Please welcome Michelle River and her fascinating journey with Eerie River Publishing to the Writer's Journey Blog!
When Elaine approached me about writing a blog post about Eerie River Publishing and our upcoming 2021 season, I have to admit I felt a bit overwhelmed. Honoured and overwhelmed, I should say. Not just because it blows me away that people are genuinely interested, but because my little publishing house (which started with one novella created by new friends) has grown leaps and bounds over the last year — despite a raging pandemic and a world gone mad. I guess it is only fitting that, as the world twists and turns within itself, we would also evolve and find our feet. The ever-growing author group that surrounds us is something of a wonder, and their enthusiasm for our open calls is fantastic. We truly wouldn’t be where we are without them!
2020 saw some growing pains — as all good businesses experience — and some amazing successes. Somehow, even with the crazy state of the world, we found a group of indie authors that not only supported us and our calls, but embraced us and became like a second family.
We have grown a strong and supportive Patreon group that offers perks such as monthly stories, audio stories, polls, ebooks and discounts on author services. Our patrons are responsible for picking the monthly themes, and they also get to submit one month early to our larger anthology calls like “It Calls from the Veil”. You can view all of our tiers and author bonuses here on our page. https://www.patreon.com/EerieRiverPub
As our indie author family grew so did the submission levels. We saw an unprecedented number of submissions for our last call out “It Calls from the Sea", making this our strongest and most anticipated upcoming release to date.
All of that isn’t even the most exciting thing that happened last year with Eerie! We were advised earlier this year that our series “It Calls From the Forest: Volume Two” has been nominated for consideration for a Bram Stoker Award, and “It Calls From the Sky” has made top 'anthology of the year' lists with a number of bloggers on both Twitter and Instagram. We also finalized an awesome logo for Eerie River Publishing, as well as created a special one just for our authors that will have a unique personalization feature for our Patreon members. Oh, and our owner Michelle had a baby! That was pretty exciting as well.
With all of that in the books 2021 is gearing up to be our most ambitious year yet. We have multiple anthologies in both horror and dark fantasy releasing, open calls planned for our running series (starting with “It Calls from the Doors”), an LGBTQ+ anthology planned for June, audiobooks and single-authored novels and novellas coming out by some amazing authors.
To say this year will be busy is an understatement. We are putting everything we have behind these projects, and we want to make sure we are supporting our indie authors in the best way possible.
Yet, even with all of those successes, as you can imagine 2020 has been a hard year for the indie publishing world. In this tumultuous time all of us have seen the brunt of the pandemic in sales and revenue. However, paying our authors a decent amount has been our number one priority, even when that meant not paying ourselves and devoting everything to our authors, artists and editor.
That is exactly why we have decided to run a crowdfunding campaign with Indiegogo.
Our only goal for this campaign is to continue to grow and create top-quality anthologies. All the funds from this campaign will go directly to flat rate payments for stories published. If we are able to reach our initial goal then we will be able to increase our payment to a minimum of one cent per word for each story selected across our three main anthologies for the year.
We are planning to pack our rewards with incentives for authors and readers alike, with discounts on books, merchandise, book formatting and even some editing by Alanna! You will have a plethora of options to choose from while you help to support our indie publishing family.
You can sign up (with no obligation) for automatic updates, and you can enter into a draw for a surprise e-book bundle starting on February 1st.
Even as we grow and move forward into the new year, our one and only goal still remains forever the same: creating a paying market for indie authors.
This whole adventure started with the intention to create an indie publishing house that would be devoted to our authors, and to create top quality horror and dark fantasy collections. We have continued to keep our promise and make sure each and every story we publish outside of drabbles is compensated for, because we truly believe that you and your words are worth it. We may not be able to pay pro rates yet, but believe me - that day will come! We can’t wait to get there with you.
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Hi Mark. thanks for your comments. I think so too.
Thank you so much Jim. I just love the success story of Eerie River too. I haven't been lucky enough to get an acceptance yet but I will keep trying. I also love their support for the Indie Authors!
Well, I'm really, really impressed! Such growth in such a short time. And a commendable attitude toward supporting the indie writer! Go for it! All good luck going forward. And may the sky be the limit! :-)
What an interesting interview! I have a huge fondness for Eerie River Publishing. Just about a year ago I submitted two drabbles to Michelle for consideration for their "Forgotten Ones" Anthology. They were rejected, but with a very nice note on how to improve them, which I attempted to do. I re-sent them and they were sent back with some more advice. I made changes and sent them in and viola! Acceptance!! Michelle didn't have to do that, she didn't have to take the time with a newbie writer trying his hand at a different genre than he was normally used to submitting to, but she did. My two drabbles were included in the anthology and I considered what might…