Tales from the Orc Den

Let's Talk Monster Romance Anthologies

• Monster Romance Reviews • Season 3 • Episode 1

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Amy, Stacy, and EJ are here to guide you monster lovers to one of the cheapest, easiest, and most fun ways to expand your list of favorite authors. If you haven't gotten into Anthologies, you must hear us talk about them. 

This episode ends on a cliffhanger! This is just episode 1 of 4 because we will talk about our favorite former anthology stories that have become standalone books.

That's right. What starts as a story sketch in one anthology can become your next shelf trophy.

Music is called "Undead Bride" by Pagefire https://soundcloud.com/nerdymetalhead202/undead-bride

EJ:

Welcome back everyone to Tales from the Orc Den. We're going a little bit different. For the next couple of episodes. There's just been so many interesting things the three of us have been talking about on Discord, and we're finally bringing our listeners in on the interesting goodness. Yes. Today we're going to start talking about anthologies, and I'm going to lead a discussion just to lay the groundwork. What the hell are anthologies? Why you, as definitely a monster fucker out there, should be reading anthologies. And yeah, and we're also going to be talking about some of our favorite stories from those anthologies that you can get now because they're standalone books.

Stacy:

And most of the time they've been extended,

EJ:

which is even better. Yaaas. So I'm going to start with a really basic question. I'm going to ask it to both you you, Amy, and Stacy. So what are the primary benefits for indie authors to contribute to anthologies? And like why should an indie author join an anthology?

Amy:

Can I actually define what an anthology is versus say a story of collection, a collection of stories?

EJ:

Ooh, that's a good question. That's great. Another reason why I would love to stream this one day.

Stacy:

No.

EJ:

avatars.

Stacy:

With avatars. Okay. Yes. I'll make sure to wear my sluttiest lingerie when we do. Avatars

Amy:

is fine. But anyways. So the difference between an anthology and a collection, a story collection is basically an anthology is a collection of short stories that have been written by multiple different authors, whereas a story collection is usually all written by one author. Sometimes the term anthology is used interchangeably between the two, but really anthologies are for multiple authors versus story collection. This is, this has to do with library stuff because story collections tend to be shelved within the fiction section, whereas anthologies are in nonfiction because you have

EJ:

multiple authors

Stacy:

there. Really? Even if it's a fictional anthology? Correct.

EJ:

Fascinating. That's weird. I like to think that one day we're going to get more indie authors, including spicy indie authors, in more libraries. So this is relevant, hopefully, for the future. Indeed.

Amy:

Anyways, going on to the primary benefits for author, for especially indie authors who contribute to anthologies I think, For up and coming authors, it's a great way to get paired with better known authors to where people who are familiar with those better known authors will, of course, buy the anthologies for them. But then also, oh, I'll try some of these authors here, too, and see how I like their writing style. I might find an author that I like,

Stacy:

which is actually what happened. Sure. I bought the book. I may as well sample the

EJ:

offerings.

Amy:

It is pretty much in what would you call it, not a pooh.

EJ:

I

Stacy:

it's like An appetizer? A sampler? Yeah, it is an appetizer. It is,

Amy:

yeah. What, it is, it's a collection of appetizers for you to sample to

EJ:

see what you like. It one of those chocolate boxes with the variety of little truffles and such, of I know that I love. The coconut, but I've never tried cherry nougat, I'm like, I'm throwing out some like random stuff. Yeah, probably terrible

Stacy:

examples, but you know what I think. I like the coconut, but you're asking Keith to cherry

EJ:

nougat, gross. No, I absolutely agree. I think if an author, if you as an author can get in there, get into a good anthology fit. You don't just network with other readers of your niche. You also get to engage with their readers. Probably they're engaged readers too, because I feel like still in some ways anthologies, they're not something that new people new to the Indie scene quite see, especially because most anthologies are going to be limited run. That's a big reason why a lot of authors will publish these standalones. Later. And so you only come across them when they are actively out for a couple of months, and they go away. And I think that's, I think once you get that good fit, you get their engaged readers Who know what they're about, they know that they like this genre, they know that they like these authors, they probably now like you too, and now you have these engaged readers as well. Hi, I'm an engaged reader. This is one of the reasons why I know I get to build up my favorite author list every single time I read an anthology. Same. Hell yeah.

Amy:

I live for that. I live for finding new authors and also picking out the stories that I love most from anthologies.

EJ:

Absolutely. I think another frankly nice thing is you get paid to do this too. This is in some ways, if you can get an anthology on I feel like financially it's a lot more sustainable than doing like a free book giveaway or BookBub as awesome as those tools are to promote yourself, at least in this situation. The industry standard in indies, it seems, thankfully, is that you get paid. Everyone gets paid for the stories that they get published, and you get to retain those rights. So later on, especially if you noticed, hey, people who read this anthology, they seem to really like my story. You should use that as an opportunity then to publish that baby later on as a standalone. And

Stacy:

the other thing that's cool is that a lot of times the anthologies are for a specific cause oh, that's, like I know the pets in space, anthology does stuff for rescues and shelters. I know they did one fairly. Recently, they've done one for a couple of them for Ukraine when that whole thing started. And then I don't remember what the, I know the month yeah. One for Maui. I know that the monsters of love is for something, but I can't remember

EJ:

what it is. Monsters and loved one. That's for Maui. I believe. I want to

Stacy:

say that. Are they just doing because the first, cause we're on what, number four for the monsters? You're right. They've

EJ:

been doing them. They keep on stacking them up. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Stacy:

I'm not gonna say no. I know one through three were for other things. Yeah. I think four for Maui, Stacey. I think you're right. I think you're right, yeah, because that's the merman, or creatures from the ocean one. S. J. Sanders has a really good story on that. But the other thing. That's cool about it, too, is, they've done stuff for Gay Pride, because Indie is where you can find stuff like LGBTQ romance, you can find polyamory, you can find non binary. In fact, the book I'm gonna talk about later has a, it's a human female with a non binary alien. And the other thing that I like about it is that it's not segregated. It would be If this was back in the days of having to go to Waldenbooks or Barnes and Noble to get your book fix, A, you wouldn't be able to find LGBTQ plus romance. It just wouldn't be there. But everything would be like so segregated that it would have its own little section and you'd think, okay I'm not LGBTQ. So there's no reason for me to even look in this section. And you could be missing out on like your next favorite author. Whereas with the Indie anthologies, it's yeah, you could have a gay couple in this one. You could have a straight couple in this one. You could have, it basically, it's like a true sampler, basically, where you get to try everything and see what's to your taste versus you get to try the sampler of things that we think will be to your tastes versus you actually trying a broad cross section, if that makes

EJ:

sense. I think you're really touching on why it's a good idea for you all as readers. To actively search out and buy anthologies, you're for real. Yeah, a good anthology is going to have that mix of authors that you probably already know of your S. J. Sanders, your C. M. Neskosta's. Yeah. Honey Philip Bunch of, yeah. Leo,

Stacy:

I think Ru Ruby Dixon's done a couple of them because I know that she just recently released the story that she wrote for one of the, oh, the the queer love,

EJ:

Anthologies.

Stacy:

So one, the, she's shy,

EJ:

I think it's called. Yeah. When she's shy and. You, then you're going to find some really cool stuff. I know there are some queer romances that I would have thought I mostly identify as straight. It's probably not my space. But if a queer romance already happens to be an anthology that I'm already reading, yeah, let's try it out. What have we got to lose? I'll do a twirl. Yeah. And besides, it's all They tend to be on the shorter side. So you got a short story, you get a taste, you don't have to eat a whole meal. And if you don't

like

Stacy:

it, it'll be over soon. It's fine. Yeah.

EJ:

And if y'all do like it, then you can get the whole meal. and the price point's kind of freaking awesome.'cause those anthologies tend to cost as much as a one book, but you get so much more out of it.

Stacy:

Or a lot of times too. Another reason to keep your eyes open though, is a lot of them will do, if you pre-order, you'll get it for 99 cents. Oh yeah. Or 2 99. But then if you don't, it goes back up to 5 99 or something like that if you get it on, I think 7

Amy:

99 is the biggest I've seen for an anthology. But then again, They're huge

Stacy:

books. Yeah, they're giant. You're getting a thousand plus pages,

EJ:

Yeah, you're getting like a proper volume of stories. Yes, for

Stacy:

real. And one thing that I've noticed that people are doing now, which I really appreciate, which They didn't do back when Monsters in Love 1 was released, and I'm glad that it seems to be catching on now, is that at the beginning of each story, they'll give you the basic, this is male female, this is male female, with sword crossing, this is polyamory, this is this is that, and I like that because for me I don't reverse harem, and it's nothing against reverse harem, it's just not my flavor. And so it's nice if I'm, looking at something and it says, Oh this is going to be a reverse harem with multiple partners. Then I'm like, okay, it's not for me. So I might come back and read it later if I'm feeling in the mood, or I can just give it a miss because I really fucking hate it when I get invested in a story. And then it goes in a direction that I didn't like. And that. I wasn't warned. So I feel like somebody tried to pull the rug out

EJ:

from underneath me. Yep. No, that makes sense. I agree.

Amy:

I do think that content warnings and trigger warnings.

Stacy:

Yes. And that too is also catching on, which I also appreciate.

Amy:

They're being used a lot more nowadays, which I find is a benefit. Because you're, the readers are being made aware right from the get go what they're in for, so they can either skip it or, return, if it is a novel or whatever, they can return it and eh, this really isn't perfect.

Stacy:

But the other thing,

Amy:

with regards to the shortness of it, that's also a benefit to the author because they don't have to invest as much time as they would in composing an entire novel. A short story, they do vary in size in these like I said though, the volumes vary in size, they are huge. And you've got ten authors. In a 900 page e book, it's roughly, each of them gets roughly 90 to 100 pages, sometimes some

Stacy:

will write fewer, sometimes some will write more. Yeah, because I know that I've read some where it's holy shit, that was like 120 pages, one thing I will say to piggyback on the trigger warning thing, a thing that I've seen more and more artists lean into, and I wish they wouldn't, is when they'll say, for a complete list of trigger warnings, check my webpage. And if they

don't,

Amy:

I'm not gonna do that. I don't

Stacy:

like

Amy:

that. Please don't make

Stacy:

people do the extra steps. Because the simple truth of the matter is, I'm not going to.

EJ:

It's just a couple of bytes, y'all. It's a couple

Stacy:

to. That's the long and the short of it, is I'm not going to go, you want me to read your book, so I'm not going to go out of my way to do additional homework. To read your book, which I may or may not enjoy.

EJ:

Yeah, the ones who especially truly need trigger warnings. I happen to not need trigger warnings as much as other folks. I usually don't either, honestly. So it's really no big deal for me to just but I like having them there for other readers because I'm not the only one reading these books. There are some people who desperately need those trigger warnings. And I'm over here happy to be like, yeah, accommodate the shit out of them. It's not that big of a

Stacy:

deal. Yeah, exactly. And that's just it. It's if this is like somebody who like, okay, I'm just going to do a super duper broad. Example let's say I'm a person who's gotten out of an abusive relationship, right? And I need, and maybe reading romance is like my comfort read. And I find something that seems interesting. And the author hasn't explained their trigger warnings exceptionally well. And then I go in, and it turns out the book is very similar to the situation that I just got myself out of. That's a dick move. When all it takes is for you to go, Hey, heads up, this is a dark romance. Or, hey, heads up, there's, there's talk of, maybe they're the, one of the main characters is sexually assaulted, maybe there's talk of a miscarriage there's a lot of shit, or even pet death if you're gonna kill an animal in a book, fuckin warn me. Yes,

Amy:

please warn, so that way I'm

EJ:

prepared.

Stacy:

It's the same, right? I don't, and so it's just, it's that kind of shit. And I really like, too a lot of authors are really great about it where they'll be like, mention of past sexual abuse does not happen to the character on page. And so it's nice because for people who do have these more extreme triggers, essentially, it's nice for them to know they can weight it and decide, is this worth me weighting in or is maybe it just for the best that I give this one a miss. And so the whole go to my webpage to check it out just means you're dicking yourself

EJ:

out of readers, basically. Yeah, it's a pity. I'm sure it comes out of a good place, but I would recommend it. Oh, sure. Pivot. Don't worry about boring us. save the pithiness for your plot, not the

Stacy:

warnings. Exactly, right? Be verbose in your warnings, in fact. Yes. Anybody who's going to get pissed at you because you take the time. To actually put thought into your warnings isn't somebody you want as a reader anyway. Yeah, seriously. If they're going to bitch about warnings, they're going to bitch about something else too. You know it.

EJ:

Exactly, and it's going to be stupid stuff anyway. Yeah, we'll get into that in another episode. Seriously. I'm actually, I'd like to touch on the lit Amy, you had mentioned the story collections versus anthologies. Before we move on, I want to talk about those a little bit more. I'm curious about your two, both your thoughts on why an author would do a story collection versus an anthology. Because I'm under the impression story collections are more of a established author thing, you've got a bunch of these popular authors that are coming together they're doing a similar world thing, a similar trope thing. Like right now I'm reading a bunch of orc stories, where it's all orcs, and it's all the arrange like marriage of convenience trope. Gotcha. I want to know what book series that is BTW. And it's Monster Brides and I came into it because Tracy Lauren is has a book in it, and I liked her Tamed by the Troll book, and like the rest of her Perished Woods series, and there was a secondary character in it named Aaron, who is an orc, and I wanted to know what the hell happened to him. And so I went down a rabbit hole because she featured his story in this story collection. And I was like, ah, to hell with it. I'm going to see what other stories I like from this series. So I just bought them all. And now I've been going through all of them. Happy Orktober Day. I think I've read I think I've read a

Stacy:

couple of these. I'm

EJ:

pretty sure I read Owned by the Ork by Raina Marks. Oh, maybe not though. This is saying childhood

Stacy:

sweetheart. I

EJ:

think I'm getting this confused with something else. I love that there's other connections between them. I've come across at least two books in that series that have at least two of them have curly haired redheads. For the female main character and there are 2 other books that have a female main character, whose name is Violet. Oh, that's cute. I love it. I'm like, I don't think you all did this on purpose. I suspect not anyway, but I don't hate it. I think this is hilarious. Yeah,

Stacy:

I, I think,

Amy:

when it comes to the collections of short stories by the same author. Oftentimes, I wanna say that they're usually tales that take place in this, in a similar world

Stacy:

or realm,

EJ:

right? There's the Monster Ball series, which I suspect if there's any readers who are like familiar with what the hell we're talking about when we say story collection, it's probably going to be like that monster regency series

Stacy:

Oh

Amy:

like with the Monsters Ball, that's. Again, multiple authors writing for this, within the same world.

Stacy:

Yeah, that's just a shared universe. That's not a story collection. But a short story collection

Amy:

is actually written all by the same author. Ryan Reiby.

Stacy:

Sorry. Or Stephen King. Yeah. Ah, yeah. Stephen King releases them anytime he does Four Past Midnight, or Different Seasons, or All Dark, No Stars. Those are all Stephen King short story compilations.

EJ:

Oh. Leon Riley. I know she, she's done a short story collection that's all in one book. Yeah. Those, she does call it an anthology one, which is interesting. Yeah. That wasn't interesting that she

Stacy:

Difference terms.

Amy:

Yeah. Like I said, it's used interchangeably. The term anthology is used interchangeably, but. In the library world, her anthology of just her stories would be in the fiction section, not in the

EJ:

nonfiction. Absolutely. Fascinating.

Stacy:

L. V. Lane, I know, released

EJ:

a little story collection with the last

Stacy:

big Stuff Your Kindle Day, where it was... like three or four of her short stories all gathered together.

Amy:

Yeah, usually they are also shorter like the collection of short stories is shorter, like you'll get like maybe four, three or four stories or maybe

Stacy:

six or something like that. Unless it's Stephen King and then you'll get 18. We're not

Amy:

talking about

Stacy:

I just don't want somebody to go and look at a Stephen King short and be like, I was lying to you. I'm just like, you clearly never read Stephen King before.

EJ:

I'm trying to think, would there be a proper word for then those series of stories that are, they're clearly shared, they're definitely on Amazon, you can see they are advertised as a series, but they have completely different authors. I'm trying

Stacy:

to say that? Shared universe. Shared universe. Shared universe. Yeah. Interesting.

EJ:

Okay. Okay. Interesting. I obviously I don't hate it. I absolutely love it. I think it's very clever. Actually the working alone out there. Yeah. And you get to have them longer than anthologies because everyone is telling them separately. Anyway, yeah, from what I understand that's a big reason why anthologies tend to be limited runs when they're. Sold all in one missive because you have to have one person who's like handling all the finances. And if you have them do that indefinitely, it's insane. Yeah, that's not sustainable. So actually, I think it's better that they've hacked it in a way to be like, Oh, no, these are limited edition. And then, you get a wee taste and then you get to have a big meal if you like it a whole lot.

Stacy:

And I love that it's smart for the, it's smart for the writer too, because it's like, it's basically win like they don't indefinitely lose rights to their story. Like I think technically you surrender your rights for a year or something like that.

EJ:

Yeah. It's temporary.

Stacy:

Exactly. You get the rights back and then the story is yours to do whatever the hell you want with it. Which is, whereas, before in the, before self publishing, like the what's the word I'm looking for? The taboo on that before that was. What, everybody finally got the fuck over it. Cause back in the day if you self published something that was the kiss of death. It didn't matter if you had written Harry Potter, nobody's gonna finally touch you. Create space? What? Exactly. Like back in the days of cause like I used to buy like, like romance like, oh, a Christmas romance anthology or something like that. And it was like there'd be like the seeds of these really fucking great ideas and then nothing would ever come of it because publishers own the fucking rights to the short story that you wrote. Indefinitely. Yeah. And so because of that there really wasn't incentive to put work into a shared universe. Can you imagine trying to do a shared universe shit thing with Fuckin Simon and Schuster, or Penguin. Jesus. Oh God. They get in their

EJ:

own ways. Yes, because they want to make those, they want to make bang.

Stacy:

Exactly, they don't give a flying fuck if it's, about the well being of the author, the well being of the writers, or the readers, that all they give a fuck

EJ:

about is their bottom line, and now they've fucked themselves when it comes to DRM stuff, and they deserved it. They deserved it. And

Stacy:

I giggle every time I hear of a, some Monolith and publishing going tits up. Yeah. There's the stock. Donate. I need to

EJ:

look

Amy:

and see who published Wolfsbane and Mistletoe because that's one of my first examples of one, an anthology, and two, monster romance anthology. Granted, I'm sure most of the werewolves were shifted into their human forms or whatever. But it

Stacy:

still counts. Oh yeah, that's interesting. I don't think I've had that. I don't think I read that. I have Stardust and Mistletoe, which I'm gonna guess is in the same group, and that one, because that one was specifically alien romance. I don't know,

Amy:

because they had that one, and then they also had a vampire collection honeymoon something or other. I don't know. But, honestly, the Wolfsbane and Mistletoe was, it had some really fascinating stories in it. Including one that had Black Peter, of all

Stacy:

people. Oh,

EJ:

cool. Really? Yes. I wonder how one might take Black Peter and possibly make him sexy when there's so much weird pieces of shit.

Amy:

No, he wasn't, he was not the protagonist. Oh, thank you so much. And

Stacy:

he was trying to tempt the werewolf into being bad. I love how

EJ:

there's so much about Scandinavian culture that me as an American, I'm like, wow, how progressive! And then I remember Black Peters from

Stacy:

there and I'm like, oh oh shit! Never mind, we're gonna walk that back.

EJ:

We're all human at the day after all. Yes,

Stacy:

we are. I'm not judging anybody on something that their ancestors did 800 years

EJ:

ago. But I will judge you for continuing it. Yeah,

Stacy:

that is a hundred percent, yes. Yes. Oh man. But don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing that they made Krampus Hot, Krampus is hot at the end.

EJ:

That is true. With the exception

Stacy:

of never mind. Oh, fair enough. What, are you talking about the

Amy:

movie? No, I'm talking no, I'm talking about a short story that I could not read because. The content warning is this is totally out of my wheelhouse. Thank you so much. I'm glad people are

Stacy:

enjoying it.

EJ:

Content warning is doing their job.

Stacy:

Text me the title. I want to know if I read it. Oh, I'm sure you have. Probably. I

EJ:

am a pervert.

Stacy:

actually, one of these anthologies is the reason why I read my first the idea of a wolf shifter who's the the hero in it was, in fact, I think it might have been in Stardust and Mistletoe, or Starlight and Mistletoe, where a human woman somehow gets pulled into this alternative reality where, and it's the world where these wolf humanoids live, and. And at first I was is this bestiality? And then I was like, no, he's sentient, it's fine. If he's sentient, I don't give a shit if he looks just like a coconut crab. If he's sentient, it's not bestiality. Don't tempt me there. But then it turned into this whole thing where they, then they get pulled into this alternate land where it's always Christmas. Okay! Oh wow. And the reason why Krampus did it is because he was looking for a bride, and then the main character is just I'm happy with him, and she goes, but my aunt is like Christmas crazy and single, and so Krampus ends up marrying her aunt, and then they all live in the Christmas castle, and it's really, it was actually, it was super fucking as I'm reading it, because I was fairly new to monster fucking, or at least, you Identifying as a monster fucker, and so as I'm reading it, I'm just like, this is so fucking weird, but I fucking love it.

EJ:

I love the idea of someone's Christmas crazy aunt finding her true love through this clearly over engineered plot. There's something really sweet about this. I'm like,

Stacy:

I can be someone's Christmas crazy aunt. Come on, man. Or hook me up with the spirit of Halloween I'm Halloween crazy. We can make this work. We can do this. I'm someone's aunt, I'm single. Woo

EJ:

Oh

Stacy:

goodness. But at the same time, like there's no way in hell indie publishing that ever would've happened with indie publishing

EJ:

Or traditional publishing. Yeah. Traditional publishing. Yeah. It's no way in,

Stacy:

although

Amy:

I wanna say they're getting a bit more open, at least the small, I wanna say the the subsidiaries of. Big publishers are willing to take more chances like You've got Kimberly Lemming's need mishaps getting published through orbit, which is

Stacy:

a Yeah, but they're only doing it because it's a survival mechanism. They wouldn't have done this without their hand

EJ:

being forced. For sure. For sure. And, but that's fine. Whatever. I, as long as our author gets her money, I'm cool with it.

Stacy:

Same. But I also don't want those motherfuckers to own the rights to her stories either.

Amy:

I don't want that either, but... There is production in works, hopefully, for either a TV series or a film. I'm not sure. I'm hoping for a TV series because then we have a lot more

EJ:

time for a lot more fun, frankly. Yeah, pretty much. I don't know. I'm skeptical. yeah, So clearly we have our favorites and so I, I have asked us all to prepare today a wee bit of a book report of sorts. And then I have discussion questions so we can dive into our favorites. So rather than obsess, over a singular author with a singular series like we usually do, which is still fun and we totally will. Probably come back, especially because as we record, I have a copy of The Fall of the Orc, and so we're going to have to record on that eventually. But for now, we're going to be talking about these standalones.