In which I talk some more about Queen of Swords Press, LLC...

"About Queen of Swords Press:
Queen of Swords is an independent small press, specializing in swashbuckling tales of derring-do, bold new adventures in time and space, mysterious stories of the occult and arcane and fantastical tales of people and lands far and near. What does that actually mean? It means we like all of the following: swashbuckling tales with female protagonists, people from wide-ranging cultural and racial backgrounds having adventures in outer space, LGBT and/or Q characters engaged in magic and swordplay and historically-flavored stories that reflect diverse casts of characters doing interesting things.

 

Submissions: Queen of Swords Press is not open to unsolicited submissions at this time."

 

So what does that mean? Good question, long answer. But in the interests of brevity and perhaps, wit, I’m hoping to publish steampunk, Gothic horror, alternate history, mannerpunk, space fantasy, space opera, historical mysteries with fantasy elements and likely things I haven’t thought of yet. Will there be an erotica/erotic romance line? Yes, though it will be limited and likely to be invite only for the foreseeable future.

 

Does the Press plan on releasing anything tarot-related? Honestly, no. The Queen of Swords is my card. She is ambitious, capable, smart, honest and clever, all things that I strive to be.  Taking on her name and aspect has a fair amount of symbolism for me as a result. But I am no expert on the tarot and do not expect to be set up for publishing graphics, so no decks or books about tarot symbolism or anything of that nature.

Length of works: Novels and short story collections, to start with. I’d like to try crowdsourcing some anthologies (which often don’t pay for themselves otherwise), but that’s down the road a piece. But we can always talk.

Will I be open to lesfic (the current lesbian romance genre) and m/m? Eh. I’m interested in stories that break the mold and I think there are a number of perfectly lovely publishers who will wax more enthusiastic about books that fall squarely into those categories. I really want to see LGBTQ and ace and genderqueer protagonists having adventures of the types described above, but would prefer those adventures to have romantic subplots if the story requires them, rather than being primarily romances. That said, I anticipate exceptions and changes as things move forward.

 

“Waxing enthusiastic” is the key here. I’m funding the Press out of pocket to begin with, with all that goes along with that (no advances, slow ramp up, etc.). Consequently, I want to be pretty enthusiastic about anything of yours (or mine, for that matter) that I publish. That said, I anticipate discovering all sorts of things along the way and there will be things that I do just to learn how to do them and missteps and bold new adventures that go in completely unanticipated directions. And some things that go exactly as planned, because I have that kind of brain.

 

I have a tentative plan of opening up to ideas, not full proposals, in the next few weeks. I’m open to hearing about reprints if you have full rights to them. We’re ironing out a publishing contract soon and once the website is up (anticipating by February), I should be able to post some terms. I anticipate that it will be squarely within industry standards. I anticipate having a functioning email soon. Other stuff is zipping along briskly so I should have regular bulletins on the press status going forward.

 

So what else would you like to know about Queen of Swords Press, LLC.?