Lianne Sentar
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Our launch lineup was pretty dark, I admit. *lol* We have more comedies/romances/light stuff on the roster for 2014. Along with more DARK STUFF, because we can’t resist. <3
An asexual love story sounds really interesting, Neila. We've definitely seen some asexual characters in the pitches so far, and I'd like to see more. I want characters with all kinds of identities, all kinds of relationships...just everything.
Female gaze space operas, yes please.
Awake doesn’t count? *lol* It’s more of a bottle drama, admittedly, with all the claustrophobia.
I remember seeing at least one epic space opera come through the submissions pipeline, so you’re not alone in wanting this!
Although we love short stories, they’re notoriously hard to write and sell. We’re still dipping our toe in those publishing waters, but flash fiction is a possibility if our current shorts program goes well.
We also LOVE chibi/omake funnies, but even in Japan, they’re more often associated with bonus material to a regular format series than as a product all their own. But we’re open to both, if the material’s good enough. Off*Beat and Tokyo Demons have already employed them, after all.
That’s an awesome resource, Capo! By all means, post these sorts of things to the forum; we want creators to have easy access to as much ammunition as possible.
Ha ha, you’re a ninja at checking the site! XD I know, I love the return of Mandy and Paul. And I have to say, I love Paul’s reaction. SO AWKWARD. He’s trying to be supportive, but yeah, it’s hard! Hang in there, Paul.
Is that what you want, Neila? Just reply yes or no and I’ll do that for you. I’ll manually change the status on your current subscription to paid for a month.
Oh, by the way–we opened up thread for those in-character Q&As, for those of you who were interested:
Awake Character Q&As
Tokyo Demons Character Q&AsJust ask your questions in those threads. If we get your questions by the end of the year, we might be able to record the answers with the voice actors, since we’ll be doing a big recording marathon in early January.
Y’know, I was considering click-to-reveal comments a looooooooooooong time, when we were designing tokyodemons.com. Definitely something to think about again!
I sent Ellery to your post, we’ll see if she’s interested. I can personally re-evaluate in January when I’ve cleared a few big things off my plate.
Well, I’m the only regular editor in prose right now and I go through all prose submissions myself, and I’m booked solid until January, at least. :( But you’re right, I think our editorial involvement is different from a lot of small publishers…we have super, super intense editorial on some series, which can be harsh! But so far, I’m happy to say our writers can take it. :)
Let me get back to you on this. Ellery (who writes Gauntlet) was published by small presses before we signed her, plus she’s done a lot of serial fanfiction. I think she would have valuable insight from a writer’s perspective and it would be a little less “advertising”-like than if I wrote something, I think? And maybe I can do something for you as an editor later, when my life is less insane. :)
Next raffle will be on January 2nd, and it will include everyone who participates in Neila’s winter fanart prompt! Details here: http://sparklermonthly.com/forums/topic/monthly-prompt-challenge-1-december/
Moved your prompt to the “Contests” thread. Links still work. Thanks, Neila!
sgl:
Yeah, we kinda modeled how we link content + forums after ANN’s forums. As for a plugin for easier viewing/logging in, so far we’ve found that the Sparkler system keeps you logged in pretty much all the time, and none of the connected forums for each chapter are behind the paywall, so anyone can view them with just a click. If you’ve logged in once, it should be easy to view and comment. The only extra step is someone needs to get a free membership to actually post, which yeah, is a bit of a filter…which is on purpose. That small filter helps us keep this place neater and safer.
I love Goodreads – I think you’re right that that’s a good place to poke around next. Serial writers are indeed hard to find sometimes, but we’re not specifically courting them – we’re taking anyone who has the talent and can handle the workload. Some people have come to us with already-completed books, some are still writing but prove (before they start serializing) that they can stay on a decent schedule. I’m cool with any place that has passionate writers, regardless of their background.
Which kind of prose person would interest you for a guest post? A writer, an editor, someone who’s been through the submission process and was either accepted or rejected?
NoNane: We’ve been experimenting with leaving Tokyo Demons with both open comments and forum topics, but eh, I think it’s more confusing than anything. Keeping all comments as one or the other organizes the discussion a bit. And you’re right–having forums means it’s very easy to open discussions that have nothing to do with an individual series, which both expands commentary/community and keeps series-specific discussions more on-topic.
Tacto: Yeah, the way we publish a full chapter at a time (especially with our comic viewer) means the first comment could spoil someone who’s reading the first page! That was our other concern. In addition to, as you said, not being able to replicate the vibe of webcomic open comments because we didn’t want to pressure our creators into discussion. We’re very happy when they come to talk, of course, but we don’t make it a requirement to joining the magazine.
Hey, sgl! Cool to see you here. :)
We sorta went back and forth on page comments vs forums, but in general, we opted for a place we could more easily moderate as a safe space. Disqus and the like help keep out spam, but we’ve seen a lot of great sites (especially feminist-leaning ones) get their comment sections wrecked by creeps who are comfortable with Disqus. And, since we’re a publisher, we wanted to open up a space for dialogue but also let our creators’ hard work exist online on its own. I loved open comments on Tokyo Demons, but I’m also not every creator, nor do we expect all of our creators to be checking the Sparkler page every day to answer comments. The concept of open comments below every chapter of fiction is relatively new and we didn’t want to force that on our launch creators, so this forum seemed like a happy middle ground.
That said, maybe we’ll ditch forums and go open comments someday; this is just how we wanted to run the first year. But I like what we have here so far.
As for submissions, we’re very happy to consider proposals from anyone (including romance authors), regardless of whether or not they’re connected to the anime/manga fandom. Because of the way we designed our open submissions this summer, word of mouth spread them pretty far; we got pitches from all over the place, not just anime/manga fandom, because of our focus on Female Gaze. But reaching out to a few specific communities is always great when we can spare the time, so Goodreads is a good idea for a later round. Our editor Jill is pretty involved in the romance novel community (like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books) and would probably be good at that. :)
misushimo:
Yeah. For most Sparkler series, first chapter and current chapter are free to read (after the 1-week hold for subscribers when it’s first released, ala Crunchyroll), everything else is behind the paywall. Gauntlet and Dire Hearts are like this, too. There are a few exceptions to this:
–Tokyo Demons started as a free serial and was partially funded by a Kickstarter, so other than that 1-week hold, it’s always free to read.
-Due to technical complications of restricted streaming audio, the audio series (including Awake) are always free to stream after the 1-week hold.
The good news is the entire paywall is one unit, so you can buy a one-month subscription and it’s all-you-can-read of everything for a month…including Vol 1-2 of Off*Beat, the middle chapters of all series, the subscriber exclusives, the one-shots behind the paywall (which is where Maiden and the Fish is going in January), etc.
Sorry, I know it’s complicated!
We’re definitely planning some non-audio stuff for our audio series, since the format, although awesome, makes us cut back on a lot of things (like visuals, details, back stories, etc.). And we’re a mixed-media company, dammit! We can expand whatever we want. *lol*
Joamette, we’ve had our eyes peeled for a good Girl’s Love story since Day 1. Thankfully, we’re seeing some definite potentials now, and I hope at least one of them makes its appearance in the magazine soon. Since the Girl’s Love manga market has been so, so small in the West (despite the amazing work by Erica Friedman), and since a lot of it ended up coming through Male Gaze moe (which obviously isn’t what we’re doing), we’ve been extra careful about this – we want something good and something for actual ladies. That’s been tricky to find, especially since we’re really picky about everything. *lol* But soon, I hope! We actually put a semi-block on Boy’s Love in the next round of prose to encourage people to go for Girl’s Love or something straight, since we have enough Boy’s Love (and its mountain of male characters) for a while. We love Boy’s Love, of course, but we’re very serious about having a diverse lineup.
