Planning for 2016, as well as the rest of the year

Third Quarter is almost in the books. (there's still time to buy books and feed your favorite authors this quarter!)

In October, we'll be featuring Zanne here and on the Twitter feed.
We'll also be tweeting about Hungry Hearts, Dreadmire and "Skin and Bones," our horror offerings.

Zanne is the author of 1KRV5, Misfit Prophets Beneath a Bankrupt Sky and "Persephone is Bleeding" in Hungry Hearts.  And if you haven't read zir work, be prepared for writing on par with Bradbury.

All our books are available at Amazon, at All Romance Ebooks and at the Square Marketplace.

So, as fall begins, we're thinking toward 2016.

Books:

We will have all three current anthologies--Pan's Garden, Have Quest Will Travel, and Winter Shivers--completed and out by the new year.
This will clear our desks to begin looking at stand-alone pieces for 2016.

Until Gabriel's health improves, we will be limiting the number of books we publish. We have 6 anthologies planned for next year. We will take up to six more stand-alone books.

Misc:

We will continue featuring authors and books on Twitter and here.
If you would like a month, let me know.

Submissions:

All anthology stories should be 5000-15000 words long. They should also be SF/fantasy/horror. Please know what we consider fantasy and contemporary.

We pay 40% royalties divided among authors. (never less than 5%, which means for a standard ebook, the writer gets 25c/copy). A novel author who sells an ebook at $5 gets $2 in royalties. Their $15 paperback gets 40% after printing and shipping (usually about $7), so out of the $8 we make for the book, $2.80 goes to the author. They can also buy paperbacks at 40% discount.

Standard Manuscript Format (and PLEASE put the word count on the front page)

First person and third person are fine. Past tense is preferred. (I have been known to say "Present tense" and stop reading after the first sentence).

Stand-alones:  Anything over 20,000 words goes to print. 45,000 is considered a novel, per the SFWA guidelines. We take any length from 20,000 to 100,000 words. 

Send to inkstainedsubmissions at gmail

Anthologies: 

December 15: Badass
M/M erotic, with enough testosterone to power a small city.

Whether your hero is a master of mayhem or a thinking cowboy, a pirate, a treasure hunter or a spell-binder, show him doing what he does the best for the reward he wants the most. HEA/HFN ending required (I personally like "Happily ever after, until the next crisis!")

We want big sexy macho guys, being manly and having phallic-worshipping sex.


January 15: Kagema's Sons

M/m erotic.

This is the rent boy anthology. Cheap whores in grimy alleys of a dirty corporo-run city, languid hokkan (male geisha) on gleaming terraces of a Japanese settled planet, sinuous street-dancers fast with their hands and faster with a knife, who get taken on an adventure... Let us see all the permutations of sex for hire.

March 15: Xenophile

All orientations, erotic

Our alien lover anthology. Any orientation known to humanity or other sentients. One person in the relationship must be a non-Terran. All heat levels of romance. M/m, m/f, f/f, poly and trans welcome. HEA/HFN required

June 15:  Mythos for the Modern Age

Non-erotic. SF mythology.

Think Gaiman's American Gods or Ellison's Deathbird Stories. We know where rain comes from. What are the gods we need for the modern age, for the future?

July 15: For Sale by Owner

M/m, BDSM erotic

Show us the transfer of ownership of a bottom from one top to another.

September 15: Friends with Strange Benefits.

All orientations.

Paranormal romance anthology.  All orientations welcome, but show us something new, something other than oversexed vampires, tough female leads in leather jackets, werewolves having a bad hair day 3 nights a month and schmoopy zombies.   Erotic encouraged, HEA/HFN required.

Conventions:

Our current travel radius is 400 miles.

This gives us a range from Dallas TX to Kansas City MO (we have family there), Springfield IL to Cincinnati OH, Indianapolis IN to Knoxville TN, Atlanta GA to New Orleans.

If you have a convention in that area which you like to attend, tell us about it!
We're drawing up the 2016 schedule now.

Current list:
MidSouth Con (Memphis)
FroliCon (Atlanta)
Mephit Furmeet (Memphis)
River City Comic Expo  (Little Rock)

My Sexy Saturday: Sexy Today

So today, there really is no theme except sexy today. Authors are free to post whatever they want within the normal rules. Just make it sexy, sexy and more sexy.

We're kicking off Halloween early here on the airship with a sexy interlude at the Scholomance. This is the school, high in the Carpatihans, where the Devil himself teaches 13 of the world's best and brightest. Only 12 leave. And this session, Chris is paying everyone's "Tuition fees."

Buy Link:
Into Dark Waters ebook from Inkstained Succcubus

And just for fun, the cheese romance novel cover, from the Romance Cover generator.

Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs :

"Sweet boy," he whispered.

Chris gasped, "Don't leave yet."

"I'll stay within as long as I can." Morgenstern rolled them back to spooning, cradling Chris gently and whispering filthy French poetry until the young man calmed down.

"So good," Chris said softly.

"So very good, little artist. A work of art in itself." When Chris laughed, Morgenstern kissed his neck, his ear and his cheek, his lips light and comforting. "You came to my bed fearful: afraid of pain, afraid of my size, afraid of your inexperience. Have I quelled your fears?" He shifted as he softened enough to leave Chris's body.

Chris rolled to face him. "All of them." For the first time, he looked deep into Morgenstern's eyes, losing himself in them, drowning in honey and amber. "I've wanted this for months." The intensity in his voice drew an answering nod from Morgenstern.


"I knew the first night, from the way you looked at me. You were not simply storing me up to draw. But Walpurgis night seemed a much more appropriate time for a," he chuckled, "virgin sacrifice."


The Other Sexy People:

Open Calls

All stories should be between 5000 and 15000 words. Shorter or longer will ONLY be considered if exceptional. (over 20,000 words is a novella)

Badass remains open until Dec 15. This is M/M erotic, with enough testosterone to power a small city. Whether your hero is a master of mayhem or a thinking cowboy, a pirate, a treasure hunter or a spell-binder, show him doing what he does the best for the reward he wants the most. HEA/HFN ending required (I personally like "Happily ever after, until the next crisis!")

January 15 is the deadline for Kagema's Sons, the rent boy anthology. (M/m erotic)

Xenophile is open until next March. this is our alien lover anthology. Any orientation known to humanity or other sentients. One person in the relationship must be a non-Terran. All heat levels of romance. M/m, m/f, f/f, poly and trans welcome. HEA/HFN required

June 15 brings Mythos for the Modern Age to a close. Think American Gods or Deathbird Stories. We know where rain comes from. What are the gods we need for the modern age, for the future? (non erotic)

For Sale by Owner ends July 1. How do you transfer ownership of your boy? (m/m BDSM, erotic)

And you have a whole year to come up with something for Friends with Strange Benefits. This is a paranormal romance anthology.  All orientations welcome, but show us something new, something other than oversexed vampires, tough female leads in leather jackets, werewolves having a bad hair day 3 nights a month and schmoopy zombies.   Erotic encouraged, HEA/HFN required.

Send submissions to inkstainedsubmissions at gmail.

Website down, how to handle the outage

The website is down.
We know this. We're working on it.

The books are still for sale at Amazon, ARE and our Square:
https://squareup.com/market/inkstained-succcubus


In the meantime, we monitor the comments here.
We are available through  e-mail.
Angelia: inkstainedsuccubus@gmail.com
Gabriel: inkstainedsubmissions@gmail.com

You can find us on facebook 
or twitter https://twitter.com/InkstainedSuccu
or pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/inkySooky/
And don't forget etsy. https://www.etsy.com/shop/ConspiracyArts

We apologize for the inconvenience

What we're looking for in a submission

Greetings from the desk your captain has repeatedly faceplanted into.

Yes, it was intake day at the Airship! We went through the submissions for Winter Shivers.  We got far more than we could use, making this our most successful call yet.

In fact, we got so many really excellent stories, that Winter Shivers will be a two volume anthology!


So, other than writing a lot of "You're good, keep it up, you just weren't right" letters, why am i face planting?

Because it's all so simple.
We don't ask for a lot out of our authors and their submissions.

But we do like the word count on the front page. Makes it easier.

We need the story in a format we can read. This is .doc or .docx  No .wps, .rtf, .odt or other odd formats.

We really prefer Times New Roman or Georgia font.

And please, if you have page breaks, be sure when you convert your file that they stay at the bottom of your page.

At least all the subs were on point and no one sent us a cutesy contemporary holiday story.

On the other hand, far too many stories were in present tense. I only accepted one, because it was utterly outstanding and yanked me right in. The others, I was done by page 3. Present tense is not our style here at Inkstained Succubus.

On the whole, keep writing. Remember, Badass closes Dec 15!

My Sexy Saturday: One Sexy Boy

We all know it just takes one sexy boy to get us going. That boy will turn into the man of our dreams. They can start out on the wrong side of the tracks, the right side of the tracks, the rich side or even the poor side. They can be good or they can be bad, we will love them all the same. They can space ship captains or one who is hired to protect us with their lives. They can be farmers and casino owners and the list goes on and on. But all of them started out as one sexy boy. They give us hidden looks, a longing gaze, with love’s promise shining in their eyes and all the things that come with love.  We love sexy and it’s always so fun to share.

Buy Link

Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs:

“If you know what's good for you, you'll not associate with his kind.” Applegate stormed off.

Kevin managed to hold in his laughter until Applegate left earshot. His rescuer shoved the stack of books off to the side and perched on the edge of the table. He picked up the book of shadows and held it out.

“I understand not wanting him to see, but casting? Really?”

Kevin looked at his hands, not daring to meet the man's gaze. “It's not illegal.”

“No, but it isn't exactly accepted, either.”

For a year, he’d mooned and dreamed about this man and now that he’d finally met him, it turned into a lecture. Kevin shook his head and stood. “Look, thanks for distracting him, but I don't need a lesson on magic. Professor Applegate is my adviser, so I can't afford to make him my enemy.” He proceeded to pack up his laptop and set aside the reference books for the library staff to reshelve. He went out of his way to avoid looking at the man as he prepared to leave. He paused after slinging his
backpack over his shoulder, recalling what the man had said to Professor Applegate. “What did he mean by 'your kind'?”

The man flashed him a grin which revealed pointed incisors.

The Other Sexy People:

Five Things I'd like to see in Urban Fantasy

Urban fantasy is a hot genre. I like to write it myself. It differs from contemporary fantasy in that the city takes on a life of its own, and is integral to the characters.

When Anita Blake goes to Branson or Las Vegas, it feels different than when she's working at home in St. Louis. Other examples are Harry Dresden's Chicago and the New York of Diane Duane's Young Wizard series. I'm sure you can name more

But I'm noticing to many UF novels feel similar, right down to the leather-jacketed heroine with the crossbow pistol and tramp stamp tattoo.

So here are things i'd like to see in Urban Fantasy.

1) Cities that look like their demographics. If you're writing Memphis, at least half the people in the city are black, and a significant percentage are Hispanic. There aren't many Japanese people, but we have a large Vietnamese population.  Nashville has a large Kurdish population, while Kansas City has the second largest Sudanese and Somali populations in the US, but the River Market area is historically Italian.

I had a first reader comment "your Memphis is very white in these opening chapters." I reminded her that there were only 4 characters so far, and three were all related (a father and 2 of his kids) while the fourth was a Puritan from Massachusetts Bay Colony. The cast diversified after we got out of the house.

2) Paranormal creatures that fit the demographics. Here in Memphis, we have 10,000 Asian people. But because we have 9000 Vietnamese and only a few hundred Japanese, we would be far more likely to have a Ma cà rồng (Vietnamese vampires) than a kitsune. We have enough of a Celtic population to support a Fae presence, and it's admixed with Native American, which would blend the two traditions.  We have a strong Voodoo tradition from the gulf coast.

3) Vampires who reflect the era of their turning. To paraphrase Armand in The Vampire Lestat, "We are deeply in love with our time and wish to hold onto it forever. That is why we became vampires." And to quote Parke Godwin: "Personalities whom death had rendered more permanent than improved."
I write a vampire Elvis who still dresses like it's 1976, gives evening concerts and generally lives as if he's still the King. I have a 1950s juvenile delinquent who wants revenge on his school tormentors (he turned about 19), and somehow, seeing the worst of them growing old and feeble is the best part.

Don't be afraid of antiquated slang for immortal characters. An undead flapper might let out with a "va-va-voom." Your vampire prospector might still use "tarnation."  The revenant colonial will use "zounds!" (which means Gods Wounds and is fairly strong.)

4) New and exciting supernatural beings. Every city is going to come with vampires and werewolves and demons. What makes your city different and unusual? Is there a Popobawa stalking the rent-boys? Maybe a Valraven eating children's hearts to become human again. Or maybe you just have the local legend creature making trouble.

5)  Better Magic. Make the magic believable, Make it taxing.  Think the system through. And ask why people with this much power don't rule the world. Is it ethics? Is it population? Or maybe they do, but keep it quiet.

Fall is Falling Down

We're finally docked back at the usual mooring after a long and arduous journey.
We survived River City Comic Expo, Mephit FurMeet, Imaginarium, a migration and a debut.
Frankly, ducks, we're knackered.


Today's the deadline for Winter Shivers. This horror anthology should be one of our best.
The next deadline is Dec 15 for Badass so be working on those adventures!

We have the edits for Pan's Garden back and will be working on those. Have Quest Will Travel is still in need of cover art.

The website is currently down, but we should have it up and running soon.
Our store has migrated to Square, since the traffic from the site did not justify the expense of hosting it ourselves.


River City Comic Expo in Little Rock was a great time and one of the BEST set up and break down experiences I have had. The sales were good and the people were great. We look forward to it next year and thank Tommy Hancock of ARPulp for the invite.

FurMeet is always a blast. We debuted the Conspiracy Arts line as well as the books. While the books sold, so did the paddles.

The paddles and altar plates and boxes and other goodies are available in our Etsy shop.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/ConspiracyArts

Imaginarium was, as always, a learning experience.
This is a great writers' convention and I learned a lot.

There was a death in the InkySooky family this month. We lost a submitter, content beta, commenter, and sometime collaborator. Your Captain's writing partner and friend, Darren Bloomquist, was murdered.


If you write horror for us: Elizabeth Donald, CeeCee Sanchez, Emily Moreton, et al,, I would like to feature you in the October twitter and blog work. 15 tweets about your book or story, plus a blog post about it.  I'm trying for one focus a week.

My Sexy Saturday: My Sexy Girlfriend

This is our nod to all the sexy girlfriends out there. We know all about a sexy girlfriend and how their lover feels about them. There are the hidden looks, the longing gaze, the love shining in their eyes and all the things that come with love. The girlfriends can in all shapes and sizes because sexy has no bounds.  We love sexy and it’s always so fun to share.

From Fated Bonds

Buy Link

Your Seven Sexy Sentences

“Do you accept me, both wolf and man? Will you take me tonight as yours?” His cock lay snug against her, heightening her anticipation, but he made no move to join them.

The intensity of his voice wrapped her heart in emotion. The shadows in his eyes removed any doubt of the importance of this moment for him. She lay her hands against his cheeks. “Of course I accept you. I'm yours as well.”

The Other Sexy People:

Guest Blog: HC Playa

These aren’t the answers you’re looking for…

I have enough published novels and short stories that when I say I’m an author, people believe me. With that territory comes the inevitable questions.

“What’s your process?”

The thing is, unlike grammar, plot, and voice conventions which can be taught, the actual process of writing cannot. There is no one right way. In fact, I would say that the only wrong way is one that produces no story. Writing and storytelling are art. Just like with painting, one can learn the proper way to hold the brush and apply the paint, but the image must come from your soul.

There are a million blogs (probably—I didn’t count them) giving advice on ways to be more productive, to finish stories, etc., but in reality these are little more than personal anecdotes. What worked for Van Gogh likely didn’t work for Da Vinci or Rembrandt. Just as learning the dos and don’ts of writing is a growth process, figuring out what works for you and what doesn’t is also one.

Knowing yourself is the best, most honest route to knowing how best to create.

“Where do you get ideas?”

I’ve never met a writer with a dearth of ideas. They chase us down and threaten to hogtie us unless we write them. They are spoiled, demanding creatures that insist we pay attention, no matter what we ought to be working on.

Live. Do. Be. Then listen to the world with the same openness you did as a child and you will never lack for ideas.

“How do you keep writing?”

How do I not? Oh, sure, sometimes life gets in the way, but I know I’ll get back to it as soon as I can. Sometimes I need time away from a particular story for perspective. Perhaps I am at an emotionally difficult section and need to approach it when I am in the right frame of mind. This is not the same as simply not writing. While I set one story aside, I may work on another, or work on that whole “live, do be” part of the equation.

My characters demand that I tell their stories. Abandoning them would be like saying a forever goodbye to my best friend—gut wrenching and painful.

“But writers’ block!” you say.

“Life block,” I say. Put aside the paper or screen, and listen to your soul. What does it need? Are you tired? Scared? Unhappy? Deal with whatever it is that is dampening your passion for writing and odds are good that when you try again, that blank page won’t remain blank.

(You can follow the character blogs at https://crossroadsoffate.wordpress.com/zanes-log/)

Mephit Fur Meet and a Birthday on Board!

Your Mad Scientist  and First Mate is having a birthday today!
Please give zir good wishes as ze embarks on a new year!

Our sexy, naughty kitty-boy got no spanking this year, though, as pain levels elsewhere were too high.

And we spent the weekend celebrating at FurMeet.

This is one of our favorite conventions and we had a glorious time. Lisa the Lab Rat got to show off her best work. The first picture is her in the Fur Suit Parade, her first year for marching in it. The second is a tired Lisa-Bunny in her blankie sleeper.

Your Captain showed up in full furry steampunk glory, corset, ears and tiny top-hat

The sales were good. And we are off to Imaginarium next weekend in Louisville KY. The Expo hall is free for everyone!

My Sexy Saturday: Talk Sexy To Me

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