Our Philosophy
We want to publish what we enjoy reading. Therefore, the rules are as follows:
1. Characters are key.
We don't care what genre(s) a story falls under, but the focus of the story must be the characters. You may have created the most fascinating universe in the world, but if your story isn't character-driven, please don't waste our time and yours trying to get us to publish your novel.
Because we get so invested in the characters, we also tend prefer happy (or at least hopeful) endings. If your story is more Hamlet than Much Ado About Nothing, we're probably not a good fit for you.
2. Fanfic is fabulous.
Feel free to write noncommercial, attributed, share-alike fanfic about the books we publish. It would be supremely hypocritical of us to try and say don't write fanfic. However, we do expect the courtesy that you don't send your fanfic to our authors or post it where they're likely to see it.
3. Ebooks are awesome.
All of our publications are released as ebooks and in print, because we want people to be able to read the stories our authors write in whatever format readers want to read them in. You can find more information about the ebook formats we provide here.
4. DRM is the work of the devil.
Digital rights management is a ridiculous attempt to dictate to end users how they can access stories they've purchased. It does nothing but make life impossible for readers by limiting what platforms can be used to read ebooks. That's just silly, so all of our ebooks are DRM-free.
"But wait!" you say. "What about pirates sending your ebooks to five hundred of their closest friends? Doesn't DRM stop things like that from happening?"
All DRM does is punish honest users who just want to read the stories they've paid for on the platform of their choice. Pirates intent on acquiring content illegally will get it eventually anyway.
And hey, if you acquired one of our books illegally and liked it, you should think about paying us for it. Your purchase will help us continue providing great books.
Work philosophy
1. Deadlines are deadlines and contracts are contracts.
We're flexible in some regards, but we're running a business. When an author signs a contract with Dancing Fools Press, we expect deadlines to be met, as we will meet our deadlines with the author.
2. Communication is very important.
We're much more reasonable if we're in the loop. We don't want to know an author's schedule down to the minute, but it does mean we must be able to contact you via email, phone, and mail while in the process of preparing a book for publication. Going to be out of contact for a while (vacation or work or what have you)? Have a great time! But let us know first, please.
3. Stories will be edited.
Your stories will be edited. And edited again. And again. And then copy edited. And proofed. And double-checked. Sensing a theme here? We use the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.) as our main style guide, so if your story is already formatted according to that, the editing process will be much smoother.
Did you find a typo while reading one of our releases? Please let us know so we can fix it right now.
4. Professional and fannish lives are—and should remain—separate.
We enjoy our fannish lives as much as the next woman. However, we have no desire to see our real lives linked with our online identities. We will respect your privacy and require the same courtesy in return. Even inadvertent outing of someone's fannish/online identity could damage any of us professionally. Outing someone will not be tolerated and will result in the immediate termination of any contracts.
5. We do not deal with agents and we are not agents ourselves.
Fairly straightforward, right? Manuscripts sent from agents will not be considered. Alternately, we will not shop your novel to Hollywood, nor will we represent you when the rights are sold. We will, of course, up the print runs of your backlist at that point. ;)
Corporate philosophy
One percent of Dancing Fools Press' profits from each book will be loaned to women running their own businesses in third-world countries via Kiva.org.
Most of our promotional materials are beautifully printed by Greener Printer on recycled paper with soy- and vegetable-based inks.