Coming undone

What a rapid about-turn. The proposed publisher of the BADASS anthology hated Stephen Player's sketches. Or rather he saw them as unsuitable. His feeling is that we need an "action shot" on the cover. I told Stephen the news and he bowed out with the good grace I expected. He's a professional, and it's not like he was doing this for the money. The link in yesterday's entry, to the rough sketches he did for us, no longer work. I'm so disappointed not to be having a 'Player cover' when one seemed in the bag, I was tempted to pull out of the antho last night. But that would have been chucking my toys out of the pram and unfair to the writers counting on us to deliver their stories. Instead I waited 'til I'd calmed down and told the publisher that in my opinion we just made a huge mistake. Whereas we could have had a striking cover that looks a million bucks, we may well end up with something amateur-ish, like many small-press anthos have. I don't think Dybbuk Press really undertsand the direction of the antho. He's citing Hubert Selby Junior and 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' as possible influences for BADASS, and Chris and I are looking at more dark and pulpy, Frank Miller's 'Sin City', gangsters and crime, a supernatural or fantasy element a big bonus.

Also, partly due to the publisher, both Chris and I had the irksome tasks this morning of notifying writers that we were having to drop their stories. One of them was dropped because the antho has changed direction since her story was accepted at the beginning of 2005 - that's probably my fault - and the other writer's story has been dropped because the publisher had issues with it. Both took it with good grace. Which is more than I might have done if I'd been in their shoes. So we've gone from 8 stories last week to 5 this week.