This one is going to take a little explaining.
Earlier this year I wrote a story, and I’ll tell the story-behind-the-story some other time, but after being rejected by one anthology it was ultimately accepted for another. That anthology, Eldritch Embraces, will be published in February 2016 by Dragon’s Roost Press. It’s a collection of stories with a dual theme: every tale is a romance of some kind, and every tale draws on the Cthulhu mythos of unearthly monstrosities originally created by H.P. Lovecraft. As the tag line for the anthology says, it’s “Putting The Love Back In Lovecraft”.
DRP, like basically all of the houses kind enough to accept my work, is a small business constrained by the realities of all the expenses associated with bringing new physical books into the world. So DRP is attempting to cover the publication costs via an Indiegogo fundraiser. You can check it out here: Eldritch Embraces on Indiegogo. And of course I urge you to do so! I can give you several good reasons to consider it:
1. If you want to support me, personally, as a writer, the best material way to do so is to buy the books my works appear in. I could wait until Eldritch Embraces is published, and then direct you to the places where you could order it (and make no mistake, come February I will do exactly that), but you can also pre-order the book via the Indiegogo campaign by pledging a certain amount or above. ($15 to pre-order a digital copy, $25 for the paperback.) Moreover, as long as I’m putting all my cards on the table, the more money that gets raised via Indiegogo, the more I will end up getting paid for my story. I submitted the story with an understanding of what the minimum amount I’d get paid would be, and I’m perfectly happy with that. But I’d be a big stinky liar if I denied how great it would be to wind up at a higher level of compensation.
2. If you want to support smaller independent publishing, this is a very concrete way to do that. I’m not going to cast this as an us-vs-them moral issue, where Amazon is evil and will eventually control what we’re all allowed to read and the micropresses are the last line of defense for freedom of thought. I am content to live in a world that has both Amazon and micropresses in it, and I do believe they can co-exist. But Amazon will keep on chugging basically no matter what, while micropresses hang by a thread. So if you want to throw some monetary support toward the underdog, please do.
3. If you want to get some cool swag, there are some fairly awesome perks and rewards built into the tiered donation structure of this particular campaign, from coffee mugs and t-shirts to custom art to editing services. The more you give the more you get, quite literally.
4. If you want to support a worthy charitable cause, beyond the earnings of a writer and the economics of a small publisher, then this is for you, too! Assuming you see the rescue of shelter animals as a worthy charitable cause. The publisher has chosen to donate a portion of the proceeds of all sales to the Last Day Dog Rescue Organization, a volunteer group which saves dogs from high kill shelters. The more money raised on Indiegogo, the more distribution channels for the book the publisher can make use of, and more distribution means more sales means more donations to Last Day. I provided a link to the charity because if this is the only point that pushes a button for you and if you’d rather give money directly to the rescue organization, of course I don’t begrudge you that in the slightest.
At this point, you may be wondering what the connection is between Eldritch Embraces and rescuing animals from shelters. And I would love to be able to blow your mind but the fact is there really isn’t one. The publisher decided he wanted to publish an anthology of Lovecraftian love stories. The publisher also decided he wanted to support Last Day. It’s his publishing house so he made it all happen and here we are.
So that’s my pitch. If you can support the Indiegogo campaign, fantastic and thanks in advance. If you prefer to wait for the retail release, I hope you enjoy it then. And if you have no interest whatsoever in my latest fiction offering, I’m not sure how exactly you got to my website or why you bothered reading all the way to the end of this post specifically, but I appreciate your time all the same.
* Regarding the title of this post: “Amores perros” is a Mexican thriller, the title of which translates to “Love’s a bitch”. Shoggoths are terrible, indescribable things from Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”, among other works. My love story in Eldritch Embraces involves a shoggoth. The more you know!
Dale W. Glaser 