That's some investigatory piece. I do wonder at Perkins' investment in it because to be an agent of erotica/erotic romance books and a publisher of the same seems like a direct contradiction.
 

Wow, that is clear as mud.

If they can't even summarize this whole mess in one sentence would anyone in their right mind get involved?

It's like a joke waiting for the punchline to be written.
 

Teddy took the words outta my mouth.

It does seem, at the very least, to be a conflict of interest on Perkins' part, but hell if I know what's really going on!
 

I have to say I was extremely sceptical about the whole thing, I noticed that she was saying she was looking for submissions for four more anthologies but I decided not to post about them - the whole thing looks ... odd.

Thanks for the "clarification"

:)
 

if you want an actual clarification, why not just contact the folks at Hollan/Ravenous yourself and ask?
 

Hollan is a book packager, which means they are a hybrid between an agent and a publisher (i.e., the develop a book product from concept to near-finished product, essentially taking over the publishing process for a major publisher, for a fee.) Once the "package" is complete, that is sold to the major publisher for distribution, and the resulting revenues are split 50/50. Most big "concept books" released nowadays are done through packagers. Good for publishers and packagers, not necessarily so good for authors because of the revenue split, but the big-time book deal advances you hear about (500K+) are almost always obtained through packagers.

Since it seems Hollan is a book packager and Ravenous is one of the "brands" it packages, it would not be at all odd or unusual for that packager to work with a certain agent to obtain authors for a specific brand that is then in turn sold to publishers, with commissions paid on the revenue split.

Book packagers are somewhat mysterious for a reason, because if they reveal too much about how they operate, they bargaining power with the major publishing houses would be lost.
 

I picked up that they are a packager. I don't think that explains why an agent directly involved in some fashion (that isn't quite clear) is passing authors (and committing them to multi-book deals) to the Ravenous ebook imprint like is it equivalent to an established major press. And in fact this aspect does, I think, question the idea Hollan will sweep through epublishing because of their massive print publishing experience. Their experience is real, but on a certain scale and in certain roles--with certain sales volumes. It looks to me like they are expecting ebooks sales directly equivalent to what the are getting in print as a Sterling imprint. Hmmm.
 

plenty of agents work with packagers. It's not unusual at all. As long as the packager/agent relationship disclosed to the client and the client agrees to work w/ a packager, it is not unethical.
 

re: Cosmo Kama Sutra, in all likelihood Hollan was the packager for that book. That's exactly the kind of book packagers produce.
 

re: Cosmo Kama Sutra, in all likelihood Hollan was the packager for that book. That's exactly the kind of book packagers produce.



Given that Hearst is its own publishing conglomerate, and given that Sterling has a Hearst imprint under which the Cosmo books were produced, I seriously doubt they used a packager.
 

"Given that Hearst is its own publishing conglomerate, and given that Sterling has a Hearst imprint under which the Cosmo books were produced, I seriously doubt they used a packager.:

The ignorance of this comment is mind-boggling.

ALL MAJOR PUBLISHING HOUSES, INCLUDING CONGLOMERATES (hell, ESPECIALLY conglomerates) use packagers. Anyone who doesn't know this is completely ignorant of big publishing and the business models that drive it.

Conglomerates are always looking for ways to boost revenues and reduce costs. Packagers do this by taking on the work that publishers' employees used to do (acquisitions, editorial, marketing) and doing it for a much lower cost. They also are the main drivers behind mega-selling series books (such as Goosebumps, Nancy Drew, etc) as well as "branded" books such as Cosmo Guides, etc. They do media tie-ins, handle licensed material (i.e., things like Hannah Montana or Lord of the Rings spinoffs, etc etc). There is HUGE money in packaged books---millions upon millions of dollars and copies sold. And the biggest publishing conglomerates are the packagers' sole customers.

This is common knowledge to anyone who has any understanding whatsoever of big publishing and how it works. Then again, the owners of this blog are epubbed authors who think that selling 500 copies of an ebook is success, so I don't expect them to know anything about how legit publishing works.
 

There is HUGE money in packaged books---millions upon millions of dollars and copies sold. And the biggest publishing conglomerates are the packagers' sole customers.

But I still don't get it. Is Ravenous the publisher or the packager? Is Hollan going to sell packaged books to Ravenous? Looking at the ebook market, how do they honestly expect to get "HUGE" money with packaged books sold to an epress?

I've done a bit of research into the print publishing model, and the ways that it can't (or shouldn't) be applied to epublishing. Even going by your comment, book packaging doesn't seem like a model that would lend itself to ebooks. It isn't a matter of being a savvy marketer. If Ravenous wants to truly be as successful as they're saying, that means expanding the customer base by 10000% virtually overnight.
 

From the Hearst Books website:

Hearst Books, through a partnership with its licensee, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., publishes a broad spectrum of leisure and lifestyle books, covering such topics as cooking, gardening, interior design and decorating, how-to, health, business and crafts. Through another partnership with Oxmoor House, O, The Oprah Magazine publishes a series of annuals, the most recent being O’s Guide to Life. The Hearst Books division also packages books for key clients.
Every year Hearst Books publishes 60 new titles. Hearst Books top-sellers include: The Cosmo Kama Sutra, The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, When Duct Tape Just Isn’t Enough from Popular Mechanics, Harper’s Bazaar’s Great Style, House Beautiful’s 750 Decorating and Design Ideas, Country Living's 750 Style & Design Ideas for Home and Garden, Town & Country's Social Graces, Redbook’s Love Your Sex Life, Esquire’s The Rules, CosmoGIRL! Quiz Book: All About You, Seventeen’s Traumarama and Chapman Piloting.



So...tell me again how ignorant we all are for thinking Hearst acts on its own behalf in publishing books with the names of its magazines on them?

Tell me again that Hollan Publishing packaged the Cosmo books?


We may very well not be as familiar with the ins and outs of packaging as you claim to be, given that most of us write erotic romance (what sales numbers define success for an ebook to each of us is frankly none of your business. I don't consider 500 copies a success; it's not bad, but it's not success. Do you know anything about ebooks?) But what's really astonishing here is your rudeness and arrogance. I know what packagers are. I know what they do. (I was also aware of the existence of Hearst Books.) What I don't know is what they have to do with erotic fiction epublishing.

Oh, and btw, epublishing may be small business. But for you to imply it's not a legitimate business implies an astonishing ignorance on your part (why exactly are the Hollan folks so eager to get into it, if it's not legitimate, btw?) Do you want to tell the staffers at Ellora's Cave that the $11 million they bring in per year isn't legitimate?


And I'm very curious as to whether Hollan is running Ravenous as an imprint or if they're packaging the ebooks or what. Why don't you tell us? We're here, and shockingly ignorant according to you. Why not tell us what you know?
 

I assume that Hollan acts both as a packager for larger presses and a publishers in its own right, and Ravenous romance with be a simple imprint of Hollan/Ravenous in the latter capacity.
 

Then again, the owners of this blog are epubbed authors who think that selling 500 copies of an ebook is success, so I don't expect them to know anything about how legit publishing works.

Hmmm, I believe you have just outed yourself with your attitude, anon. I think I know who you are know, heh.

Statements like this won't help the publisher. It will only ensure no shortage of people who will pettily anticipate and celebrate the demise of the publisher. Why not put on a more graceful and diplomatic front when you want to correct someone?
 

If any interested party vists the main ERECsite they can see that the relatively low sales volumes of epresses are very much the reason behind this blog. The solution being to encourage authors to be skeptical about the promises made by any and all epublishers, especially start-ups.

I am not quite sure how claims that bloggers and commenters are selling poorly and are ignorant are meant to shame one out of enquiring further. Quite the reverse.

When I make errors of fact or logic I hope to be corrected. My only motivation so far is to imply that Ravenouse Romance may not be well positioned to be that break through 10k+ selling epublisher we are all hoping for.
 

Nobody here is saying Ravenous isn't legitimate or that they won't be successful. Nobody's saying that at all. We're just looking into them, same as we do with every other new epublisher that opens up. Why is that such an offensive problem for some people?
 

Hearst is am imprint that produces almost ENTIRELY packaged books. (you can tell this by the fact all it's books are branded titles, such as "Good Housekeeping's", "Cosmo's", etc. It's basically an imprint with no staff, since all the work is farmed out to packagers---a common practice in publishing nowadays. It's producing licensed products in cooperation with a separate magazine publisher (a totally different animal than book publishing that has no reason to get into book publishing, hence the packager middleman). Get it?

Ravenous will produce ebooks on its own, and would partner with another print publisher for print versions of its titles, using the same business model as book packaging. Since book packagers take on just about everything outside of printing and distributing the book anyway (i.e., marketing, publicity, editorial, acquisitions), this is nothing unusual or strange. They already have the staff and knowhow in place to do this.
 

"Hmmm, I believe you have just outed yourself with your attitude, anon. I think I know who you are know, heh."

---What does this mean? Am I missing something?
 

Hear hear, Stacia. I loathe anonymous posters, If people are going to be annoying, I'd rather they did it openly!
 

Hearst is am imprint that produces almost ENTIRELY packaged books. (you can tell this by the fact all it's books are branded titles, such as "Good Housekeeping's", "Cosmo's", etc. It's basically an imprint with no staff, since all the work is farmed out to packagers---a common practice in publishing nowadays. It's producing licensed products in cooperation with a separate magazine publisher (a totally different animal than book publishing that has no reason to get into book publishing, hence the packager middleman). Get it?


But Hearst IS the publisher of those magazines; they're not working with a magazine publisher, they ARE the magazine publisher. Hearst publishes Cosmo and Good Housekeeping, along with dozens of others. Their website says they work as a packager for their own books and for other companies.

I don't know much about packaging aside from the basics of what they do, and I'm not trying to enter that debate. But I know who Hearst is and that they publish those magazines; I thought everyone knew that. And I thought the website quote someone posted (which I checked on their website) meant they package their own books as well as working as packagers for other books.

So what I don't understand is, why would a magazine publisher, who is also a packager with their own imprint, hire an outside book packager to do the work of packaging their own titles instead of doing it themselves through their own packaging division? Why split the pie like that when they don't have to?

It is of course possible I misunderstood the website quote.
 

Okay. Since I already had the Hearst website up, I hunted a little more and found this (I did a search on the site for "Sterling" and this was the second thing that popped up, all the way at the bottom; the link itself was in a popup window so I didn't get the link address):



HEARST MAGAZINES AND STERLING PUBLISHING CO, INC. JOIN IN LONG-TERM BOOK LICENSING PARTNERSHIP


Agreement Includes New and Existing Hearst Magazines’ Book Titles
NEW YORK, January 14, 2002 – Hearst Magazines and Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. today announced a long-term trademark licensing agreement granting Sterling the rights to become the publisher of Hearst Books. Under the terms of the partnership, Sterling will work with Hearst Magazines to create and publish books with Hearst Magazines’ trademarks and will assume the worldwide publishing rights to existing Hearst Books titles.
“In 2001, Hearst Books released 33 titles and experienced a record revenue year,” said Cathleen Black, president of Hearst Magazines. “Sterling’s trade and special sales expertise make them the perfect partner to extensively grow the Hearst Books program.” Recent successes for the Hearst Books imprint include The All New Good Housekeeping Cookbook, Country Living’s Country Chic, and Redbook’s Married Lust.

...(I edited out a quote about how happy they were to work together for brevity, it didn't have any info but went here)

The agreement includes the following Hearst titles: Country Living, Country Living Gardener, Cosmopolitan, CosmoGIRL!, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, House Beautiful, Popular Mechanics, Redbook, Town & Country, Victoria, and Chapman.

Hearst Books, the magazine-branded book publisher, became part of the Hearst Magazines Division in March 2000. Jacqueline Deval, who continues as vice president for Hearst, will work with Sterling on all Hearst titles in addition to directing custom book projects.

Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. (www.sterlingpub.com) was founded in 1949 and is one of the world’s leading publishers of nonfiction illustrated titles with over 4,500 titles currently in print. Among its best-selling books are Windows on the World Complete Wine Course, The Illustrated Dream Dictionary, The New Router Handbook and Biggest Riddle Book in the World as well as numerous other classics and standards in the categories of crafts, gardening, home design, woodworking, puzzles and games, children’s, and more.

Hearst Magazines is a unit of The Hearst Corporation (www.hearstcorp.com) and one of the world’s largest publishers of monthly magazines, with a total of 16 U.S. titles and 107 international editions. Hearst's magazines are also read by more U.S. adult women than any other monthly magazine publisher. The company also publishes 18 magazines in the United Kingdom through its wholly owned subsidiary, The National Magazine Company Limited.

I don't know if that clarifies or further muddies the water. :-) But I found it and thought maybe one of the packager experts would know more about it.

It's all very interesting. At least to me.
 

"who is also a packager with their own imprint, hire an outside book packager to do the work of packaging their own titles instead of doing it themselves through their own packaging division? "

Because they don't HAVE a book packaging division. They contract this out. Publishers don't have "packaging" departments.
 

"But Hearst IS the publisher of those magazines; they're not working with a magazine publisher, they ARE the magazine publisher."
---The fact that Hearst publishes its own magazines has never been in dispute.

But magazine publishing is _vastly_ different from book publishing, and magazine publishers aren't equipped to publish and distribute books, and vice versa. Which is why Hearst and Sterling work with separate packagers to develop books. They are not obligated to reveal who those separate packaging entities are to the public, either. Since the packagers are working under contract to the publisher, their work is ultimately _owned_ by the publisher outright and can be described as such.

The world of book packaging is very, very secretive---for a reason. I think this discussion illustrates that. You have to throw your understanding of the traditional editor-author-publisher relationship out the window entirely when you're talking about packagers.

Sincerely,
---Someone In The Know
 

one more thing to consider re: packagers:

most of the time, they are developing licensed "brand"-driven books that are not at all author-driven. (there may in fact be multiple authors all writing under the same pseudonym, for example). But packagers do sometimes work with individual authors, and often get those authors HUGE deals with publishers. The only drawback is, the packager then receives 50% of that author's earnings. Which may or may not be a bad deal, since often packagers get the kind of money that is reported on in the New York Times (multi-million-dollar deals for first-time novelists, etc) that an unknown author would otherwise have been able to obtain, even with an agent. Still, the packager is essentially a co-owner of the property, getting 50% of the royalties that could have gone to the author.

I don't think that's the deal w/ Ravenous, though, unless they are splitting print revenues 50/50 with authors (which is actually quite similar to a hardcover publisher selling paperback rights).

There are some high-profile cases where authors working with packagers have backfired wildly, though----such as Kaavya Viswanathan's book _How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life_, which was packaged by Alloy Entertainment. That book was sold for a $500K advance and even had film rights sold to DreamWorks for an obscene amount before the book was published----all because of the packager. But the packager (and the publisher who bought the book) failed to notice the book was mostly plagiarized. So even though packagers can skirt a lot of the traditional red tape faced by new authors and even literary agents in exchange for huge money, there are risks and pitfalls involved.

That all being said, I think the packager element shows that Ravenous does indeed have some clout and knowhow that previous erotica epublishers don't.
 

Okay. So even though Hearst Books calls itself a packager, it isn't? And the licensing agreement with Sterling has nothing to do with the books produced?

Okay. (And I don't mean that in an "ohkaaay" kind of way. I mean just "okay.")

But I still don't think having experience in nonfiction hardcover publishing or book packaging really means much when it comes to erotic ebooks, because they're such completely different markets. I think it would be great if Ravenous does well, but I'm not taking it as a foregone conclusion. They're not Susie Fangirl Publishing, no. I'd feel safer submitting to them as a startup than I would to the vast majority of startups. But I'd still rather submit to an already established and successful ehouse. JMO.
 

Could you elaborate on that? Because other than how entangled Hollan and the Perkins agency are, the key is is whether Ravenous staff do in fact have enough clout that any agent would eagerly sign their authors to them for 5 and 6 book deals before they even open.

I estimated that a agent-worthy ebook would be one that would sell 10,000 copies and upwards withi the first two years--and I'm still not seeing it. As yet no one seems to have an issue with my estimnate of the target sales--only my scepticism that they will hit that with their debut titles, which would be rather unprecedented. Even extraordinary and genre re-defining. Rather exciting if it happened. But I must say thats the hostile response to curiousity (ad hom attacks etc) is more reminiscent of less happy episodes in erotic romance epublishing's recent past.

If Hollan did secretly package the Cosmo Karma Sutra (we still don;t know either way) I assume the author erred in disclosing this and is not perhaps getting fully breifed about how this deal will work. In either caset I suspect, given the sales of other books they packaged, CKS sales would by no means typical for the press but more of a special case.
 

Actually Cosmo Kama Sutra was cited in a PublishersWeekly article as being packaged by Hollan. (I believe that it was discussed in a gossipy article that talked of how the two editors who founded Hollan are being publicly sniped by their former employers for "stealing" ideas---which their former employer wasn't interested in until after the fact, when those ideas ended up being bestsellers). So I don't think it's exactly a secret.
 

I'm wondering how many authors are about to get burned in this deal. Based on what I've seen and heard so far, it's not looking good.

A Concerned Fellow Author
 

Perkins has said on her blog that she is editing for Ravenous. She is soliciting stories on their behalf. What isn't clear is how she is being paid for her efforts. Is she taking a cut of from the authors she is passing on to Ravenous? Does she have a stake in the publishing entity itself? What she should be doing is disclosing exactly what her relationship is and how she makes her money in the deal. That way at least the author can go in with informed consent. If there's nothing unethical going on, then she has nothing to worry about by simply telling the truth.
 

According to Sterling's own website (and the copyright dates confirm it), Hollan had nothing to do with the Cosmo Kama Sutra book--the Sterling/Hollan deal was signed two years after the Cosmo Kama Sutra was published.

The article says the first of the Hollan books will be produced in Fall 2007. CKS came out in Dec 2004.


Hollan's website says the company was formed in Fall 2006. Again, almost two full years after CKS was published.

Hopefully this gets that issue out of the way? So we can find out about the other stuff? :-)
 

BTW, I was unable to find any article in PW that made that claim. The only article I found at all about Hollan on PW was this one, which is just an announcement of the deal. There were more mentions of Hollan but all relating to releases for the week or month.

Perhaps my search didn't work as well as yours, anon, but a search on the PW site turned up nine results, none of which back up your claim. Do you have a link to share? As much fun as I'm having with this (essentially unimportant) side mystery, I'd love to have a more definite answer. Perhaps Hollan truly was packaging books several years before it actually formed?

Perhaps under a different name, or it was the people who formed Hollan when they worked at their previous companies?
 

This post has been removed by the author.
 

This post has been removed by the author.
 

This post has been removed by the author.
 

*Since it seems Hollan is a book packager and Ravenous is one of the "brands" it packages, it would not be at all odd or unusual for that packager to work with a certain agent to obtain authors for a specific brand that is then in turn sold to publishers, with commissions paid on the revenue split.*

I'm sorry, but I don't think it seems that way at all. Ravenous is promoting itself as an ebook publisher, not as a packager selling to another publisher. And I'm hard-pressed to figure out how the whole Hollan-as-a-book-packager things ties in with Ravenous as an epublisher. As someone else mentioned, they are 2 totally different animals. Different customer-base, different contracts, different business models, different relationships with their authors, etc.

*Book packagers are somewhat mysterious for a reason, because if they reveal too much about how they operate, they bargaining power with the major publishing houses would be lost.*

"We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you"? A simple Google search will tell you how a book packager operates. And if you want to know if a book was developed through a packager, simply look at the copyright page. The book packager will be listed there. If anyone has a copy of CKS, they can check to see who the book packager was (if there was one) themselves.

I agree that this is all very fascinating, but unless someone can point out a tie-in between book packaging and publishing erotic romance ebooks, I think it's irrelevant. If Hollan/Ravenous wants us to believe their success will lie in their connections to the world of print, I'd like to point out, it's been done. Loose Id, Samhain and Ellora's Cave all have connections with both large romance print publishers and mega-erotic romance authors who have huge, established print-customer fan bases. To my way of thinking, that's a step above a publisher/packager whose connections are with publishers and/or authors who deal in erotica and non-fiction.

I understand publishing is a competitive business, and a start-up company can't give away all their secrets. However, so far, all we've received from Hollan/Ravenous "representatives" (even if some of them appear to be non-official representatives) are mixed signals and mucho print-publisher snobbery. Makes it perfectly understandable that some of us in the epublishing world are a bit skeptical.
 

My agency represents Ravenous Romance™ for public relations and communications. Based on this thread and others, I felt it was important to clear up some of the confusion here, and I have compiled the following:

10 Facts About Ravenous Romance™

1. Hollan Publishing and Ravenous Romance™ are two different companies majority-owned by the same people.
2. Hollan’s non-fiction print packaging business and Ravenous Romance™ are run as two completely separate businesses.
3. Lori Perkins is a paid editor and minor shareholder in Ravenous Romance™. She does not take a commission on any book sold to Ravenous Romance™.
4. Ravenous Romance™ pays an advance on all books contracted and their royalty rates are competitive.
5. Ravenous Romance™ does accept non-agented submissions. You can email us at submissions@ravenousromance.com for submission guidelines.
6. E-books and downloadable audiobooks are tremendous growth areas in publishing, while the bricks-and-mortar print industry is shrinking. This is why the founders of Ravenous Romance™ have launched this business.
7. You do not need to buy an e-reader to read Ravenous Romance’s™ books – if you’re reading this, you already own the technology to read these books. They can also be downloaded to your iPod Touch, iPhone, or smartphone (Blackberry, Treo, etc.).
8. To illustrate the strength of the market: FictionWise.com, the largest online retailer of e-books of all genres, reports that 51% of their sales are erotica or romance titles.
9. Ravenous Romance™ is committed to connecting exceptional writers with passionate readers.
10. Ravenous Romance™ has been developed by seasoned professionals who are sensitive to the issues faced by their readers and writers. A sophisticated website and comprehensive marketing plan will be revealed in the coming months.

Thank you for your interest in Ravenous Romance™. Your feedback is very valuable to me and my clients at Ravenous Romance™. Lori Perkins has conducted her business over the past 20 years with the highest level of integrity, and will continue to do so. She is dedicated to and passionate about the erotica and romance genre, and is held in the highest regard within the publishing community.

Ravenous Romance™ will be beta testing in November, and we’d like to invite dedicated readers to help us test. Please email us at michelle@ravenousromance.com to sign up.

For more information or with specific questions, please email me at dalyn@dalynmiller.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you.

Dalyn A. Miller
Dalyn Miller Public Relations
www.dalynmillerpr.com
 

You don't need a ebook reader to read an ebook you say? Wow? can I read them on my digital wrist chronometer? And the ebook market is expanding? Who knew.

You did look around and realise this is a blog for ebook authors, right? Because just cutting and pasting a generic response would be a pretty basic PR oopsie.

Sorry if I am being a bitch but it seems like there is an endless line of people willing to assume we are plenty ignorant about this whole ebook thing and not terrible smart in general. On the whole I'd prefer to engage in a meaningful discussion about why Ravenous will be so much better than anything that has gone before.
 

Also the whole erotic romance being popular thing. I hadn't noticed that either.
 

Veinglory--

You are indeed being a bitch. And you probably aren't helping your career with your public attitude. Just saying, as one ebook author to another.

I wish you the best.
 

Fair enough. But ultimately I think position is a reasonable one and I have no actual hostility to anyone. I am mainly motifiated by curiousity.
 

The main downside to my blogging is you get to see what a job my editors have. [le sigh]
 

Hi Emily
"Ignorant" is a harsh and demeaning word which never entered my mind nor did it enter the minds of Holly, Allan or Lori...this I know. However, you will have no doubt discovered the wide range of misconceptions expressed by many about both Ravenous Romance™ and the still young, but quickly growing, e-publishing industry. Misconceptions which have popped up not only on your site but many others visited by erotic/romance readers and writers. This is understandable given the fast-paced and ever evolving nature of the industry. Our 10 facts are meant to address the most prominent of those misconceptions and provide information to those who matter most - our readers and writers.

I would like to once again extend my invitation to all to direct inquiries and comments to me directly at: dalyn@dalynmillerpr.com. It is not in anybody’s best interest for misinformation to proliferate. Holly and Allan and everybody at Ravenous Romance™ understand communication on all sides will be a unifying factor. If you have questions...just ask...we'll answer!
 

I don't think you're being a bitch at all, Emily, and I've certainly never heard anyone say a bad word against you (including editors), so...


I will say I haven't noticed a "wide range of misconceptions" about Ravenous Romance though. What I have seen are some basic questions, of the type asked whenever a new ebook publisher starts up, by people who have been in the ebook industry for several years. But I also appreciate the info.
 

Question. :) Has anyone had luck in obtaining submissions guidelines at the address give above by Dalyn?
 

It's on their main page.

I submitted a short story via email to Lori and it was accepted for an anthology. Since then, I've been receiving call-outs for various projects they're working on. I pitched an idea and they asked for pages. I sent them a partial and they bought the book on spec.

By the way, they pay advances. I was pleasantly surprised at that.

So, anyhoo, we'll see how this plays out in December.