Some questions and…

Some questions and answers regarding the TOR book thing:

I would say firstly, that if you think your work is a good match for Anna Genoese's paranormal romance guidelines, definitely go ahead and submit directly to her. She's an established TOR editor -- I'm only an aspiring one! Your chances of getting the book published are stronger if she likes it, since she has far more influence at TOR than I do. I want to be very clear about this. Similarly if you think other editors at TOR might like your book.

Q: Are you looking for something different from what Anna has in mind?

A: I think I'm looking for something more specific, see below.

Q: If so, how would you characterize the difference between what you're seeking and what Anna is seeking?

A: Anna's guidelines seem quite broad to me; I'm really only interested at the moment in working with fantasy (not sf), preferably high or epic fantasy (not urban or otherwise modern), and with a more erotic flavor than a romantic focus. That may change later, if I become a regular editor for TOR, but for the moment, this is what I'm particularly interested in, and what Tom's interested in having me look for (based in part on my extensive experience in erotica publishing).

Q: By pointing to Kushiel's Dart et al, and in your explanation of what you're seeking, you've emphasized epic fantasy. Are you not looking for paranormal generally or science fiction?

A: Correct.

Q: Woman-centered: by this do you mean no male POV characters? no shared heroism?

A: This isn't a hard and fast rule, but I'd be most interested in seeing a strong female protagonist, rather than a male protagonist. Beyond that, I'm flexible. And someone else asked me whether this was exclusively heterosexual -- I'm not sure what Tom's looking for, but the Kushiel protagonist is bisexual, and I suspect that might be most marketable, as well as being of more interest to me personally. I don't know how interested he would be in a novel with a lesbian protagonist, but I'd be willing to look at it myself.

Q: Fair bit of sex, but not in a lot of detail: by this, I'm guessing, you mean not erotica and not particularly explicit. Is it a restriction on language use? And length of sex scenes? For example, would a ten-twelve page sex scene that brought out major plot and character points and was fairly explicit violate your guidelines or your sense of what Tom Doherty is looking for?

A: I would say not to worry about this level -- if the book seems a good match, we can try to work out appropriate levels of explicitness in the editing process. What I mostly meant was that the book should be primarily a fantasy novel, with strong erotic flavor -- that's pretty different from an erotica novel with a fantasy setting, in terms of focus and scene-structure and detail.

Q: Lush, sensual: does this go to tone or to location?

A: What I meant by lush had more to do with language/tone than setting.

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