A note about Fringeworks
I've had an offsite enquiry about what exactly I have planned for Fringeworks. These are initial thoughts I'm sharing with friends, and not a big announcement or, indeed, a nailed down programme. I can be prolific once the ball is rolling, but these things take time.
Since I left my job in September I've been focused on what I'm doing in the future, and my publishing plans have changed as I've looked into things.
First up, the challenge. They say the best way to make a million in publishing is to spend two million. In other words, expect to make a loss. My goal is not to get rich, but to set up a business which starts with 4 books per year, slowly grows, and finds a way to help aspiring writers and artists to get published.
To start off, the only way this will work is to produce limited edition hardbacks followed by Print-on-Demand and e-book editions intended to stay in print and generate royalties after costs. This means the only major up-front cost is printing and ebook development. Everyone involved then gets a share of the profits on a quarterly or annual basis (depending on sales volumes).
Assuming my own investment isn't matched from elsewhere, I'll look into crowdfunding options to stretch the budget to as many volumes as possible
Our books will be shared-world, public domain anthologies targeting (mostly) popular genre markets, and the plan is that the each volume will contain 12-25 stories evenly split between established and new writers. These will most likely comprise an 18-22,000 word scene-setting novella followed by a series of loosely connected stories set within the shared world.
Our proposed books are:
A STUDY IN STEAMPUNK: A Steampunk mash-up retelling the original adventures of Sherlock Holmes in an alternate version of Victorian England.
BEORMA: Myths, Legends and historical fiction based upon the life of Birmingham's Anglo-Saxon founder
THE CASEBOOK OF JOHN WATSON: Believing Sherlock Holmes is dead, this anthology follows Doctor Watson's attempts to solve crimes, watched from the shadows by a familiar narrator...
DEAD FAMOUS: see the preceding post.
DEAD MEN'S TALES: An anthology of swashbuckling pirate stories told from the dead's point of view.
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH: A sci-fi comedy anthology in memory of Douglas Adams. Each of the authors must pretend its 1977, and that they have been commissioned to write a comical short story about the end of the world...
MOONDUST AND OTHER STORIES: Vampires. On the Dark Side of the Moon.
OKTABRINYUSHKA - THE OCTOBRIANA CHRONICLES: The literary (and occasional comic-strip) adventures of Octobriana, Communist, revolutionary, sex addict, comic-book superheroine, and an underground cult icon.
The list is by no means exhaustive, nor is it fixed in stone.
I'll need editors, I'll need writers, I'll need graphic artists/designers, and I'll need investors. I'm not looking to publicise or spread the word to would be writers and artists until later in the year.
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