Dear Orbiteers,
I’ve just had an idea. Why don’t the ten of us produce our own anthology?
This is how it would work. We pick a theme and each produce up to two short stories on the theme. We critique and generally help with each other’s stories. Then we hire a professional editor to give the collection a final polish, put everything in order and so on. We take something like eight or nine months to get this far. We organise cover designs, overall design and so on using our own resources. We ask someone nice to do a foreword for us (like Marianne). Then we get an ISBN and whatever else is necessary, have it printed (either using a service like Lulu or some other POD outfit, or the good old-fashioned way) and plan the launch. Say one year from start to end. We market it ourselves through our websites and blogs, groups we belong to, our local and national newspapers, local and national bookshops and so on. (Alternatively, we pitch this whole thing as a book proposal to a publisher – but this is obviously a long shot.)
It won’t make us rich – in fact, we’d be lucky to cover the cost (a couple of thousand bucks for a short run? $200 each?) – but it would be a great experience, a focus for the Orbiteers into the future, and possibly great exposure for all of us if we can get our enterprise written about by enough people (surely Orbit would give us a mention since we’re their bastard children, as it were) and get some good reviews. If it turns out to be fun, we could do one every couple of years.
Thing is, we know we’re all good writers – that’s how we met in the first place – and we all have lots of other useful talents when it comes to producing and selling books. Shouldn’t we do something with all this? Personally, I get frustrated just sitting here hoping some kind publisher or editor will take pity on me.
Graham.
effing Brilliant.
that’s all i have to say, apart from my services are at the ready….
shouldn’t orbit be the theme?
Great idea! I’m in.
The theme…Orbit… yes, I like it.
While we all consider the idea why don’t we write a story each, see what pops up. This could be the start of a nice little publication, possibly to be repeated.
Let’s do it!
terry
I’m in. Write your stories and post them in the fiction section. Let’s do it.
Of course if we were REALLY REALLY savvy… we’d get Orbit onboard….
Sounds like we’ve got 4 out of 10 – all the guys! Any significance in that?
Can we hear from the ladies too, please?
Is the whole group still reading this?
I’m going to email everyone just to make sure.
Graham.
The Orbit theme does seem like a natural but I’m concerned that it might be a bit to sci-fi-ish for our fantasy writers.
Maybe something with a bit more scope but still related to ourselves – Islands, maybe, or Retreats.
Graham.
Oh ye of little faith, Graham! I am absolutely positive that us fantasy writers could easily find an angle that would fit the bill. Not that I’m particularly attached to “orbit” as a theme, but I’m sure it would work:
What about lycanthropy and its connection to the moon? A vampire who lives in nightly terror as the world turns in its orbit around the sun? A neaderthalic romance under the light of the heavenly Rings of Gogmagrog? Or a lover who finds the centre of their universe to be THE centre of the universe? A Cthulhuesque space-horror set onboard a satellite doomed to crash to earth? The primitives who marvel at the new wanderer in the sky that recently appeared? A strange artefact that hovers around its possessor’s skull? (Going to wikipedia now…) The true story of Johannes Kepler? A man who can store anything in the eye-socket of his skull? The journey of a glass eye from socket to socket?
Or what about the story of a glass-eyed werewolf named Johanes Kepler in love with vampire armed with a thing that floats around his skull who fears the coming of the sun and plots to live forever onboard a satellite in the shadow of the world, but comes to a horrific end after a collision with the Rings of Gogmagrog that unleashes a hideous shadow creature from hibernation in orbit around the world that sends their satellite plummeting out of orbit into a primitive land where two star-crossed lovers make up a legend about the tragedy in the heavens based on the the sole surviving relic from the crash – a glass eyeball?
Point is — I think people will be fine with it
Jez
Wow. I stand corrected.
Here’s another reason, then. If we were to approach Orbit with an anthology whose theme was ‘Orbit’, might it not look a little sychophantic?
Graham.
PS I really love the idea of an artefact that orbits its owner’s head. Why don’t they have those in Meyer’s?
I mean ’sycophantic’, of course.
I think we might have crossed that line just by calling ourselves Orbiteers… that said I think it’s utterly appropriate and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d rather be a “fawning parasite” (yeah I’m stupid and had to look sycophantic up, thanks dictionary.com) with a cool name anyway. Better that than psychophantic
What if we don’t tell them what the theme is? Do we have to? Isn’t “and here’s the first anthology from the winners of the inaugural Orbit competition” enough?
Anyway that’s my suggestion, and I am but 10% of this humble (and somewhat quiet) crew. Rest of you – pipe up!
Jez
Agreed, it’s enough that we know the theme – let the reader notice it if they’re smart enough (and they will be, because all spec fiction readers are geniuses and know everything).
This sounds like fun!