Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Calling all erotica authors - sorry - writers of smut. There’s a new publisher afoot.

Paper Bag Press has just founded itself with a four page website seeking submissions. The money quote:

We are seeking new or established authors for exclusive publication. We want writers who can craft a short story with a strong plot that revolves around sexual experience. The stories are not necessarily romantic — the sex is the focus. If the characters are in luuurv, that’s fine, as long as the sex is hot.

There are three length categories we are seeking:

* Weekenders — 10,000-15,000 words
* One-nighters — 4,000-8,500 words
* One-handers — 1,000-3,500 words

Wow. Use of “one handers” inspires me. Not to mention the “luuurv.” As Longmire knows, it’s all about the luuurv.

Then there’s this part:

Other than that, we are an equal opportunity smut peddler. We know that you are taking a chance on us since we are new. Because of this, we are offering a 5% royalty bonus for the first 25 stories that are accepted for publication. This offer will extend through September 30, 2008, or until we get our first 25 accepted stories.

5% royalty bonus on top of what? Am I the only one who looks at a site like this and thinks, “That’s it? You want to do business and you have a four page site with about zero business content? WHY should I do business with you?”

Between the one-handers and the smut peddling, were I a writer of erotica, this would not be my bag.

Thanks to Esri Rose for the link.

Thinking of writing during September? Thinking of reading during September (who isn’t?!)? Writers and readers are joining to raise money for The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation through the Unleash Your Story event. Sponsors can donate in honor of the writing and reading goals pledged by those who register, and folks can register in teams or individually. This year’s pacesetter author is Debbie Macomber, who writes about 46.6 million words a day, and I have to go lie down now.

Thanks to Kate Rothwell for the link.

Robin B., Diana Holquist and a few other folks have sent me the link to this article from early August in the UK Guardian about a clause in some Random House contracts for children’s book writers that attempts to dictate behavior. From the article:

If you act or behave in a way which damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished, and we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Delay publication / Renegotiate advance / Terminate the agreement.”

Oh, come on now, and I mean it. What defines acts or behavior that damages value of the work? And what’s up with casting childrens authors as role models for all? The Society of Author’s Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group has advised authors who receive that clause in their contract to ask for its removal, but the idea that its in there in the first place makes my jaw drop for a host of reasons.

As Hurricane Gustav takes aim at the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas coastline nearly three years to the date after Katrina, folks are heading out of those areas under mandatory evacuation orders. Among them: conference attendees at Heather Graham’s Writers for New Orleans Conference, scheduled for this weekend. The conference began in 2006 as a way to bring business and tourism back to New Orleans.

Here’s hoping everyone, residents and tourists alike, in that area is safe, the damage is minimal, and that next year, the conference can return to a healthy, happy city of New Orleans. I’ll be there with beads on. Travel safe, everyone. And fuck off, Gustav. 

Thanks to Kelly Maher for the link: Diesel has a mess of public domain ebooks available for download. Anyone looking for Alice in Wonderland or Anne of Green Gables, enjoy like a happy ebook glutton.

Brandi sent over a rather startling example of, well, evolution. Based on this article about Florida science teachers faced with teaching evolution to a classroom of students who enter the classroom convinced that science and their faith operate at cross purposes, a romance novel cover parody was born.

As a service to science, I’d like to inform you that coffee snorted up one’s sinus cavity, based on my empirical evidence, hurts like a mother.