Interview with Editor Lori Perkins of Ravenous Romance

Terry Kate: Okay I know I am the luckiest girl around to snag Lori Perkins for the Backseat not once, but twice. She is Literary Agent extraordinaire and Editor for up and coming publisher Ravenous Romance.  You can read her agent interview coming soon.
 Lori Perkins: Thanks for asking me to join you twice.
TK: Now I have a few questions for you while you are wearing your editor hat. What does your editor hat look like?
 LP: It's a little leopard pillbox number.
 TK: Well I get to wear my interview/information investigator fedora so we are well matched in headgear greatness.
 LP: What an image!
 TK: I try.  (Smile)   So Ravenous, you are growing and growing all the time! Where are you going from here?  What are you hungry for?  I could not resist that one I am a cheese ball.
 LP: Well, let's describe "here" first. We just celebrated our one year anniversary. We published 140 books and another 80 original short stories. We're the only romance publisher to sell our books on Home Shopping Network (go to HSN and type in Escape to Romance for a great 6 book deal at $19.95). We've sold the reprint rights to a third of our titles. One of our titles has been nominated for a Lambda and another for a Romantic Times Best Indie Erotic Romance Award. So, I think we've done pretty well to establish ourselves in one year during a recession.
 What are we looking for? The three categories that sell through the roof are M/M. paranormal and kinky, so send us your paranormal kinky M/ novels! Seriously.
  We also do about 15 in-house anthologies and put out a call for short stories or novellas on the  ravenousromance.blogspot.com website. Many of our novelists started out by writing short stories for us.    And we pay advances as an epublisher for both novels and short stories.
 What I am looking for? Shapeshifters, ghosts, pirates, time travel, threesomes. We're brainstorming over the Xmas break and will put a call up by New Year's Eve, so watch that blog. We come up with about half the novel ideas in-house and either assign them or post a call. We are a GREAT place for new writers.
 TK: Wait you pay advances?!?   Did I just read you pay advances?
 LP: Yes. In the tradition of Anais Nin's "collector," every novel receives a $200 advance (that's about a dollar a page as our novels run about 50,000 words or 200 pages), and every short story gets $10. Novellas are $25. We pay 35% royalties too.
 TK: Who master minded the shear genius idea to work with the Home Shopping Network? 
LP: Holly Schmidt, our publisher. Holly is really a marketing guru and she knew some people who knew some people.

TK: Honestly the scope of the greatness of that idea is kick ass! Have you guys been happy with the results?
 LP: Yes. We've sold thousands of books in minutes. And gained a whole new readership. And extended the brand in ways we couldn't have imagined.
 Romance publishing is just so exciting right now. It's one of the few fields that is growing, so one of the few genres willing to take risks and innovate. I LOVE cross genre romances.
 TK: So Ravenous Romance, are we talking Erotica, Erotic Romance? Am I guarantied a Happily Ever After or Happy For Now ending?
 LP: HEA or HFN, even in the threesomes and kinkier stuff.
 TK: As an editor do you feel the need for that as much as I do as a reader?
 LP: I love a book that gets my heart racing and then brings me to tears. I love to be swept off my feet, but I also love the chase, which is why the paranormal romances appeal to me. And I love a really bad boy.
 TK: One who's only weakness is the heroine. Sigh...
 LP: Yep.
 TK: I know you said you are brainstorming over the Holiday, but any ideas for the beginning of the new year how may books we can expect?
 LP: We're doing about the same number of books next year. I think we have 12 new titles slated for January.
 I have a call out for M/M werewolf novellas. We'll be doing an in-house anthology titled FANG BANGERS about love with anything with fangs and/or claws.  In the next few days we're publihing DUSK, an adult version of Twilight by a New York Times best-selling author writing under a pseudonym.
And for Christmas, we're publishing THE 12 HOT DAYS OF CHRISTMAS and I SAW DADDY KISSING SANTA CLAUS.
 TK: I saw Daddy, I like that.
 LP: It is so much fun!   I love this job. And the give and take with the authors is great.

TK: So how long should a submission be for the Fang Bangers anthology?  And how far do you tend to read into it before saying yes, no, or maybe so?
 LP: Anywhere from 1500 to 5,000 words.  I read the whole thing. Some times I send it back for rewrite, if the idea is strong, but the execution needs work. or it needs more sex.
 TK: Life always needs more sex as does literature.
 LP: Yes, yes.
TK: Ever send something back saying it is too steamy?
 LP: Only in HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE, our zombie romance anthology. There is a line there you shouldn't cross, and I leave that up to the imagination.
 TK: So I can not thank you enough for this inside peek into RR! I am very excited to congratulate you on your first year as I round out the same on my site. May year two teat us even better!
 LP: Yes, and what an interesting year it was!
 Terry Kate: To 2010 then and thanks again for all your time!!!
 Lori Perkins: Yes, to 2010! I'm anxious to see what this decade brings.