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
I’ve accepted 22 pieces totaling around 43,000 words for Dread Mondays.
I’ve sent out contracts on all of these pieces, and I’m awaiting 3 responses (the others are all signed and delivered). There’s a 14-day expiration on these offers, so those outstanding offers might wind up being negated due to author neglect.
I’m aiming for 50-55k words for a total with at least 25 authors involved in the anthology, so I’m close to the end of the acceptance-and-contracting step in this process. Just a few more acceptances to go… I’ve only got a quarter of submissions remaining to sift through to find the perfect final puzzle pieces!
I want to discuss what I’ve learned about budgeting for this anthology (and business expenditures in general). Maybe the frank conversation will help a potential publisher get their own head straight about these issues before diving in. I had (and have) ideas about what I need to do to make publishing a success (and defining success, pivotally), but this is the .
Expenditures:
- With a ten to twelve thousand words remaining to purchase from authors at $0.06 per word, I’ll owe another $600 to $800 outbound. I like to pay authors immediately upon their signing, but now I’m paying out on a delay that’s written into the last few contracts (with author payouts to go out by 1 May 2025—still many months ahead of publication, but slower than I like to pay out).
- I bought a Kirkus review for $375 (they’re usually $450, so I jumped at the $75 beginning-of-year discount, and it can be used later in the year when this book is done).
- I know I’ll be hiring an artist to customize a pre-existing cover (expected cost: ~$200) rather than to create a new cover from scratch (expected cost $500-700) for this book.
- So we’re talkin’ another $1,000 outbound to finish this anthology.
- Two things I’ve learned about per-piece vs. per-word payments, given my limited financial situation:
- When I pay by word, people write longer. Rejected submissions of stories with 3,000-4,000 word counts that would have been clearly 1,200-1,800 words number in the hundreds.
- If I pay per-piece, I can predict and control the output of funds. Overall, paying $50 per 1,000 word piece amounts to the same as paying $0.05 times 50,000 words, but paying per word means that I might pay out $1500 in a two-week window and $1000 spread over the next 30 days. A project will be easier to budget if I can say to myself, “I’m gonna accept four stories per week for six weeks in a row” and plan accordingly.
Next time, I’ll be returning to the per-piece payment.
Income:
- I am running a Kickstarter to help fund the Costs of Living project, and I have hope (but no assurance whatever) to raise $1500 in February toward that project’s marketing and printing costs.
- There’s no regular money coming in from book sales for Whisper House Press, as I haven’t published either of these two anthologies yet… and even when they do go on sale, I can’t imagine making actual profit, but hopefully we move toward breaking even.
- I put an average of $500 per month into this venture from my day job. Hopefully at some point (is this what a business plan is for?), I won’t have to do that
So what am I learning? Well, I’m learning about those things I didn’t know about before I started this whole thing. Just like `ol Rummy said (are we ready for a 20-year-old White House press conference reference?), there are known unknowns, and there are unknown unknowns… most of the expenditures necessitated by these two projects aren’t surprises, but I could not have put a dollar figure on them before starting Whisper House Press a year ago. I went in partially blind, knowing it would cost a few thousand dollars, knowing that if I spread that expense out over an 18-month period, I could stomach it. As I move forward, I can offer more precise projections. There are fewer known unknowns as well as fewer unknown unknowns.
What I’m excited about—what I’m stoked to see come to fruition—is the publication of these two anthologies (Costs of Living and Dread Mondays) in September and then October of 2025… this year.
What I’m relying on most heavily is the value of my own labor. I’m posting interview videos, editing stories, spreading the word online, appearing at bookstores and at conventions… I have been saying and thinking, “I’m building the machine.” I’m looking forward to starting that machine come Q4 of 2025. (Note to self: “Building the machine” should be a post on its own.)
Whisper House Press 
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