Reasons & Anticipation
Welcome to the first blog post in our Anthology Builders series in which Marc and I hope to detail the joys and the headaches of creating a brand new fantasy anthology. This will include everything from us arguing over book cover designs, to judging the masses of great submissions we’re expecting, to that glorious day when we head to the publishers and pick up the very first batch of published wonderment. If you’re considering creating your own anthology or are flirting with the idea of going self-published and want to know what sort of pitfalls others come up against then I hope we can be of some help. Otherwise, we hope that you find our efforts interesting and that that you enjoy watching two guys who love fantasy literature battle their way to publication.
So, where to start today? I suppose the best place to begin is simply by answering the question, Why? Why are we doing this? Well, there are two reasons really.
The first of which is to try and give something back to the fantasy community who have so kindly supported Fantasy-Faction since it was first born over a year ago. In that year we have been fortunate enough to present, in my opinion, some of the finest fantasy related articles, reviews and interviews to be found anywhere on the internet. With the great support of fantasy fans and our fantastic contributors, Fantasy-Faction rose from nothing in to one of the largest fantasy sites on the planet, attracting thousands of hits a day. For this alone, we would like to say thank you very much.
In addition to this, as the last year drew to a close, Fantasy-Faction was slapped with a big ol’ server bill. In order to try and cover this, we had to ask for support from the community in the form donations in order to help recover the costs of running such a popular site. We didn’t want to, in fact we felt awful asking people for money without them seeing anything in return. The world stunned us though and quickly we had authors and fans alike donating incredibly generous amounts to help keep us afloat. It really was a rather humbling experience.
So, Marc and I sat down and discussed ways in which we could support the site while being able to give something back to those who want to help us, and so the Fantasy-Faction Anthology was born. For those who don’t keep an eye on the forums and community at Fantasy-Faction; every day, whether it’s through our monthly writing competition or even just stories sent for our perusal, we regularly find ourselves reading things and thinking, ‘Why in the name of Dutch pancakes has this not been published? The world needs to see this stuff!’
Which brings me to the second reason we have decided to create this anthology. Most anthologies out there are comprised purely of already published authors or purely of unpublished authors – this however doesn’t suit us. Fantasy-Faction was named as such because the idea of a faction, of a community was important. It had to be a place where fans could meet and discuss the genre they loved. Where the avid reader could join in discussions with their favourite authors. We are building this anthology with that idea in mind, as a place to unite all fantasy fans in to one big celebration of a fantastic genre. Therefore, in addition to short stories by hugely successful and renowned Fantasy authors, we have six places within our Anthology up for grabs. This means that in a years time, six previously undiscovered people will be published alongside some true modern greats like Myke Cole, Mark Lawrence, Jon Sprunk, Michael J. Sullivan, Adrian Tchaikovsky and many more besides.
Exciting stuff!
Anyways ladies and gents, that’s me done for today. Be sure to check back regularly to see how things are moving forwards and in the mean time, go and get cracking on writing something that’s going to change the fantasy world. We look forward to reading it.
Paul,
Judge, Faction editor and fantasy enthusiast.
Paul@Fantasy-Faction.com
