Looking for Superhero Writers

[Polaris]

Hiya!

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I work for a company that publishes fiction (novels and short stories). I have convinced our Senior Editor to consider trying to license material from Hero Games (it would give us some good stories to publish, Hero some licensing money and some exposure, and us Hero fans stories to read). Prior to them paying to license anything tho, I want to show them that there is a good market for supers. So, I have approval for a short story anthology based upon the superhero genre... the characters for this will need to be your own (we can't use the Hero Games material yet, obviously). If you are interested or willing to contribute stories (note: You will be *PAID* for this), please contact me at uspolaris@comcast.net.

Thank you so much!
Polaris

[ghost-angel]

Ok .. I'm interested.

but first - what publishing company do you represent? And do you have a website I can look at? Preferablly one that details your Copyright agreements with the authors (Exclusive publishing rights? non-exclusive? etc...)


thnx.

[Sketchpad]

Like GA, I'd love to work on this, but can you tell us a bit more about the company? Also, how much is the company paying for stories?

[SuperBlue]

I also would like to know more about this.

[Polaris]

Greetings,

I do hope that me talking about another company is in no way going to upset Hero Games. Please know that my goal for this is to eventually have this lead to us licensing Hero characters for stories.

About the company: The name is ComStar Media, LLC. We do have a website (www.comstar-media.com) where you can sign up for a newsletter. We have an affiliation with Windstorm Creative, a large independent publisher based in Port Orchard, WA.

Deal: The stories you would write for ComStar would allow you to own the characters you created. However, ComStar would have rights of first refusal on publishing stories using those characters (if you are going to pitch a story using those characters, it would have to be pitched to ComStar first). If you are open to allowing others to write stories about your character, you would get a royalty commission on their work as well.

Payment: ComStar pays authors a 15% royalty on all of our revenue (note that this would mean the royalty would be based upon the amount received after things like distributor discount... it is 15% of all the money we get on the book). In the case of short story anthologies, this royalty is divided between authors based upon their word count contribution to the final story. In some cases, ComStar is open to purchasing writing works based upon a pay per word basis, but this would typically be done for characters and material that would then be owned by ComStar.

Marketing: Short story anthologies receive a marketing budget of between 40,000 to 50,000 dollars, depending largely upon the pre-pub buzz we are able to generate. Novels get substantially more than anthologies (simply because the market is far larger for novels).

It is worth noting that ComStar is *not* a Print on Demand service, or a 'Vanity Press'. We do not request (or accept) any financial payment from any author to publish your story. We only get money by selling books (which is good, since that's what we are in business for).

Yikes! This is beginning to sound like a commercial... lol.

Our editors work with the writers... not against them. We do have some community based standards for acceptability, but beyond that the story is the author's to tell.

Again, if I am in any way out of bounds posting this on Hero's boards, I deeply apologize. I would not do this if it was not the case that I wanted to have this lead to ComStar publishing a line of Hero Games Novels (**crosses fingers**). Such a deal would lead to Hero making some money on licenses, ComStar making some money on book sales, both getting some good marketing, and maybe me getting a promotion... ;)

If anyone has any further questions, please feel free to contact me.

Polaris
polaris@comstar-media.com

[SuperBlue]

I emailed you inquiring about the writing. How do I go about making a submission if need be?

[Polaris]

I replied to your email as soon as I got it...

Here is the link to get a questionaire. Simply fill it out and send it in (via email). You can submit up to five story ideas for the superhero anthology.
http://comstar-media.com/downloads.php

Thanks!
Polaris

[LadyChaos]

I visited your website and noted where ComStar has been soliciting stories, but I couldn't find a listing of books already published. Where would I find that?

[Polaris]

ComStar is a new part of the Windstorm Family. You can find past experience at the website www.windstormcreative.com ComStar is assigned to create fiction content to be published through Windstorm.

Polaris

[Dust Raven]

Would it be acceptable to submit multiple short story ideas that make a larger story? i.e.: first story tells the origin of a particular hero, second story tells how the character became a hero, etc... Each would be a story in and of themselves, but the second and subsequent stories would make more sense if the previous were read.

[Polaris]

Dust Raven,

To answer your question, it would be easier if I spoke more directly to you. If you could email me directly at uspolaris@comcast.net (at home), or you could use my email at work at polaris@comstar-media.com (although, I prefer my home one personally), then we can talk.

Sincerely,
Polaris

[Hermit]

Very interesting.

[Polaris]

Hermit,

Hopefully it is interesting in a good way...:)

I do not want anyone to think that there is a lot of 'small print' that I did not want to talk about here. To clarify on the short story issue: It is my hope that this is going to turn into a long series of short story fiction on superheroes. Characters can certainly be reused in future stories, however each anthology will need to *not* rely on the customer having read another (in other words, it can not be something that the story in part three really needs information from part 2).

In addition, ComStar is also very open to the publication of novels (although, some of the rules vary a little bit with those). So, if someone wanted to tell a superhero story that was a lot longer than 20K words (the general guideline limit on a 'short' story), then it can be done as a stand alone book (a novel or a novella).

Polaris
ComStar Media, LLC
www.comstar-media.com