Intl Wota Press is an initiative to encourage quality, long-form writing in English about Japanese music and idols. We are currently working with one rate: $30 US for articles or stories that range between 8,000 to 12,000 words.

Rights we ask for:

• Publish a free ebook of your article or story for a minimum of six months. After six months you can tell us when you want us to stop carrying it in this format.
• Package your article or story into a collection that will be made available as a POD (Print On Demand) book, available for no more than two years after your work is initially published in ebook format.

Payment you receive:

• $30 US.
• An equal share of any net profits from the POD collection. That means any money made minus the costs for acquiring all the articles as well as costs incurred in making the POD version. In other words: don’t expect much.

What is expected of you:

• Vouch for the originality of the work and affirm that it is wholly your own.
• Be held legally responsible for any violation of copyright or intellectual property law, as well as indemnify Intl Wota for any costs we incur for such violations.
• Agree to a definite date of submission for the completed manuscript.

Basically, we want to make sure you’re not plagiarizing and, if you are, that our butts are covered and yours is left to twist in the wind.

The Submission Process:

• Please send a query to iwpress@intlwota.com briefly describing your project, the expected length of the work, and how long you think it will take to write.

• If we want to see more, prepare in DOC format a synopsis of your proposed work, a detailed outline, and a 500 word excerpt. This way, you do not have to write the whole thing only to be refused - however, you will have to think it through before you can present it to us.
• Half of the editors at Intl Wota have to agree to publishing the submission, and Ray has to be one of those editors in agreement. The current editorial staff include: Ray, CJ, pengie, Julia, jinryuichi, Wu-san, and Broomhead.
• One editor must agree to actually edit your submission, most likely Ray or pengie. You will work with that editor after submitting your manuscript.
• Once we agree to publish, a written agreement must be signed by both parties.
• Payment will be made upon the ebook publication of your work. We prefer Paypal, but can make other arrangements as needed.

Types of work we are looking for:

• Critical essays exploring a single work of Japanese music / idols in an expansive, in-depth manner.
• Thought pieces about some aspect of Japanese music or idols.
• Personal accounts or non-fiction essays that focus on Japanese music or idols.
• Literary fiction about idols or Japanese music.

What we don’t want:

• Academic essays or class papers.
• Collections of previously published blog entries.
• Most fan fiction. (It’s possible to write literary fiction that is also fan fiction, but it doesn’t always happen. The difference between literary fiction and fan fiction we don’t want will be measured with this question: does the story thematically explore the nature of idols in a meaningful manner that would interest non-fans?)
• News accounts or biographies of a Japanese musician or idol.

Main criteria for evaluating submissions:

• Quality of writing.
• Clarity of vision.
• Original insights.
• Accessibility to both fans and casual readers.
• Professional attitude.

Intl Wota has made evident that there are many gifted writers working in our corner of the J-music blogosphere. We want to take it to the next level by having interested writers consider the challenge of writing longer pieces for a different format, and reward them as best we can for that effort. Clearly, this is less about anybody seeing a profit than a guts-and-glory type deal. But because we are paying for your words and time, you’ll be held to a stringent criteria in terms of writing and professionalism.

(Personally, I do suspect strongly that a single-author, book-length project can yield a small profit for that author, but I also suspect that very few of us currently writing about J-music are ready or willing to pursue such a project. And if they are, going with Intl Wota Press would seem foolhardy when there are some very good real publishers out there worth approaching. If you still want to propose something, though, drop me a line.)

We’re aiming to have enough IW Press eBooks out so that a couple of POD book collections will be available by the start of 2009 - that translates to one or two eBooks a month. We’re particularly interested in critical essays focused on a single album - think of them as a considerably shortened version of the 33 1/3 series - for a POD collection focused exclusively on this theme.