our anthology I can jump at it. If we don’t find one of those premades, I’ll pay what I need to pay for a full design. I (intentionally) do not have a short-term deadline for this element of the project.
All in all, I’m so glad to be doing this again. I’m thrilled to choose stories, and I’m honored writers are trusting me with their work. I hope to assemble a collection of which we can be proud.
Costs of Living Updates
In Costs of Living anthology news, I’ve contacted a ton of magazines, websites, and readers (who review and who have a bunch of followers on social media platforms). I’ve offered ARCs all over the place, including BookSirens and through my bluesky account. I’m keeping tabs on all the ARCs I send out so I can follow up with folks later on to encourage them to cross-post their reviews. Kirkus and Publishers Weekly both have copies of the book for review.
I’ve gotten help from Elizabeth Suggs of Collective Tales Publishing to put a final eye to the page for polishing edits on Costs of Living.
We’ve received a blurb from a friend and academic as well as editor of Belt Magazine, Ed Simon (author of A Visual History of Demonology and The History of Faustian Bargains, among other titles), and I’ve posted his blurb / review on the Kickstarter campaign page. Our Kickstarter goes live at the end of January / 1st week in February, so I’m working to get some more reviews we might include before that date.
I met a bigger-name mainstream author over the past weekend and she recommended I pop into a book convention in SLC to get the word out on this antho, so I’m thinking of trying to do that if it isn’t cost prohibitive.
Until next time…
Whisper House Press 
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