There’s a hardcover of the anthology, Fantastic Defenders, coming out in March. The anthology was edited by David and Donna
So, above, you’ll see a preview of the full wraparound cover, including flaps, for the hardcover edition of the book.
The second volume of the Worlds Enough anthology series is now in the planning stages. The series was always envisioned to span the different sub-genres of the speculative fiction field. Since the first volume, Fantastic Defenders, covered fantasy heroes, the second will be targeted at the fantasy/detective sub-genre.
The title for the second volume will be “Fantastic Detectives.” We’re looking for stories about crimes in fantasy settings, ranging from urban fantasies to “second world” settings. The fantasy detective sub-genre can obviously lead to some dark stories, which is fine, but there should be at least a little ray of hope somewhere in each tale.
With this volume, we’re adding more variety to the story lengths, so stories may range from 5K to 20K words. Since we’re targeting 100K words for the entire volume, longer stories are welcome but will need to hold up under harder scrutiny.
Note that this is a pre-announcement. The official Call for Stories has not yet been released, though the schedule for the Call for Stories, submission deadlines, and anticipated publication dates are already available on our Schedule page.
Worlds Enough has done the packaging for The Curator, the new anthology from the Hourlings writing group. Although not responsible for editing, we formatted the print edition, created the ebook, and did the cover design. The cover painting, of course, was licensed from the incomparable Luca Oleastri. The cover design was commissioned from Don Anderson.
The anthology will be published by Tannhauser Press around the end of December, 2018.
Donna Royston, Martin Wilsey, and David Keener were interviewed a week ago for Episode 44 of the Three Hoarsemen podcast. They got to discuss the new anthology, Fantastic Defenders, in their various roles as editors or, in Marty’s case, as the publisher (Tannhauser Press) of the volume. That podcast episode is now available online.
Of the interview, David Keener said, “We had a lot of fun being interviewed. We got to talk about the anthology, our other works, Tannhauser Press, and a few other subjects.” The podcast is an hour and forty-two minutes long, but you can skip to the interview at the 1:07:48 mark if you’d like.
Since the podcast hosts also discussed the movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, earlier in the podcast, the title they chose for the episode was: “Fantastic Defenders of the Guardians of the Galaxy.” Check it out now!
Fantastic Defenders launched today. It’s Volume 1 of the “Worlds Enough” anthology series, edited by David Keener and Donna Royston. Now available on Amazon in print and ebook.
The volume features five novelettes about the kind of heroic defenders that refuse to give up. You know, the ones that keep fighting no matter what the odds are. Check it out on Amazon!
Martin Wilsey, best-selling author of the Solstice 31 trilogy and publisher of Tannhauser Press, released an interview with David Keener on his blog. Martin does a regular “Fast Friday Interview” feature where he runs interviews with fellow indie writers.
In the interview, David talk about things like how he became a writer, as well as his mutant writing method that STILL has all of the other folks in his writing group shaking their heads in bemusement. He also talks about some of his upcoming projects, including Fantastic Defenders, volume 1 of the Worlds Enough anthology series.
So, that’s right, go over to Marty’s site right now and check out the interview.
The stories are all in for Volume 1 of the Worlds Enough anthology series, with Fantastic Defenders clocking in at a highly respectable 88K words. Now that the stories are off to the copyeditor for final revisions, we thought it would be interesting to share the back cover blurb for the volume:
YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD HERO DOWN
Across astounding and magical worlds, five heroes step forward to defend against fantastic threats:
- A sorceress in a besieged city faces a malignant force even more dangerous than the city’s would-be conquerors.
- An unassuming bureaucrat stumbles upon a threat to a vast empire and deals with it in his own inimitable fashion.
- A resourceful bodyguard for an infant princess, trapped and surrounded by merciless assassins, finds a unique way to hold them at bay.
- A mage press-ganged into the Royal Navy finds himself volunteered for a dangerous, secret mission on foreign soil.
- A disgraced royal guardian who failed in protecting his king hunts down those who cost him his honor.
These are…the Fantastic Defenders!
David Tatum, author of fantasy books like In Treachery Forged and The Kitsune Stratagem, has been selected for the fifth and final slot in the anthology, Worlds Enough: Fantastic Defenders.
His story is “A Gun for Shalla,” about a hapless wizard named Kusk who gets press-ganged into the imperial navy. After serving on board a ship-of-the-line, he’s singled out thanks to his unique combination of magical talents. He’s forcibly volunteered to assist in a dangerous mission to rescue the imprisoned relative of a high-level diplomat. Naturally, things don’t go as planned.
Look out for it on May 5, 2017, when Worlds Enough: Fantastic Defenders is published.
Publishing a book is a detail-oriented process and, to a large extent, most activities need to be done in a fairly specific order. Mess with the process…and you’ll pay for it later. At least, that’s the experience of David Keener, commissioned to do the ebook for the anthology, Reliquary, being published by Tannhauser Press.
“After the copyedit phase,” stated David Keener, “it’s fairly common for a book’s text to branch into print-specific and ebook-specific versions. That’s even more the case with a complex project like Reliquary, with internal illustrations, custom separators, chapter-leading dropped caps and some complicated custom typography. Which was why we were dismayed when we realized—well after the split—that the copyedit phase hadn’t accomplished all we’d hoped.”
After that, David brought in Donna Royston to do an emergency copyedit. “The usual procedure, at least in the indie world, is to order a proof from CreateSpace (Editorial Note: Amazon has since purchased CreateSpace and rolled it into its KDP service). Then you hand that to your copyeditor and she marks it up in red ink.” David sighed. “Lots of red ink.”
With a second round of copyedits, producers have the choice of copyediting the original content and then re-branching. Alternatively, if the separate branches have diverged too much, it may be easier to apply the copyedits to both branches. “For us, it was the latter,” David explained.
After all the delays (for this and other behind-the-scenes drama), the producers decided to release the print edition as soon as it was available. Accordingly, John Dwight finished the final design work on the print edition and published it on Amazon. Logistically, it was anticipated that the ebook edition would follow in about two weeks.
For those who aren’t familiar with the copyediting process, Worlds Enough thought it would be interesting to share a summary of typical copyedit markings:
“Yeah,” responded David Keener. “I’m really tired of seeing these.”
Be on the lookout. The Kindle edition of Reliquary will be available next week.
Note: (2017/05/25) Yeah, OK. That next week thing didn’t happen. Reliquary got preempted by some other projects. Still, it’s next up in the queue, so we’re looking at a June release for the ebook.
Note 2: (2021/01/06) CreateSpace is gone now, at least as a brand. The functionality got folded into Amazon’s KDP toolset quite a while ago.
A new anthology called Reliquary was just published on January 6th by our publishing partner, Tannhauser Press. The anthology features twelve stories by new writers on the theme of relics.
We’re proud to announce that four of the writers for our upcoming anthology, Fantastic Defenders, are represented in that volume. Those writers are David Keener, Jeff Patterson, Donna Royston, and Martin Wilsey.
David Keener, an IT specialist in his day job, has also been pressed into service to assist Tannhauser Press with ebook production. Due to some logistical issues, the Kindle edition of the anthology will be available on Amazon in about two weeks.