World of Blood Series ~ The Super Market Anthology
Where do “Supernaturals” go shopping, pay their taxes, purchase everyday necessities, or hunt in live-feeding arenas? Why ~ The Super Market, of course.
What: The Super Market Anthology – Think of it as a Diagon Alley Under One Roof
In the Spirit of the Disney Infinity Games, I want to invite my favorite authors and their paranormal characters to come and play in my world. Bring your favorite character and meet me at The Super Market.I’m building a short story anthology with 20 stories where professional authors can write with their favorite characters based in my world and setting of The Super Market.
What is The Super Market? The Super Market is where all paranormal peeps can go to have a shopping experience. Whether you chose your paranormal character to be a shop owner, a celebrity chef, a consumer, a food critic, an herbal pharmacist, a health inspector, or anything – it’s your choice. The options are limitless.
The Super Market has everything a normal (paranormal “super” natural) person would need. Bookstore, restaurants, travel agents, insurance agents, banks, apothecaries, gun and blacksmith, daycare, munitions supplies, fitness gym, species-specific spas, live-feeding arenas, and karate and tai chi dojos. Where else can you pick up a your dry cleaning, a couple bottles of pomegranate bloodwine, some werewolf flea dip, and vampire fang whitener at the same time?
Perhaps your character is a witch and Torchy Gravenor, the owner of The Super Market, has hired you to manage the protective spells and wards around the property to make the building look like a run down shack to humans. What kind of crazy story could you build around that?
Anyone remember the dragon wing massage with the happy ending in Exsanguinate? <wink, wink, nudge nudge> You could write about being a spa owner and catering to your clientele. Or perhaps your character is taking a vacation and wants to have a head-to-toe Lycan manicure. Love Sports? The Atlantis Game trials are held at The Super Market. This is similar to the Olympics for humans, but The Atlantis Game trails are geared to more supernatural sporting events. Tell me a story about the different kinds of sporting events for paranormals.
Needing Rehab? Maybe your character is in need of rehab. Let’s offer a support group therapy session at the medical center. Drunk flying DUI rehab classes, anyone? *grins* Going Vegan? Maybe blood-anonymous classes?
Need Munitions? Maybe your character is a vampire hunter. Where else would you get supplies to kill a vampire than from the munitions store inside The Super Market?
Need Insurance? Where else could a kraken insure her salt-water tank when she travels? Maybe your witch needs liability insurance against love potions she makes.
The list is never ending – I’m anxious to see what you pitch to me. 🙂
Why is this Anthology Different?
FUN Author Collaboration Options or Stand Alone Stories: Fans will totally freak out when they can enjoy seeing their favorites characters interacting with others within a new setting.
Think of a story with Bob the Zombie from Jaime Johnesee having an arcade game contest against Jane the Hippie Vampire by Lisa Lane. Whoever wins receives a $10K shopping spree at The Super Market. What antics could those two get into? What would they buy and who (other paranormal author’s characters) would they take with them?
BUT – Not every story needs to integrate with a different author’s character. It can be a total stand-alone and self-contained character story of yours, but the short story and setting must be centered in Killion Slade’s World of Blood – The Super Market. The sky is truly the limit as far as ideas!!!!
Is there anything I can’t write about? Yes, you cannot include other author’s character without their expressed written consent for this anthology. In other words, unless you know George RR Martin personally, you can’t use a Game of Thrones character in your story. They are copyrighted.
Killion, why would you do this? This is a lot of time and investment.
WHY #1: This is a way to support my authors friends.Normally all I can do is buy their book and share online. Amazon will scrub reviews, so I have to put them under a different name. This way I can seriously promote a piece of your work, and it becomes a tax write off. *grins*WHY #2: The anthology gives me a way to get to know you better and build a stronger network. It’s new, it’s fun, it’s interactive. We’ll have additional collateral to click to from the ebook and QR codes from the print version to the World of Blood website featuring the authors.
WHY #3: In all transparency, it also helps to build my portfolio for the series and instead of writing all these stories myself, I wanted to invite my friends to come over and play. 🙂 Hell, we can even have a pajama party! Pass the hooch!
Deets on the Anthology Idea Itself:
I will build out a map of The Super Market, owned by Torchy Gravenor on the World of Blood, website and create an author collaboration room. I would provide character sketches on Torchy and all the people who work there to provide interactive real world fun.
I will provide a list of all the paranormal type businesses/ services/ spas/ bars/ restaurants/ apothecary/ bookstore/ live feeding arenas/ etc. located within The Super Market to give authors ideas of where they would like to craft a story. You are welcome to name your store, shop, restaurants and craft a stroy around them. The author pitches a short story idea to me, and we can collaborate from there.
I would encourage you to read my first book in the series, or at the very least, the chapters about The Super Market to understand the setting. I’m happy to provide you a FREE ebook version of Exsanguinate.
The Goods! What’s in it For Me?
Author Perks:At the beginning of their story, I’ll feature a short bio and pic of their paranormal character, so the reader understands who the story is about. After the story, full links and book covers to your works regarding that character. You’ll have the additional networking opportunities and the ability to add this anthology credit to your Amazon portfolio.
Spirit Press Advertising Support for Launch: (Because I do this stuff in my day job)
Includes Good Reads Pre-Sales Giveaway Promotions, Goodreads text advertising, Facebook segment audience advertising and display advertising, Google Adwords advertising, Amazon Advertising, and pre-arranged blog tours. After launch – Instagram and SnapChat photo video contests of peeps reading the book in unique places.
Shameless Plug – If you ever need any book digital marketing needs, ring me up!
(We may want to consider pooling together ideas for marketing and promotions to provide additional marketing support post-launch. Perhaps a photo contest with people holding the book and reading it in unique places. We can have incentives for referrals and reviews. With this many authors, we could each chip in $10 bucks and give away a Kindle Fire or something wicked cool. Author participation not required, but would be awful nice *grins*)
Payouts:
Spirit Press will publish an original short story in the range of 3K to 5K words – $50 per story. Sorry – no reprints as this is specifically unique to the World of Blood series. Author receives a paperback book to hold in their hot hands and an ebook version too! Spirit Press would only own the rights to the short story—not to your character(s).
Yes! I’m In – What Do I Have To Do?
Author Requirements: Indie Authors Unite! Basically, a little bit of your time to help promote.1) Social Media – Weekly social media support for the book before and during the book launch event. Teaser tweets, FB posts, instagram hashtags from the author’s story from character’s POV to come see them over at The Super Market before and during launch.
2) Author Interview – Blog post featured on World of Blood website about the character featured in the short story and the inspiration behind the story. We’ll add images, fan art, links to the book series – whatever you want to include. We are also open to audio podcasts and video readings.
3) Reviews – (VERY IMPORTANT) Author assembles two reviewers for the soft launch. (More are always welcome *grins*) The reviews will be listed on Goodreads and Amazon to help boost the sales during the hard launch when opened to the public. If we accept 20 stories, then we’ll have 40 reviews on the book straight out of the gate.
4) Author Website Promo – During launch, you will feature the anthology on your website with a blog post with links to the Amazon sales page. You are most welcome to interview any authors you collaborated with from your story. 🙂
Awesome! When Does This Happen? Give Me the Deets!
When: (Loose Schedule) If you have hard deadlines from other commitments, please talk to me about how we can fit the schedule around you. We have lots of wiggle room.
Professionally edited submissions sent to Spirit Press by May 31st, 2016
First Revisions/Edits to Authors by July 30th from Lisa Lane
Final Edits sent to Authors by September 1st from Lisa Lane
Send out ARCs for reviews on Oct 1st
Published by Halloween 2016
Book Editor:Lisa Lane – I am so honored to have Lisa Lane as the editor for this anthology. Lisa is incredibly talented, kind, and professional. I love working with her and I know you will too! (And nope – this blog post wasn’t edited by her … and I KNOW she’s cringing at all my laxed, snarky fun! I’m sure to receive 30 lashes with a red pen, for sure!)
Final Author Story Line Up Determined by Killion Slade
Cover Concept:
A picture of the bookstore within The Super Market and each of the contributing authors have a book shelved with their names and spines showing from a book they have published. 🙂 Do you have an idea or referral for the book cover artist?
Stretch Goals: Yoga, anyone?
I will be contacting authors who have inspired me and are known for writing short stories with their characters such as Christopher Moore, Kim Harrison, and Molly Harper. I will reach out to these authors who I love and network with and we’ll see what we can do. All they can do is say no. They can’t say yes, if I never ask them. 🙂
YES! Let’s Do This!
What do I do now? Hit me up at my contact form and pitch to me about your idea. All stories need to be approved in advance before you write. Once the idea is a go, then you’re on your own creative license.
THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR!!!I know this has been a really LOOOOOONG post, and I hope you are now as excited as I am. Please share with me any ideas. I’m very collaborative and open to any and all suggestions. (((HUGS!))) ~Killion
If you know of an author who I have not met or interviewed and you think would be perfect for this anthology, please share this post with them. Click the buttons down below 🙂
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