Mischief Books builds on the success of Fifty Shades of Grey, seeks erotic novels and short stories

Mischief Books

HarperCollins Publishers

Westerhill Road

Bishopsbriggs

Glasgow, Scotland, UK

http://www.mischiefbooks.com/

There are certain books most people don’t want to be seen buying or reading. But with the  introduction of e-books, sales of erotica have swollen, especially erotica for women. Now with the huge success of EL James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, the demand for women’s erotica is positively throbbing. 

HarperCollins UK entered the woman’s erotica market in a big way this March with the launch of its new imprint: Mischief.

Mischief publishes an extensive list of original erotica and erotic romance in themed short story anthologies, petite novels of 40,000-plus words, and novels and single author sotry collections of 80,000-plus words.

What Mischief is up for:

We are looking for fiction that really is a cut above tired, formulaic, hurriedly written and mass produced erotica in a saturated genre. We are looking for inspired and imaginative explorations of explicit sexual fantasies, considered writing, well-developed characters, and interesting stories. Your stories should hit the ground running and sex and sexual tension must be the driving force of your narrative.

Stories need to be written in a modern idiom and the reader must find it easy to suspend her disbelief. The ideal narrative is one where the reader can vicariously enjoy all manner of thrilling erotic experiences, but they must be experiences which are credible.

Submissions:

In the first instance, for single author titles (novel, novella or single author collections), you should send the following:

i) A short paragraph explaining what the submission is about, within your email (for short stories please state the title of the collection you are submitting to). 

ii) For novels, novellas and single author collections of short stories, an outline of the work. We want you to convince us that erotic action and tension is the driving force of the narrative. We prefer novels and novellas to actually begin with an erotic scene as a statement of intent. Include the first chapter/story and two other chapters/stories of the finished text of single author titles which show your writing at its best.

Send your submission to the editorial email address: Adam.Nevill@harpercollins.co.uk

At Mischief we do pay advances for novels and novellas, as well as a very competitive royalty rate.

Erotic short story collections for 2012:

From February 2012 we will be publishing 24 collections of original erotic short stories in 2012.

Submission guidelines: your story should not already be published anywhere in the world, unless, in some special cases you have all rights reverted to you. Ideally, it will have been written for the Mischief series and will adhere to our guidelines. 

The story should aspire to be about more than 'some people having sex' and we can only accept stories written for the themes (which offer a wide brief). The emphasis is on intensity, imagination, tension, pleasure, the thrills of shame, and explicit action and what’s-at-stake for the main character. We want to position these collections as suitable for the general reader as well as erotica readers.

We pay a flat fee of £75 providing your story is 4,000 words. Payment is made on publication.

August 1st 2012 deadline for submissions (December 2012 Publication)

Have Lust, Will Travel:  Mischief on the Move.

Bound and Bonded: Bondage Erotica.

September 4th 2012 deadline for submissions (January 2013 Publication)

Cruising: Adventures After Dark in Public Places

Women Only:  When Girls Get Together

October 2nd 2012 deadline for submissions (February 2013 Publication)

Do Not Disturb : Lust in Hotels

Out of This World: Paranormal Erotica

November 1st 2012 deadline for submissions (March 2013 Publication)

 Dressed to Impress: Outfits for Special Occasions and Steamy Liaisons.

 Lords, Ladies, Butlers and Maids: Period Erotica in Private Houses.

Email completed stories of 4K words, as Word attachments, to Adam.Nevill@harpercollins.co.uk 

Put the title of the collection in the subject line of your email.

Many thanks in advance for considering us,
Adam Nevill & the Mischief team.

Full guidelines here.

Brian Henry will lead "How to Get Published" workshops on Saturday, June 9, in Brampton with Monica Pacheco of The Anne McDermid literary agency (see here), and on Saturday, June 16, in Hamilton with Carly Watters of P.S. Literary Agency (see here).

See Brian's full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Georgetown, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener, Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Gravenhurst, Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.