CLICK HERE TO SEE REWARD LEVELS AND GO TO KICKSTARTER!
Circlet Press has been publishing erotic science fiction and fantasy since 1992. Our mission has always been to celebrate the sexual imagination as a way to change the world for the better. We would like to see a world where many different expressions of gender and sexuality are accepted and celebrated in ways that they may not be in the present day.
This year marks our 25th anniversary and to commemorate 25 years on the cutting edge of erotic literature, we would like to publish a “best of” anthology, as we did in 2012, 2007, and 2002. To produce a beautiful paperback edition is going to take money.
Even if you’re not a publishing expert, you’ve probably seen that the industry has gone through some huge upheavals. Borders went out of business. Amazon is cornering a once-thriving ebook market. We’ve weathered nearly every change to hit the book biz over the past 25 years but we’ve reached a point where crowdfunding is the only real viable path forward to continue publishing the quality of work and the diversity of work that has been our hallmark. We launched a Patreon this year to start covering our staff overhead, while Kickstarter is the best way to fund special projects like this one.
You Vote!
Every supporter of the Kickstarter campaign will get to help us select the stories that go into the anthology! For just a dollar you can be part of the process of narrowing down all the stories we’ve published over the past 5 years to the 20 best for inclusion in the anthology.
Circlet’s past “best of” anthologies have included stories in nearly every genre and subgenre of science fiction and fantasy, including steampunk, space opera, magical realism, high fantasy, paranormal, cyberpunk, gaslamp fantasy, and more, as well as many a sexual identity and alternative sexuality, from gay, lesbian, and bisexual, to trans and genderqueer, from kink and BDSM to sapiosexuality and even asexuality. I expect this one to be just as varied and just as well-written.
But there’s more. If we reach our funding goal to publish the “best of” anthology, we have stretch goals that will basically determine how many new books we publish in the coming year and how quickly we publish them.
Books on the 2018 Slate:
Hard as Stone: Dwarven Erotica, edited by Julie Cox
Why should elves have all the fun? This anthology of hot, bearded dwarves includes various expressions of dwarven sexual orientations and genders. The stories have all been acquired, but we could use a better budget for cover art so we can find something truly fitting (and sexy).
This World Between by Monique Poirier
Monique is a frequent contributor to Circlet’s anthologies. Her lyrical, deeply felt stories never fail to arouse and engage. This World Between would collect Monique’s erotic sf/f stories into their own book.
Tales from the Arena by Elizabeth Schechter
Another Circlet favorite is Elizabeth Schechter, the multi-award winning author of House of Sable Locks, Heart’s Master, and Princes of Air. We’ve got the opportunity to publish more two books from her, both set on a world where genetically engineered supersoldiers are provided with sexual submissives.
Like a Whisper in Your Ear, edited by Nobilis Reed
For the past five years we have been sponsoring the Nobilis Erotica podcast, a weekly erotic science fiction podcast that once a month features a Circlet-published story. We’ve been working on collecting many of those stories into a book of their own, in audio and ebook! Help us make sure it goes into paperback, too.
A Beastly Affair, edited by J. Blackmore
From the editor who brought you erotic anthologies on such topics as Alice in Wonderland, Jules Verne, and Sherlock Holmes, comes an anthology of retellings of Beauty and the Beast. Fairytales remain a perennial favorite among erotica readers and I can’t wait to see what the authors have made of this one.
Junk Magic by Julie Cox
Small towns, big hearts, and scorching sex populate Julie Cox’s stories. Her serial-turned-novel Capricious was a finalist in the Bisexual Book Awards. Junk Magic would collect together all her erotic short stories in one place.
Playing Dirty, edited by Cecilia Tan and Cosmin Alexander
An erotic anthology with the theme of games and gamers. This is one that languished in the middle of the editorial process. Help us get it finished and released into the world!
No Safewords 2, edited by Laura Antoniou
Circlet’s most popular books are Laura Antoniou’s “Marketplace” series, about a modern slave-owning secret society right under our noses. In No Safewords 2, Antoniou collects stories by other authors set in the world of the Marketplace.
Walker to the Sun by H.B. Kurtzwilde
Lambda Literary Award finalist H.B. Kurtzwilde has published a few books with Circlet already, including Chocolatiers of the High Winds and Sea Turtle Inn. Walker to the Sun is his magnum opus, a planned trilogy. All three parts are in our hands already, we just need the budget to do it right.
The Eidolon Initiative by Vinnie Tesla
We’re looking forward to publishing our very first graphic novel with Vinnie Tesla’s The Eidolon Initiative! First serialized at eroticmadscience.com, it mashes up Pokemon Go, Chuck Tingle, and Max Headroom into a kinky, over-the-top cyberpunk romp about hackers, AI, and a murderous video game.
Like a Spell: Omnibus Edition edited by Jennifer Levine
By 2018 we will have published two of the planned four volumes on erotic magic so far, one for each element of air, fire, water, and earth. Help us collect them all into one omnibus paperback of amazing sexmagic erotica.
Our main goal is $5,000 for the publication of the anthology, but each time we reach a $500 stretch goal, backers of the campaign will pick which book gets added to the slate. If we hit $10,000, ALL the books will be added to the 2018 schedule with no financial obstacles!
Financial breakdown:
The most important payment made in the production of a book of this type is to the authors. We would like to be able to offer each author $100 per story, twice Circlet’s usual anthology fee. For 20 stories that would be $2,000. Other production and publicity costs can easily run another $2,000, and I’d like at least $1,000 in the budget so that the hardworking editors on the staff who will be wrangling the selection can get paid, too. Circlet Press has no employees. All our staff are either volunteers or freelancers billing hourly, and I’d much rather make sure some money goes into the pockets of the editors than prevail on their volunteerism. Our staff love Circlet Press and that’s the main reason they do it, but if we’re raising money I only feel it’s fair that some be for them as well as the other creative people whose work goes into it. So we’ve set $5,000 as our minimum goal. DETAILS:
- $50-$250: cover art
- $50-$250: cover design
- $250-$500: interior layout
- $250: proofreading
- $250-$500: publicity costs
- $250-$500: advertising
- $500-$1,000: Staff time
We hope you’ll join us in this campaign to publish–and to keep publishing–the very best in erotic science fiction and fantasy!
CLICK HERE TO SEE REWARD LEVELS AND GO TO KICKSTARTER!
There are also three other ways you can support Circlet Press!
- Come to our fundraising book sale on September 23rd in Cambridge, Mass!
- Join our Patreon for as low as $1 per month!
- Buy some ebooks here on Circlet.com!
