Yes, Allasso was good. As far as I can tell, the editor was too busy with other commitments to keep it going.
I haven’t heard anything about them one way or another. They had a kind of eclectic pay structure which gave them a fixed cost of $450 per issue, if I’m reading right. While that’s not pocket change, my guess is that they were lower on time than money.
I think Chip’s referring to how the payment structure was that there was more a prize for the ‘best’ of the issue rather than everyone who is accepted is given payment. It was more like a contest rather than a paying market.
http://pinkfoxpublications.net/allasso/submission-guidelines/
I can confirm Jaffa Books is open for novel submissions. (End shameless self-promotion).
And Chipotle, do you want to message me to discuss your idea in more detail, as this might be something I’d be interested in.
Personally, I love anthologies, and I don’t read anywhere near enough of them. It’s nice to be able to sit down and just read one short story at a time, without needing to invest a lot of time and effort into understand the story. I’d love to see more of them published amongst the fandom, for I’m sure that if enough were produced, the readers would come. And I don’t think they solely need to be adult for that either.
Compared to Sofurry and FA which have free stories on them, and it’s hard as hell to get readers to read your stories there. SoFurry is even a site for stories. SoFurry has your discoverability. It has your free entry. And it’s on the internet. Beyond that, I don’t know how to produce a citation for “I don’t think x will work”. I’m not saying it can’t, but I am highly skeptical.
I think you're underestimating the magic of the word [i]potential[/i] in your own argument. The pool of potential readers of furry anthologies is limited to people who (a) already know about furry publishers and/or go to furry cons and (b) are willing to spend money on the anthology. The pool of potential readers of stories presented for free, online, on a site with no required user registration, is limited to people who (a) read fiction on the Internet.Limited to those who read [b]furry[/b] fiction on the internet. There's quite a number of "sure I read books, but not furry books, because they are crap".
Also I’m not sure I understand the model you are proposing. Is it paying authors or not? If it’s not paying authors, that means that authors are choosing to post a story online that they could sell, and by posting it online they are giving away first publication rights. If it does pay authors, then it’s paying out of pocket but not taking in any money, so it’s bleeding finances.
Also, Sofawolf does offer an advance for novels. To what degree, I don’t know.
I’d heard from one author about Sofawolf offering an advance, though at the time it sounded like it might have been because they requested it…? For the record, Anthro Dreams did pay me a small advance for By Sword and Star (which I haven’t earned out and never realistically expected to), but I don’t know if that was typical of them (and I have no information on whether they’re planning to publish any more novels or anthologies, besides just doing the podcast).
Because on SF and FA, finding stories that are worth reading, unless you’re already familiar with the author, is a needle-in-the-haystack situation. I don’t read much of anything on furry sites anymore for that reason – I’d rather spend my limited time reading an anthology or a magazine or something that’s been curated in some way and so offers better odds of being good quality and worth my time. At least an online magazine would have an editor.
Yep. Ocean was correct re: prizes. Allasso had five categories with $50 prizes for the best in each one, so $250 total, plus $200 for “overall best”: $450. (That’s not counting hosting costs, of course.)
@Rechan: Well, I’m not sure what to tell you that isn’t just repeating myself, and we’re kind of getting off point for the original novels vs. anthologies topic. And I’m not proposing anything, beyond “I think there is a place in the fandom for an online short story magazine of some kind.” Bluntly, we won’t know for sure until someone tries.
In the next 2-3 years (Sorry, I think too far ahead >__< just based on my own publishing schedule) this is something I would be interested in doing with Five Elements Press (my publishing “company” that currently publishes…my gryfon novels).
I’ll bug you then about possibly teaming up/creating a team if it hasn’t already happened without me 
This definitely sounds like something I’d be interested in discussing. My impatient side says, “We should do it now!” But then I remember that I’m editing ROAR, running the Coyotls, and don’t have time to actually write… So, yeah, 2-3 years down the road might be about perfect. If you make it to Rainfurrest, maybe we could at least do some brainstorming then.
If it’s 2-3 years from now, I might be able to help out somehow too, even if it’s just proofreading or something like that. Anyway, put me on the list to contact if/when. 
Wow, this is a big thread.
I did want to hop in and add two cents to some of Sean’s original comments.
Although I don’t have exact sales figures, I think it’s fair to say that novels have more selling power anthologies on average, but I also think that certain anthologies, Heat in particular, have more selling power than lots of novels. I think this has a lot to do with consistency. Heat comes out on a yearly schedule and people have come to expect good quality from it, so that keeps readers coming back for more. For many novels in the fandom, they are first-time novels or there has been a long gap since the previous one. There is nothing to “come back” to.
(To be frank, I know some buyers of Heat only buy it for the comics, but I’m not sure if this is a substantial amount to really alter the sales figures.)
As to the point of whether the current large number of anthologies help or hurt current writers, that’s a tougher question. I think they are selling reasonably well. Even though initial sales figures for Hot Dish (and Will of the Alpha iirc) were not great, they did pick up after a while, enough for Sofawolf (and Furplanet) to take a chance on more. And Rabbit Valley is doing another Trick or Treat anthology. People are certainly buying them.
But that dodges the question a little. Are anthologies, as opposed to novels, better for the writers themselves? I think this point has been raised in the thread, and I referenced it above too: anthologies help expose a writer to an audience. If we cut out all the anthologies currently going around and had everyone write novels instead, I’m not sure that they would sell well. Would readers take a chance on that many novels by people they have never heard of before? I don’t know.
On the topic of how short stories can be worthwhile:
Slightly off topic, but that article makes me want to giggle. They mention that a novel may come out one a year or so, but two of the better-known novelists in the fandom are Kyell Gold and MCA Hogarth…
I leave the remainder of the joke to you.
I was browsing furry novels on Amazon last night, and srsly, who are all these people? If I’ve never seen your name in an anthology, or even on SoFurry, I’m not throwing down $5 on your novel, no matter how adorable the cover.
Well, they’re talking mainstream publishing, which tends to move at a slower pace. Not that long ago, a book a year mainstream was considered a pretty quick pace – possibly even an unreasonable one from the author’s perspective – and some writers still find those expectations hard to keep up with. That said, there are plenty of sf/f authors publishing more than a book a year, but others don’t, for various reasons. It all varies. (Same as in the fandom – we’re not all Kyell Gold or MCA Hogarth.) 
As far as taking a chance on novels by people I’ve never heard of, I’m potentially willing as a reader to read the sample and see how it is, if the book seems interesting. But if the description of the book is poorly written, I’ll probably never even get that far, and if there’s no sample available, forget it.
If I remember right, this is one of the major reasons Stephen King was such a huge name. He was pumping out books like nobody’s business, at a rate few had ever seen before. Not just garbage either. Love 'im or hate 'im, he had a way of taking even mundane ideas and turning them uber creepy, and while some books did far better than others, each of them would have taken most of us far more time to write than he took (note the ‘most of us’ X3).
One of the beauties of ebooks is that most will give a very generous sampling before purchase. I was pretty amazed at the sampling I had for OOP, and found myself sucked in by the time I finished it. I think (or at least would hope) this has enabled novels to get a bit more of a leg-up on things. Ultimately though, I’d still rather buy an antho with at least three authors I already know I like (so I know there’s a higher chance it won’t be a waste), than a novel by a complete unknown. I still have a list of authors I want to hunt down just from the three RF anthos I have X3
Rechan & Poetigress–hurrah for the e-zine! Yes. I am still figuring out if RF is going to “work” this year for me financially >__< But either way I definitely want to keep the idea-pot stirring for that project… Anyway, it’s off topic for this thread
I agree with Husky…especially for a fringe genre (?) like furry, dipping your toes in with anthologies is a nice way to get to know authors, and a good way for them to get a foot (or paw ) in the door with furry readers by using established venues…