(Yes, I changed the title. Dear Wife Lara thought the other one was lame, so we came up with a better one!)

In 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, some wonderful and talented authors contributed their creative efforts to four anthologies: By the Chimney With Care, Carols and Crimes, Gifts and Grifters, Dying In a Winter Wonderland, and The Gift of Murder. Because of those wonderful folks, Wolfmont Press was able to contribute about $8,900 to the Toys for Tots Foundation over those four years, and make some underprivileged kids much happier than they would have been. My hat's off to all the authors, and all who purchased copies of these books to help us help kids.

This year, the focus of Wolfmont's charitable effort has changed. It's not because Toys for Tots is not a good charity--it's a great cause, and I urge you to support it in any way you can. But this year, we're focusing on something I think is just as worthy, and perhaps more urgent.

As a military veteran of 12+ years, I have seen a lot of bad things happen to our vets. Both in war and peacetime such events occur, but the past few years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have seen a marked rise in veterans with crippling disabilities, very often caused by IED attacks. These disabling injuries often leave vets in situations where their old homes are no longer usable. When you are required to use a wheelchair and your door is at the top of a flight of stairs, or your home has doors that are 28" wide, you're in a bad situation. Or when you require special accommodations to get in and out of the shower, use the toilet, or even do something as simple as cook a meal or wash the dishes, your original home may no longer meet your needs.

This is where Homes for Our Troops comes in. (Please visit their site to get an idea of what they do. It's both heart-rending and heart-mending.)

Here is some brief information from their website: "We are Homes for Our Troops, a national non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2004. We are strongly committed to helping those who have selflessly given to our country and have returned home with serious disabilities and injuries since September 11, 2001. It is our duty and our honor to assist severely injured Servicemen and Servicewomen and their immediate families by raising donations of money, building materials and professional labor and to coordinate the process of building a home that provides maximum freedom of movement and the ability to live more independently."

We at Wolfmont researched a lot of charities before making this decision for this year's anthology. Homes for Our Troops has a four-star rating on Charity Navigator and uses 89.6% of its revenue toward actually performing their good works, with the remainder going to pay administrative, fundraising, and support expenses. This is in comparison to some other well-known charities that use as little as 58% or even 28% toward doing what they say they will do. I'm not judging these other charities; I'm merely saying that I like to know that most of the money I give to the charity goes toward helping those in need, not to pay high salaries and so forth.

What do we want for this anthology, MURDER TO MIL-SPEC?

First of all, what is MIL-SPEC? Though I have a substantial history with the military, I sometimes forget that not everyone else is familiar with all the acronyms and terms. MIL-SPEC stands for "military specification" and is technically defined as "A document that describes the essential technical requirements for purchased material that is military unique or substantially modified commercial items."

In general use, it means anything that is either created specifically for use in a military environment or that has been modified to be more suitable to use in a military environment. Thus, the stories in this anthology are intended to be about military/veterans and specifically deal with those sort of settings, rather than in everyday civilian settings with primarily civilian characters.

So, we want short crime stories that involve military personnel or vets. I do NOT want the military or veterans played up as being all evil, and any story that comes in with a slant that implies that the military person is bad or evil simply for doing his/her job in a wartime situation will be, as we used to say in the Navy, s**tcanned.

I don't mind if the criminal is a vet or military person, but if that is the case, I'd like the protagonist ("good guy or gal") to be a military person or vet as well. No demonizing of the military will be tolerated.

One more note about the theme: There is no required holiday component for this year's anthology. No Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or anything else like that is necessary.

Final contributors for this anthology will be a mix of invited authors and open submission, about fifty-fifty. The competition may be stiff, as the charitable anthologies have been popular projects since their inception.

As in the past, potential contributors should also be cognizant of the fact that, because this is not commercially a big hit with the bookstores (the discount is low to maximize the amount going to the charity), we really need authors who are willing to go the extra mile to promote the book. The authors for previous anthologies have been great and we'd like to continue that trend. We would prefer authors who are willing to commit to signings, try to get local newspaper coverage or radio coverage, talk up the book to their friends and neighbors, etc. Remember all those Girl Scout cookies or holiday cards you bought from the neighbors’ kids? What goes around, comes around. If you are not willing to make these extra efforts, maybe it would be better for you to support the anthology by simply buying a copy when it's released.

I will say that these books have been good publicity for all concerned. The 2008 anthology, Dying In a Winter Wonderland, was the only small-press title in the IMBA's Top Ten Bestseller list for the year. Also, two stories from the 2009 anthology, The Gift of Murder, ended up as short story finalists for the short story Agatha award this year, a third story is in the running for the 2010 Arthur Ellis Best Crime Short Story award, and a fourth story is a 2010 Derringer Award finalist.

The book will be published in trade paperback, approximately 220 to 240 pages and either 5"x8" or 5.5"x8.5", and will have a retail price of around $11 to $13.

Essentially, the conditions are these:

Here are full parameters for your story:

 

How much will be contributed?

We are sometimes often asked, "How much will be contributed to the charity?" The answer is more confusing than enlightening. Depending on many factors, we have been able to contribute as much as $3,300 to charity or as little as $1,300 in any given year. Books sold through different channels produce various levels of revenue; books sold directly through the publisher make the most money for the cause, followed by books sold by authors, and lastly books sold through distribution. Also, sometimes books get returned even after the money has already been contributed to the charity! There are expenses of production, printing, distribution, review copies, contributors' copies, shipping and promotions. No contributor receives any payment for his or her work, although if the contributor buys copies at a discount from the publisher they are welcome to do what they wish with any profits they make—we have no control over that, and don't wish to have control of it. Booksellers obviously will keep any profits from sale of the anthology. So, we don't know the exact amount that will go to the charity until after all the expenses are tallied up. However, publisher profits will go to Homes for Our Troops.

 

Copyright 2010, Wolfmont Press