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Thus, a fifteen-hundred-dollar advance against royalties paid to an anthologist means the editor can cop half the bread for himself and stretch the seven hundred and fifty dollars remaining over eleven or twelve authors, and have a pretty good-sized book. This book, however, was conceived as an all-original collection, which meant the stories would have to be written specifically for the book (or, in rare cases, be those stories already long since written and rejected by all the available markets on grounds of taboo, of one sort or another; these latter possibilities were, obviously, far less appealing, for usually, unless a story is exceeding hot, it can be sold somewhere ; if no one had bought them, there was a better chance that they were simply gawdawful, rather than too controversial; I was to find out all too soon that my thinking was correct; stories of a controversial nature are often bought by editors not so much because they shock and startle, as because they are by "name authors" who can get away with it; the less well known writers have a much harder time of it; and unless they develop a more prominent name later, and go back to dig these "hot" stories out of their trunk, the stories never get seen).
    But for a writer to do a story for the book, my price on acceptance would have to be competitive with the magazines that would offer him first sale. This meant the standard fifteen-hundred-dollar advance would not be enough. Not if this was to be a big, wide-ranging and representative project.
    The extra three cents a word for magazine publication looms large to the free-lancer making his living strictly from the genre magazines. So I needed at least three thousand dollars, double the advance. Ash-mead, who is not allowed by Nelson Doubleday to dole out more that fifteen hundred dollars, would have to go to his Publishing Committee and he didn't think they would be too keen at this stage of the game. They didn't want to spring for the first fifteen hundred.
    So the cadmium-throated orator once again took to the telephone lines. "Hi, Larry sweetheart pussycat!"
    What emerged finally was the greatest boondoggle since the Teapot Dome scandal. Ashmead was to give me the first fifteen hundred dollars advance, out of which I would only buy, say, thirty thousand words of the proposed sixty thousand. Then I would send the stories in to him and say I needed another fifteen hundred to complete the project, and if things shaped up as well as we anticipated, there would be little difficulty going to the Committee and asking for the balance.
    Now, two hundred and thirty-nine thousand words and nineteen months later, DANGEROUS VISIONS has cost Doubleday three thousand dollars, myself twenty-seven hundred dollars out of pocket (and no anthologist's fee), and author Larry Niven seven hundred and fifty dollars, which he put into the project to see it done properly. Additionally, four of the authors herein have not yet been paid. Their stories came in late, when the book was ostensibly closed; but having heard about the project, and being fired with it, they wanted to be included, and have agreed to delayed payment, which comes out of Ellison's share of the profits, not the author's royalties.
     
    This introduction has almost run its course. Thank the stars. Many of the incredible incidents that happened in the course of its birthing will have to go untold here. The Thomas Pynchon story. The Heinlein anecdote. The Laumer Affair. The Incident of the Three Brunner stories. The last-minute flight to New York to insure the Dillon illustrations. The Kingsley Amis afterword. The poverty, the sickness, the hate!
    Just a few last words on the nature of this book. First, it was intended as a canvas for new writing styles, bold departures, unpopular thoughts. I think with only one or two exceptions each of the stories included fits that intention. Expect nothing, remain wide open to what the authors are trying to do, and be delighted.
    There