Snow joke

As it snowed this morning, I thought I'd let all you budding published authors into the news that Snowbooks are looking for some very specific book types for their 2010 list. I don't seem to be able to get to a direct post for this on their blog, so I've snagged the whole thing. There's a link at the bottom:

2010. It seems so futuristic. Will we all finally get our jet packs? I for one will be saving scraps of tin foil from now on, with which to fashion a suitable cardigan or such like garment. And don’t forget the colander hat to set it all off, with a coat hanger aerial jauntily poking out the top.

But it’s not so far away, you know. In the dynamic world of Snowbooks (where we plan more than a year ahead. Hmm. A brand new definition of dynamic), 2010 is really quite close, and we are starting to think about our list.

So this is a call out to writers to submit your work for our 2010 slate – one which we hope will be better than ever.

Here is what we’re interested in:
• Fantasy. Alternate realities, strange universes. Think The Affinity Bridge, Book of Shadows
• Horror. Zombies, werewolves, vampires, witches, apocalypse, supernatural frighteners. Think Maneater, Paris Immortal, The Fall
• Sci fi – from space opera to near future dystopias.
• Historical fiction. Think Needle in the Blood.
• We’re also looking to scale up our non-fiction publishing programme. We are interested in all topics – even quite specialist or technical subjects if they are interesting enough and written well - we’d like to publish books that are the best in their field, from super-clear introductory texts to, for example, popular science, current affairs, technology, cookery or gardening. Or, I don’t know, bee-keeping. The important thing is the quality of the writing, not the subject. All our non-fiction will be published in full colour with lots of illustrations and photos.
(I wish ‘non-fiction’ had a less negative name. ‘Informative books’, let’s call them. Oh, no, that’s no good either.)

What we’re not interested in: Children’s, poetry, biography, experimental, edgy literary fiction, derivative fantasy featuring lots of orcs and elves.
What we might also be interested in: Other genre writing including chick lit & crime.

Please follow the instructions at www.snowbooks.com/submissions.html. You'll need to send full, not partial or proposed, fiction manuscripts.

Also, Snowbooks author Fiona Robyn has a giveaway available for The Letters, her first release. (Aliya will be reviewing it at some point--there are plenty of vegetables to keep her happy.)Just email fiona@fionarobyn.com to enter. Open until the end of January.

Competition update: books still free

Okay, so maybe I'm a bit of a demanding task-master. Guess that's what comes from writing a book with Aliya. She's a tough mistress. (Note the continued use of hyphenation regardless.)

Anywway, if you want to enter the competition but find the entry requirements a little over-zealous, you can still do so by completing the following sentence:

Although I'd love a copy of Gratia Placenti or Apex Digest #7, I can't be bothered writing a duelling viewpoint with the story Neil has on Ian Hocking's Fiction Flash because I have better things to do with my time, such as...

Competition: win FREE signed books

I've a copy of Gratia Placenti, the second anthology from Apex Digest, which features my story The Listening (most of the book is US horror, my story is a kind of slipstream pseudo-crime thing), with two copies of Apex Digest #7 for runners-up. (This one contains my story Kissing Cousins, a near-future speculative fiction foray, sitting amongst a host of space-horror.)

Just riddle-me-this, veggiebox fans:

The new Fiction Flash on Ian Hocking's blog is a podcast of my very short story Before Midnight? To be in with a chance of winning, you need to write the same events from the point of view of the narrator's partner. The ones I judge best will get the goods.

Leave your attempt as a comment on this post.

Alas this competition is only open to entrants with postal addresses in the UK. Not including Aliya.