Welcome to the first issue of Strange Love. It's been an interesting experiment putting this together -- mostly the good sort of interesting, luckily. I was fairly sure there was a market for a magazine aimed at SF/Fantasy/Paranormal erotica; the only question was, could I find enough good authors, put it together cheaply enough, and get the word out?

The answer to the first was an unqualified "Yes". Out of the first five submissions I received, I accepted five of them. None of them needed more than minor editing. In fact, one of the stories -- Exploration -- resulted in a change of the guidelines. The original guidelines wouldn't have covered it, with good reason -- I'd never have thought of it. It literally blew me away (I remember printing it out and running into the bedroom and telling my wife she had to read it right then).

The answer to the second was, with a little fiddling, "Yes". Strange Love doesn't pay on a per word basis; instead, 90% of the net sales is distributed proportionally between the authors. This means that unlike conventional magazines, the authors continue to get royalties.

And the answer to the third . . . well, we'll see, won't we? Obviously you heard about it, or you wouldn't be reading this.

I've read the stories you are about to read. You're in for a treat.

D. S. Payne