About four years ago, I kicked off a publishing endeavor within the speculative fiction genre that specialized in weird speculative fiction. I called it Garden Gnome Publications (GGP). The idea was to encourage more quirky and strange science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Along those lines, we really enjoyed reading fiction that blurred the lines between these genres. By "we," I mean me and the garden gnomes inside my head.

Image from Pixabay.

Within a year-and-a-half, I managed to publish three multi-author anthologies in the Biblical Legends Anthology Series and a standalone novella authored by none other than Yours Truly. You'll see the covers of these at the bottom of this post.

Going into 2017, I decided to focus more on my content marketing business. I'm glad I did because 2017 and 2018 turned out to be record-breaking years for me in terms of income. But it meant I didn't have time to work on GGP, so it went neglected. I'd like to revive it again and integrate it with #Steemit, #Trybe, and #Narrative.

I consider fiction my true love. It's a damn shame I couldn't have parlayed a full-time career writing novels. But I'm only 52, so there's hope for me yet.

Resuscitating Garden Gnome Publications

In it's hey-day, Garden Gnome Publications focused on two things: Publishing short flash fiction pieces on its blog, affectionately nicknamed "The Flim-Flam Bush," and publishing multi-author fiction anthologies on Biblical themes. I was about to expand into standalone novels and novellas when Taylored Content picked up speed.

We paid $5 for some flash fiction stories we published in a few of our more popular categories. These were:

Flashers - Flash fiction stories in the speculative fiction genres. No particular guidelines other than word count.
Local Legends - These were fictionalized stories about real places with a reputation for the legendary in local necks of the woods as told by storytellers who live in those places.
Essays - We were beginning to develop a non-fiction category for authors to discuss speculative fiction through short essays.
Microfiction - This category was reserved for very short stories within the speculative fiction genres, but we didn't pay for these.

In addition to these publishing opportunities on the Flim-Flam Bush, our Biblical Legends Anthology Series featured flash fiction, short stories, and novellas. Each anthology focused on a single Bible story. The first one we tackled was the Garden of Eden. Then we paid a visit to Sodom & Gomorrah ("Sulfurings"). Finally, we featured stories in our third volume about the Great Flood titled, appropriately, "Deluge." Of course, stories published came with a catch.

With each anthology, writers were to tell the stories of non-Biblical characters. For the Garden of Eden edition, for instance, stories could not include Adam, Eve, and the serpent as characters. For Sulfurings, writers had to write about characters other than Lot and his family. And for Deluge, Noah and his crew were off limits. We thought this was a cute and speculative twist. And it was. The reception for this series was spectacular! The authors were paid a nominal fee for their stories.

In thinking up how we intend to bring GGP back to life, we decided that we wouldn't pay for Flim-Flam Bush stories any more. Instead, we intend to push these stories out to the Steemit platform by publishing them on the @gardengnomepubs wall. We also want to encourage GGP fans to join Steemit and become Steem speculative fiction authors. We've even got a Discord channel set up for them when they do.

There will be more about publishing opportunities at GGP in the days ahead.

Transitioning To Garden Gnome Publications

I'd like to encourage any of my followers with an interest in speculative fiction to follow Garden Gnome Publications and consider delegating some SP. I intend to transfer some SP to the account myself to get it going, but there are some practical reasons why I want to juice this account early on.

For starters, the more SP the GGP account has, the more it can upvote authors who enter contests and interact with the account, as well as Discord channel members. Some of the plans I have for this include:

Daily upvotes for accounts that join the Speculative Fiction Writers of Steemit Discord channel.
Speculative fiction contests with prizes.
A tiered membership similar to what @qurator has where those who delegate or give to the account get guaranteed upvotes at a certain percentage. Details for this have yet to be worked out.

I'm also working on some ideas for sponsoring #SteemMonsters tournaments and fan fiction events.

In addition to events with prizes and upvotes to encourage participation, it is likely some of the fiction writing exercises I've been sponsoring will also be transitioned to GGP. For instance, the #exquisite-corpse writing relay will likely become a GGP event. While it can be hosted at GGP, I will still likely participate as an author.

The #farmpunk fiction writing contests will also likely move over to Garden Gnome Publications with GGP applying for a grant from @curie to increase participation and the rewards pool. And I am contemplating some print and e-book publishing efforts for Steemit writers and authors.

While these may sound like bold moves, please keep in mind that it's a work in progress. Rolling all of this out will take time as I will be doing it around my normal freelance writing activities, and the rest of my life. Still, I'm looking forward to renewed interest in Garden Gnome Publications and building up the fan base once again. I'm hoping you'll come along for the ride.

Get your weird lit on:

The Biblical Legends Anthology Series