On the Difficulties of Publishing SF

This thread gives some interesting insight into the workings of publishing a line of books. It’s a summary, from Paizo’s Eric Mona, of the status of that company’s Planet Stories line. Planet Stories mostly consists of books by classic SF and fantasy writers such as Leigh Brackett and Michael Moorcock. I think the line is going for classic as in fun more than classic as in Great Books of the Western World.

Of particular interest to me:

I would breathe a lot easier if we had about twice the number of subscribers than we have at the moment (though there have been a lot of new additions in the last three weeks–thanks!). Right now we have fewer than 300 subscribers. With double that, the future of the line would be assured forever, because we would be more than halfway to profitability on each book before it even left the warehouse. This is the paradigm under which we operate for a lot (most) of our gaming lines, so the fact that Planet Stories lags behind its gaming cousins is something of a cause for concern.

And:

Ultimately a book looks like it will do better if Barnes & Noble orders it, and we tend to frown a lot when they don’t, because it means the long journey to profitability will take longer. On the other hand, with distribution to B&N comes MUCH higher returns than to other channels, so sometimes a book that posts impressive preorders will turn out to not do so hot a year or so down the road, when a lot of those copies have come back.

It’s definitely worth checking out this thread if you have an interest in publishing.

Consequences

Here’s another installment in what seems to be my occasional series on things I learn about writing from being a GM (gamemaster, for those who are less geeky than me).

I was testing a new game system on Saturday with a group of players (the Mongoose Traveller science-fiction role-playing game, for those who are interested). Our group mainly plays Dungeons and Dragons, where most of the conflict occurs when battling monsters. There are skill checks occasionally, and I run political games where the characters have to talk to people and convince them of things, but, for the most part, if something bad’s going to happen to your character, it’s going to be at the hands of some three-headed monster.

Traveller has combat, but it’s also designed to focus a lot on the skills that characters have. A number of scenes in my game required characters to do things like fly out of a crowded shuttle port under intense time pressure, or repair a collapsing tunnel, or deal with failing life support. Because I’m not used to thinking of skills in terms of life-or-death situations, I failed, at first, at giving a sense of consequence. Characters would fail a skill check and I’d say, OK, roll again. Obviously, this kills the sense of rising tension. My husband says I was doing better by the end of the session, but it got me thinking about writing.

Whether you’re writing genre fiction or not, there’s a lot that matters beyond obviously life or death moments. Every time the character does anything or opens his mouth to say anything, he’s doing that one thing instead of dozens of other possibilities, and there’s no taking it back. I’m asking myself if my stories truly reflect the consequences of these character actions. Am I portraying the characters’ choices as truly important? Or, as a writer, am I telling my characters, “Um, OK, roll again”?

In other news: I’m on vacation this week, people. I’m still going to schedule posts, but I may be slow responding to comments. Don’t forget to enter to win a subscription to The Sun. Leave a comment on this post before 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Monday, July 13. Good luck!

Interviews With Editors

Jason Sanford points to a piece in Clarkesworld that contains interviews with 10 editors of major SF and fantasy publications. Required reading.

Single-Sentence Smackdown

Monkeybicycle has a collection of one-sentence stories for the month of June up on their site, which I enjoyed. My favorites are Dan Burt’s “Wet Anarchy” and Roxane Gay’s “Other People’s Children.” Normally I’d quote from them, but that would give the whole story away. Both are quirky and fun. They don’t take themselves too seriously, but I think both offer a real scrap of insight. Gay’s is funny-angry. After I finished laughing at Burt’s, I took a mental step back and got an image of an exhilarating, rules-breaking scene.

Realms of Fantasy Is Not Dead

I thought it was–I’d heard earlier this year that the glossy fantasy magazine would close. I missed the news of its salvation, so I thought I’d share it with you, a few days before the next issue gets released.

I used to read both Realms of Fantasy and its sister publication, Science Fiction Age, back in the 90s. I was really sad when SF Age closed in 2000. Scott Edelman’s editorials for that magazine made a big impression on me–I’ve always particularly remembered one he wrote asking why, after growing up believing that the moon landing would lead to space travel for private individuals, that outcome seemed more distant than ever.

While I love the fantasy and SF digests, I was seduced by the glossy, full-color presentation of SF Age and ROF. I bought ROF’s first issue on the newsstand, and I vividly remember reading through it at the kitchen table, entranced by all that big art.

I totally sent my bad high school fiction to both of these magazines, so somewhere I’ve got collector’s rejection slips

Tir Na Nog Press saved ROF from closure, buying the magazine and keeping both Shawna McCarthy and Doug Cohen on staff. The August issue will be available June 30. Subscriptions are available for $16.95/year (six issues) in the U.S. That doesn’t seem too much to ask to support one of the last glossy fiction mags around.

Short Story Month Becomes a Book

Short Story Month in May launched a barrage of awesome posts by Dan Wickett, Matt Bell, and Steven McDermott into my feed reader. All three wrote a slew of insightful, cogent reviews of stories and story collections.

I couldn’t keep up as a blogger, and I didn’t even try–Wickett reviewed 100 short stories in the month of May, and I found myself exhausted by my 10 posts earlier this month on the Million Writers Award finalists. Yeah.

The bigger tragedy was that I couldn’t keep up as a reader. I couldn’t even keep up with the posts, let alone the stories and collections they pointed to. I remember scrolling through my feed reader feeling like I was committing a crime by marking as read. Those posts could serve as a useful reading guide for months or years to come.

The good news is, that’s what they’re becoming. Dan Wickett announced on the Emerging Writers Network that Dzanc Books will collect 160 Short Story Month essays (by the three above, joined by Aaron Burch, who is now in my feed reader, but wasn’t in May) in a book, which will be available to people who donate $10 or more to Dzanc.

That’s an offer I’ll take. Dzanc is absolutely worth supporting, and this is a book that’s absolutely worth buying.

Can “The Longest Story Ever Told” Be Hacked?

Opium Magazine’s Infinity Issue is getting hype because its cover boasts “the longest story ever told”–a nine-word story by conceptual artist Jonathon Keats that, thanks to a special printing process, will be revealed at the rate of one word per century.

Wired quotes Keats as follows:

“Like most people, I live my life in a rush, consuming media on the run,” said Keats, who has copyrighted his mind, tried to pass a Law of Identity and attempted to genetically engineer God.

“That may be fine for reading the average blog,” he said, “but something essential is lost when ingesting words is all about speed. My thousand-year story is an antidote. Given the printing process I’ve used, you can’t take in more than one word per century. That’s even slower than reading Proust.”

I’m struggling with an urge to correct “longest story” to “slowest story”–my internal purist is stronger than I suspected. But here’s my real burning urge: I want to hack this story. There’s got to be a way to reveal those nine words in less than 1,000 years. All day I’ve been turning around thoughts of modified tanning beds and chemical treatments.

Obviously, the story is a stunt, but what drives me nuts about it is that, in criticizing the speed of blogs, Keats has come up with an alternative that takes the emphasis completely off the words–the story asks to be judged, within our lifetimes,  by the power of its gimmick, not by the power of its word choice or construction. For all I know, this could be his nine-word story:

Haha, suckers. You waited for two words: “Screw you.”

Proust is slow reading but worth it (I’ve only read the first volume, so judge my authority as you will). My experience is that reading a sentence of Proust on a morning bus ride provides a rich and secret thought that lasts all day and more. I’ve thought about what a busy reader should do, and reading a sentence of Proust is up there as a solution. The rebel in me wants to say otherwise, but the truth is that Proust can give more in a sentence than many others do in a story or a book. It’s worth chewing on. It’s worth shutting all the rest out and meditating on it.

Can Keats give me a word that will last a century? Are there any nine words that could be worth such meditation? Could those words tell a story together, or would they simply be Thundering Concepts (as is the story’s title, “Time”)?

If I believed that the answers to these questions might be yes, I’d be thrilled by Keats’ experiment. But I have serious doubts. And so I want to know: Can it be hacked? In other words, does the story stand without the gimmick? Or is the gimmick all there is to the story?

Shall We Try It Again?

I’m trying to give away a subscription to The Sun, but didn’t get any replies to the post offering it up. I’m going to try again, but give you more time. Here’s the deal:

Leave a comment on this post by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, July 13, if you’d like me to send you a one-year gift subscription. At that point, I’ll draw a name out of a hat and choose a winner. I’m afraid I can only afford the U.S. rate for this, so my apologies if any of you are from elsewhere. Of course, I reserve the right to handle things according to my own discretion.

Thanks for reading the blog, and, with luck, you may soon be reading The Sun!

The new date gives me more time to flog the giveaway. I wanted to try this because I think blog giveaways and contests are a fun way to connect with readers. I’d love to hear from you.

What is a Wovel?

Simon Drax’s “wovel,” Exit Vector, started today on the Underland Press site. First, I have to admit that I find the word “wovel,” which stands for “web novel,” incredibly irritating. That said, it’s an interesting experiment.

Exit Vector is essentially a serial, except that readers vote at the end of each segment about what should happen next. From what I can tell, Underland has published one previous wovel, though I can’t find an archive on the site, and I can’t figure out if the resulting novel will be published in print.

I’m not sure how much reader control a wovel will actually give. It didn’t seem to me that the choice at the end of the first segment would necessarily impact the plot to a large extent, but this was only the first installment.

So far, the story is about a drug-soaked teen who looks like she’s about to embark on some sort of noir/steampunk mystery quest. Pulpy, which can be a good thing. I’ll keep reading for now. I’m curious to see how the (possibly false) sense of control affects the reading experience.

Flood of Fiction

I recently discovered QuasarDragon, an incredible blog that posts daily about free, legal fantasy and SF available online. It’s eclectic, including not only short fiction but serials, audio, art, and more. It’s extremely comprehensive. I think this is a great service–though it reminds me how much great stuff I’m missing because there just isn’t time in the day.