If you have dreams of selling your science fiction, fantasy or horror novel and getting filthy rich, you need to adjust your expectations. We’ve collected three testimonials from genre writers below to help aspiring writers to maintain realistic expectations.

Horror novelist Brian Keene gave a speech at Towson University’s Borderlands Boot Camp recently, laying out some frank statistics for aspiring genre novelists. Here is an excerpt:

The average advance these days, for a genre fiction novel, ranges between $2,500 and $10,000. That’s right. The novel you spent a year working on only earns you between $2,500 to $10,000 at first. When the book is published a year later, that advance will have long been spent. And you probably won’t see a royalty check until another year AFTER your book has been published (provided enough copies have sold to earn out your advance). So it will actually be two years from that advance check before you get paid again.

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Yesterday novelist Brian Keene detailed his long struggle with Dorchester Publishing, calling on readers and writers to boycott the publisher. More than 100 authors have already signed on to his campaign.

Last year the Mystery Writers of America de-listed the publisher, writing: “We have been hearing an unusually high number of reports from our members of unpaid advances and withheld royalties on their Dorchester books.” The publisher switched to an eBook and print-on-demand model in August, and a number of authors have complained about payment and rights problems. Keene has added the graphic embedded above to his Twitter feed.

Here’s an excerpt from Keene’s boycott essay: “someone asked me why we (the authors) didn’t just seek legal means. Well, I can’t speak for any of the other authors involved, but I’ll tell you why I haven’t — because I’m broke. I’m broke because Dorchester didn’t pay me what was owed, and then I gambled to get my rights back, and then they continued to f*** me. And yes, I’ve got a nice new deal with Deadite and Ghoul starts filming next month, but I won’t see checks from either of those until a few months from now, and until then, I can barely pay the rent and eat anything more than Ramen noodles, let alone hire an attorney. So I’m asking you to boycott Dorchester Publishing and Leisure Books. I said above that I can’t speak for my fellow authors, but I can tell you that many of them are in the same situation — or worse.”

Barnes & Noble reported record holiday sales today, but Borders Group hasn’t released any official news since two executives left the company earlier this week. Nevertheless, news and rumors have trickled out about the struggling bookseller.

The Am Law Daily rounded up the law firms now involved in the future of Borders:  “The Am Law Daily has learned that four Am Law 100 firms–Baker & McKenzie, Jones Day, Latham & Watkins, and Sullivan & Cromwell–are involved advising various parties on the ongoing restructuring efforts by Borders.”

AnnArbor.com had a gloomy quote from University of Michigan law professor John Pottow: “The amount of losses they’re incurring is not something where they can avoid (restructuring).”

Last night novelist Brian Keene wrote that mass market press Dorchester Publishing had cut editorial director Leah Hultenschmidt and editor Don D’Auria. Blogger and reviewer Jane Litte confirmed the news.

Keene left a touching tribute his old editor at the horror imprint, Leisure: “authors have often asked me why I stayed with Leisure as long as I did. The answer is Don. We had a great working relationship, and I’d write for him again, no matter where he lands or what he’s editing. If Don D’Auria called me and said, ‘Hey, I just got on at St. Martin’s and I’m editing a line of NASCAR romance novels’ you’d see me write a NASCAR romance novel so fast it would make your head spin.”

Last week we talked about Dorchester’s future on The Takeaway.

Extending a trend that has swept through the publishing industry like an airborne virus, Ravenous Romance has launched what is reportedly the world’s first zombie love anthology–bringing romance to the most gruesome subgenre in horror literature.

Entitled “Hungry For Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance,” the anthology is edited by Lori Perkins. Featured authors include: Brian Keene, Lois Gresh, and Michael Marshall Smith According to the company, St. Martin’s Press has bought reprint rights to the anthology, and it will publish next year. Ravenous Romance will also publish a digital audiobook version.

Here’s more from Perkins’ introduction: “[At] the Ravenous Romance office, I informed my colleagues that we would be doing a zombie romance anthology. They were emphatically skeptical. We posted the thesis on Facebook and hundreds of readers said they couldn’t imagine romance with rotting corpses. Oh, ye of little faith. The zombie mythos is the perfect metaphor for the end of an era, for a society beset with change it doesn’t understand but knows is here.”