Submissions for anthology sought

Hi guys, we're looking for submissions for our first anthology, Logos In The Foam (one for the Peep Show fans), so feel free to send us your stuff. Details below.

We want your original and unpublished writing for our first anthology, Logos In The Foam. Your works of 500 - 5000 words of fiction are warmly welcomed and you have until Friday 15th May to get it across to us.

Teckle is stationed between comedy, music and football, but we will look at writing outwith those loose barriers for our inaugural anthology. As this is new, we aren't sure where we're going to end up but we want plenty to read on the journey so please don't be shy.

We can't offer payment for included writers at this time, hopefully we can get there for the next one. What we would love to happen is to uncover new novelists that we can work with to produce unabashedly braw books in the future.

Selected works will be published in the anthology Logos In The Foam in paperback and eBook formats.

Publishing Rights - Teckle books will keep the rights to the work for 12 months from publication, with full accreditation to the author, and during that time the work should not appear in full or in part online or in print. Full rights then return to the author after 12 months. We ask that if you submit the work elsewhere from then on, you state that it was first published by Teckle Books in Logos In The Foam.

To submit - send your work as an attachment to submissions@tecklebooks.co.uk with the subject being 'Logos In The Foam - Your Name'. Feel free to include a short bio in the covering email, though this won't impact your chances of inclusion if you would prefer not to.

Please be aware that due to high volumes of entries it may take us a wee while to get back to you. We will make contact with everyone, but if you haven't heard by the end of June, you should consider finding another home for your work.

Am I right in understanding that you get the profit from book sales, keep the rights for 12 months and the author gets nothing?
Sounds like vanity publishing. Perhaps you could tell us more about your advertising and how your sales are going so far. Are your existing authors paid?

Quote: Loopey @ 29th April 2015, 11:28 AM BST

Am I right in understanding that you get the profit from book sales, keep the rights for 12 months and the author gets nothing?
Sounds like vanity publishing. Perhaps you could tell us more about your advertising and how your sales are going so far. Are your existing authors paid?

Hi Loopey, we haven't budgeted for a profit and if we break even we'll be delighted. The aim of the project is to raise awareness of the company, make connections with new writers and give them a showcase. If it is a success then we will revisit the subject of payments for future issues.

If any writers who feature in LITF get a publishing deal with us then they'll receive very fair payment and we'll work to develop their work through personal care and attention. Our current authors are fairly remunerated and we take pride in that being the case. I have been published in anthologies of new writing before and never received a penny for it either.

Copies will be sent to other publishers as well so even if we choose not to work with a particular author we'll be bringing them to the attention of companies who might.

I've done loads of those poetry things and you buy copies to give to friends as your first published work,

Seems a reasonable way to get published and not at all dodgy.

All sounds a nebulous to me, the market is new and exciting and dynamic. At the moment there are areas probably not fully explored in the Epublishing POD world - but I would be a bit clearer on your offer/platform/objectives and strategies to achieve them - if you want to do it seriously.

Quote: Marc P @ 29th April 2015, 11:25 PM BST

All sounds a nebulous to me, the market is new and exciting and dynamic. At the moment there are areas probably not fully explored in the Epublishing POD world - but I would be a bit clearer on your offer/platform/objectives and strategies to achieve them - if you want to do it seriously.

Hi Marc,

There will be a print run as well as the book being available on various eBook formats, we're not looking at print-on-demand at the moment. Our physical books are stocked by Waterstone's and other chains, amazon and are available from the indie book shops we have a relationship with as well as our website. We have good press contacts and have a full mainstream/new media strategy in place for raising awareness of LITF.

We've published two books in the past, both of which have attracted a cult following, and we had a successful advertising campaign running on BCG last year. Details of these books, and other forthcoming titles, are available on our website if anyone wants to check them out but I'll refrain from spamming about them in a forum about writing opportunities. We will also be releasing seven new books (including anthologies) over the next year and a half.

Happy to answer any more questions you, or anyone else, might have.

Cheers.. I wouldn't worry about it being spam as you are just addressing your offer to use a horrible marketing term, on here sothat's all cool I should think and I guess your website is linked from your profile. I can see now you are going about it good, to coin a phrase! Best of luck with the new and existing projects :)

Quote: TeckleBooks @ 29th April 2015, 7:19 PM BST

Hi Loopey, we haven't budgeted for a profit and if we break even we'll be delighted. The aim of the project is to raise awareness of the company, make connections with new writers and give them a showcase. If it is a success then we will revisit the subject of payments for future issues.

If any writers who feature in LITF get a publishing deal with us then they'll receive very fair payment and we'll work to develop their work through personal care and attention. Our current authors are fairly remunerated and we take pride in that being the case. I have been published in anthologies of new writing before and never received a penny for it either.

Copies will be sent to other publishers as well so even if we choose not to work with a particular author we'll be bringing them to the attention of companies who might.

Okay I get that you may be lucky to break even and don't see this reaping mass direct financial gain, but why couple lack of payment with what seems to be 12 month exclusivity?

Surely if someone's written something that you're able to use but unable to pay for, you shouldn't be stopping them making some money from the work elsewhere.

Quote: Judgement Dave @ 1st May 2015, 10:19 AM BST

Okay I get that you may be lucky to break even and don't see this reaping mass direct financial gain, but why couple lack of payment with what seems to be 12 month exclusivity?

Surely if someone's written something that you're able to use but unable to pay for, you shouldn't be stopping them making some money from the work elsewhere.

Hi JD,

We are taking on financial risk here in order to provide a showcase for writers and hopefully find ones we can offer publishing deals to. Myself and my partner have sunk a lot of our own money in to this company and are working for next to nothing to develop it from a hobby into a proper business.

We are realistic that this particular publication isn't a cash cow but at the same time we can't throw money down the drain and it stands to reason that if stories by a particular author are available elsewhere then you're diluting your potential audience.

As someone who despises the internship culture I do see your point and in an ideal world we would be paying everyone by the word (as we said from the outset we hope to be there one day) but the reality is that the way Amazon has squeezed the industry makes it very f**king hard for publishers. You may not agree with the model we are using here and we take all feedback we get seriously but for the moment it was the only way we felt we could make this work.

If a writer doesn't feel they can contribute on the basis we have outlined and would rather hold off in the hope of getting payment elsewhere then that is their prerogative. They are still welcome to send us their ideas, short stories and novels outwith the competition date and we will read submissions, which is something most publishers won't do. Neither are we insisting that writers have an agent before we'll even entertain them, which again is standard practice with a lot of companies.

Have you considered some sort of profit share arrangement? I completely understand it would be tough to get that sort of business off the ground and you can't afford the cashflow to pay writers now. But you could promise folk x% of the profits after paying for set up and overhead costs. This is how a lot of fringe theatre is run - in the full knowledge that in 99.9% of cases profit = £0 or might as well be, but it offers creators some protection against seeing their work go on to make millions for someone else! And gives things a nice "all in this together" vibe.

Now I'm not naive enough to think that a determined accountant couldn't make "profit=0" and not pay people if they put their minds to it, but you have take some good faith on trust. :)

Quote: David Salisbury @ 3rd May 2015, 9:43 PM BST

Have you considered some sort of profit share arrangement? I completely understand it would be tough to get that sort of business off the ground and you can't afford the cashflow to pay writers now. But you could promise folk x% of the profits after paying for set up and overhead costs. This is how a lot of fringe theatre is run - in the full knowledge that in 99.9% of cases profit = £0 or might as well be, but it offers creators some protection against seeing their work go on to make millions for someone else! And gives things a nice "all in this together" vibe.

Now I'm not naive enough to think that a determined accountant couldn't make "profit=0" and not pay people if they put their minds to it, but you have take some good faith on trust. :)

Hi David,

Authors who we give book deals to are paid advances and royalties but this is the first time we're doing an anthology so we're being very conservative in our expectations and are looking at this to serve purposes other than returning a profit.

As far as your profit-sharing suggestion goes, it is something we may consider when we review how LITF has done and how we do things the next time.

I might be interested in this - how many of your first two books have you sold?

I guess it's too late for this now.