Call for Submissions! Belanger Books has Upcoming Including The Irregular Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of Steampunk, and a Tribute to H.G. Wells!!!

Attention authors and prospective authors!!! Belanger Books has a call for submissions for three upcoming anthologies!  See requirements and deadlines below!!

First up, we have an anthology for those who like to mix science fiction with Sherlock Holmes:

Sherlock Holmes Adventures in the Realms of Steampunk

Like Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H.G. Wells, this collection will feature all new traditional Sherlock Holmes adventures with a science-fiction edge. Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of Steampunk will feature Holmes in a futuristic Victorian setting.  See him deal with airship pirates and steam powered robots. Maybe he’ll even deal with a time traveler or with alien invaders.  

Belanger Books is calling for submissions from writers, new or established, which are between 5,000 - 10,000 words (it is okay to be over or under some). 

Requirements:

The stories must feel like traditional Holmes just with a futuristic, steampunk bent. For example, the stories should have the traditional Holmes and Watson even if you have altered them slightly (i.e. even if they are cyborgs, they still call each other Holmes and Watson, not John and Sherlock). The stories may use public domain characters, but you must make certain you are not using anything copyrighted (for example, you can use Holmes and Watson, but you can't use some aspects of the final Holmes stories such as his life as a retired beekeeper. That aspect of Holmes is still under copyright in America. You can use mechanical men, but you can't use a copyrighted character like the female robot from Metropolis).

Payment:

Authors will receive a portion of net sales (most likely between 2 - 5% depending on number of stories) from the Kickstarter campaign and from the first year of book sales. 

Authors retain the rights to their work.

Due Date: All submissions must be received by December 15th.

Please send entries to mail@belangerbooks.com or to derrick@belangerbooks.com. Make sure to include your name (first and last), title of your story, story length, and attach your story as a word document. 

Next up, we have a traditional Sherlock Holmes anthology. This one is very exciting!! Read below:

The Irregular Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Belanger Books is teaming with The Junior Sherlockian Society to bring you the first anthology of Sherlock Holmes short stories for student readers. The anthology is titled The Irregular Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and will feature stories by student writers as well as professional authors. Net proceeds will go to the Beacon Society to help them expose more students to the original Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as well as newer stories about the great detective.

Requirements: All entries must be at least 1,000 words in length, follow Derrick Belanger's 10 Rules for Writing a Sherlock Holmes pastiche (http://juniorsherlockian.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/10-Rules-for-Writing-a-Sherlockian-Pastiche.pdf), and be rated "PG" (i.e. suitable for a school library). 

Authors retain the rights to their work.

Payment: Authors shall receive a paperback and electronic copy of the anthology for letting us use their work in The Irregular Adventures.


Due Date: All entries must be received by February 15th, 2019. 


Please send entries to mail@belangerbooks.com or to derrick@belangerbooks.com. Make sure to include your name (first and last), title of your story, story length, and attach your story as a word document. If you are a student also include your grade and name of your school.  Writers included in the anthology will be announced in March. All authors will receive a complimentary copy of the anthology and will retain full rights to their stories. If you have questions please contact us at belangerbooks@gmail.com. 

Before we get to our final entry....

I wanted to remind everyone that our current anthology of Sherlock Holmes stories, Sherlock Holmes: Adventures Beyond the Canon is wrapping up on Kickstarter. There's only four days left in the campaign! If you haven't backed the project, please do so by clicking the link here. 

This anthology, with twenty-nine brand new stories spread over three volumes, reveals the answer to "What happened next?" with sequels to some of the original Holmes investigations. There are stories ranging from Holmes’s early days in Montague Street, through the legendary Baker Street years, and well into his retirement. We meet former clients with new problems, and former adversaries too. Sometimes we find that the published Canonical version of a story was only the beginning, while other tales in this collection reveal what was really going on during the original narratives. Join us as we return to Baker Street and discover more authentic adventures of Sherlock Holmes, described by the estimable Dr. Watson as “the best and wisest . . . whom I have ever known.”


Back the project today on Kickstarter!!  You can also read a series of interviews with the contributing authors discussing their stories by clicking this link. Scroll down to the project updates to find the interviews.

And the final anthology currently accepting submissions...

A Tribute to H.G. Wells: Stories inspired by the Master of Science Fiction

This collection will be our first science fiction collection (mostly) without the great detective. A Tribute to H.G. Wells: Stories Inspired by the Master of Science Fiction  is accepting submissions for new stories inspired by H.G. Wells. Stories can have direct connections to his original work, or they can be written in a similar style to the master. 

Requirements: 

All entries must be between 5,000 - 10,000 words (it is okay to be over or under some). The stories may use public domain characters, but you must make certain you are not using anything copyrighted (some of Wells later work is still under copyright).

Payment: Authors will receive a portion of net sales (most likely between 2 - 5% depending on number of stories) from the Kickstarter campaign and from the first year of book sales. Authors retain the rights to their work. Due Date: All submissions must be received by February 15th.

Please send entries to mail@belangerbooks.com or to derrick@belangerbooks.com. Make sure to include your name (first and last), title of your story, story length, and attach your story as a word document. 

Please reach out with any questions. Thank you, and we look forward to reading your stories. The game's afoot!

Belanger Books is a small press owned by artist Brian Belanger and author Derrick Belanger specializing in new Sherlock Holmes books, Children's books, Steampunk, and genre specific anthologies.  Some of our books have been #1 bestsellers in their categories on Amazon.