Help PegLeg Publishing Win a Grant!

Hello, everyone!  PegLeg Publishing is looking for votes in the Chase and LivingSocial Mission: Small Business grant contest.  Chase will award up to 12 grants of $250,000 each to small businesses, but to get to the final round, we need your help!  We have to get 250 votes by the end of June. 

What will we do with the money?  We’ve got several projects planned:

·         We’ll publish more books.  As a small publishing company, we haven’t had the resources to publish large runs of novels and market them as a large publisher would.  Our current publications are primarily anthologies, and we would like to include more novels and poetry books by single authors.  With this grant, we will be able to publish more authors.

·         We also plan to host a writing festival to engage the local writing community.   This would help foster a sense of community for writers who are just beginning and offer them the chance to interact with fellow writers, receive constructive criticism on their writing, and learn about publishing opportunities.    

·         One of our founding tenets was to promote creative writing skills to young writers.  If we are lucky enough to receive this grant, we plan on starting maintaining a yearly creative writing contest for high school students.

·         Another area we would invest in is mixed media and experimental projects.  Some of these projects might be seen as risky to larger publishers, but we would love to be able to delve into  emerging art forms like graphic novels, hypertext novels, and even performance pieces. 

It’s very easy to vote, and you won’t end up on any mailing list or get any spam.  Here’s what you have to do:

Go to www.missionsmallbusiness.com.

Log in with your Facebook account (yes, you have to have one to vote).

Search for PegLeg (you don’t have to enter the city or state, we’re the only PegLeg around).

Click the “Support” button.

That’s it! 

Small publishing companies truly rely on our readers for support.  Thank you for your vote! 

-Matt & Kristi

Something of a morbid topic

Happy Fourth of July to our U.S. authors and readers! This blog is not at all about the holiday, though. Instead, it's about something a bit morbid: wills. Specifically, wills and literary estates. Author Neil Gaiman has a wonderful post (nearly three years old, actually) that explains all about what happens when an author doesn't leave behind a will outlining his or her desires for his/her writing. Rather than rewrite it, here's the link to Mr. Gaiman's post: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html. It even has a sample of a will for authors.

We certainly hope none of our authors find themselves in a position of needing such a will any time soon, but it IS incredibly important to have one. Even if you've only published a few things, go ahead and make out one of these literary wills (or speak with your lawyer about it). Make certain your writing is handled as you'd like it to be after you're gone.

Up and Coming Events for the Summer of 2009!

You guys might know that we have been running a little bit behind at PegLeg Publishing. This has been due to a large increase in the number of submissions we are receiving being in direct competition with the amount of time that we have to read through them. We have a set and established amount of time to get through the submissions, and with the increase in volume we just haven't been able to catch up. Plus, we also tend to take on a lot more than handle because we want to expand our business. In reality it's no excuse, we should be sure to keep up with our obligations no matter what.

We are working on a surprise for this summer......an e-anthology! Yay! While it has caused us to get behind somewhat, we are still going to work as hard as we can to make sure that it is up and running successfully by the middle of July or August.

You may be asking, why an online book? Well, we tried to do a regular print anthology in 2007, and although it turned out wonderfully, we couldn't clear the print costs with the number of anthologies that were actually sold. So, this year we are going to see how we do with a completely digital publication. Since the world is going completely viral (and we were already halfway there with the publication of an e-zine), we figured that an e-book is just the next logical step in our company's evolution. Plus, we can get the anthology to you for a simple fee of $3.50 (instead of the print version's $12), thereby cutting your costs by a significant margin as well.

In conclusion, if you have been waiting for a response from us, or for the new issue of GlassFire to post, don't worry that we've gone under. We are just a little bit slow at getting the job done. We are in the writing field after all, and what are English people if not procrastinators?

Adventures from Slush Pile Land

You don't every fully understand how hard it is for publishers of magazines to make it through their reading periods and necessary edits until you find yourself on the receiving end of more than five hundred submissions for a single reading period.

Multiply this number times four, and you might understand what we face when we go through submissions each quarter. It is only natural that we fall behind sometimes. However, there are some writers who do not seem to understand this dilemma, and we have gotten some rude, and sometimes borderline psycho responses to the fact that we may take a while to get through our slush pile.

Important things to remember if you are a writer submitting to a magazine:

• Always follow the guidelines, remember they are there for a reason. Sometimes writers seem to think that we just decided on random rules all willy-nilly because we got a bug up our asses. No, all of the rules have a purpose behind them to help streamline the reading process
• Never call an editor a name because they reject your manuscript...this is a no-no that will not help to endear you to the writing community.
• Do not write and inquire about your work once a week for the duration of the reading period. You might inquire once after 90 days has passed, but the sad truth is that there are just two of us doing all of the heavy lifting...and since both of us work other jobs it might take us awhile to make it through the slush pile.
• Be glad if you get personal comments back about your work. Sometimes we comment because a piece almost made it into the final selection, but we felt that it was not for us. If we comment on it, we liked it. NEVER respond to our comments with emails like "what the hell do you know? My stuff is awesome." This will not help you to succeed in writing. Criticism is an important thing that a writer must learn to deal with, so do not respond to our criticism with a temper tantrum. Trust me, there will be others who will say much harsher things than us.
  

Cover Artists

If you're looking to self-publish a novel or are working with a small publisher that needs a cover artist, you may be interested in contacting Junior Mclean. Junior's image to the right was published in GlassFire Vol. 3 / Issue 3, and you can find other samples of his work on his websites:

http://junior.mosiacglobe.com/

http://www.redbubble.com/people/slayerx

You can also email him directly at DarkGaia2@yahoo.com.

Junior has done cover art work before and is very excited about working with authors and other publishers. Check out his art work even if you don't need a cover--it's awesome!

A bit about us-Kristi

Unlike Matt, I have known that I wanted to write since I was very young. I was constantly telling stories and making up alternate views of reality. It absolutely drove my parents crazy.

I also did not have any type of Long Term Plan (I'm pretty sure I didn't have any small percentage of life planned out), and I almost didn't go into college because I wanted to see the world. However, I did decide to continue my education, and received an English degree. I then decided that I was going to go into Law School. I filled out all of the forms, took the LSAT, got a scholarship, and then freaked out because I realized that I was going to be my father. So, I went to a Master's program in English instead.

I put myself through college working as a Vet Assistant, and because of this I have quite the animal collection that I take care of. I have also managed to pawn a lot of the strays off on my friends and family, who have now found themselves overloaded with animals! But, I can rest easier knowing that they all have loving family homes.

Although I haven't managed to fulfill my goal of becoming a full-time writer, I continue to try. Right now I am still writing creatively, but reading and editing work for others does make it more difficult to focus on your own writing. All that being said, I wouldn't trade the work that I do at PegLeg Publishing for anything.

(PS. I am a genetically engineered procrastinator. I swear, my parents combined two sides of a defunct gene pool and now I am physically incapable of not putting everything off to the last minute)

A bit about us - Matt

Hello, all. We thought it might be a good idea to start off our blog by writing a bit about ourselves.

I (Matt) dabbled in writing in high school, but I didn't really consider a career in it. Instead, the Long Term Plan was to complete an undergrad and graduate degree in computer science, move to Silicone Valley, and makes tons of money. Everything was going according to the LTP until semester one of graduate school. It was then I realized that the idea of spending eight hours a day programming was not what I wanted to do with my life. I had minored in English as part of my undergrad degree, so I looked into an MLA in writing. The degree turned out to be very flexible, so I switched over. I split my focus between editing and technical writing, and I found that I absolutely loved the process of helping others polish their writing.

Since then, I've completed a second MLA (in international studies, of all things), worked a year as a quality rater for Google, and done freelance writing/editing in addition to working with PegLeg.

As far as hobbies and such go, I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy. I also read young adult novels, and I've written a few young adult pieces. I also dabble in poetry and have had some minor success with it. I'm addicted to NetFlix, probably because I rarely get to see movies in the theater. I also play World of Warcraft and WiiFit, although I tend to play one a lot more than the other (take a guess as to which!). One entire bedroom in my home is reserved for my sci-fi collection. Oh, and I collect gnomes.

I think that's about all I have to say about myself. Kristi's turn!