by Sandra Murphy
In October, A Murder of Crows, a twenty-one story anthology, went live on Amazon. The call for submissions remained out for three months. Surprisingly, no one sent a rushed email that arrived moments before the deadline. In all, we received 71 submissions, with a total word count of almost 275,000.
What I Learned
People don’t read or don’t remember submission guidelines. The call was for cozy crime stories focusing on the collective names of animals. No animal could be maimed or killed. I received fantasy, sci-fi, and horror stories as well as some that didn’t have a crime. A couple of writers used as many collective names as possible without making them part of the story.
Very few people used the manuscript format we asked for. Not all of the writers included word counts and contact information on the title page. Bios were too formal and were all (including my own) rewritten. About half the writers knew how to use Track Changes. I admit it’s still tricky for me.
Those whose stories we rejected seemed gracious. Those accepted felt thrilled. No one argued about proposed changes, but if they disagreed they explained why, and we compromised.
Darkhouse Books asked my opinion on the cover art, asked me to write the blurb used on Amazon and the introduction, let me choose the stories and the order in which they appear in the book. They made me feel like a partner, rather than a spelling and grammar checker.
Would I do it again?
Yes! In fact, I am. The call for Rebellion, Revolution and Rock ‘n Roll—The Sixties in Music, is out now with a deadline of November 15.
In the meantime, take a look at the finished result for A Murder of Crows. The stories include goats, geese, penguins, bears, wolves, dodos, koalas, tarantulas, spiders, alpacas, goldfish, bees, cats, dogs, martens, and more—but especially crows. The tales are delightful.
Sandra Murphy is a subject-matter expert on eco-friendly topics and all things animal. She’s also a researcher, editor, writer of short stories of her own, co-writes with Michael Bracken, and is the author of From Hay to Eternity: Ten Tales of Crime and Deception. She is the editor of A Murder of Crows and the upcoming sixties-music-and-crime anthology. The beginnings of several books live in her hard drive. Although her bio sounds quite stodgy, late at night she can come across quite funny.