Short Fiction Follow-Up Thoughts
Since I’ve already jumped into a boiling pot of water this week (see prior posts), I might as well add a few additional comments, something I was planning on doing anyway. (I’m fairly sure I’m not burnt out on short fiction, since when I find something great, I still get as excited as a kid, so take it in that context…)
(1) There’s been a lot of talk about falling subscriber bases and circulations for magazines like Asimov’s SF Magazine and F&SF, and a lot of speculation as to why. People are just reading less short fiction. People are reading less genre fiction. The magazines are doing something wrong. Not enough women. Not enough this, not enough that. Regardless, what would the field look like without these magazines? In other words, if you’re one of the people criticizing them, and I have been at times, are you willing to live in a world without them? I’m not. I might be immune to F&SF’s charms for the most part, but I think the field would be poorer without it and the others like it. When I have money again, I plan to subscribe to them. Others should too, and keep submitting to them. (It is possible to support in a broad sense and offer constructive criticism in a specific sense.) Unless, again, you think you can live with them gone. It’s one thing to complain about them, it’s another to envision them no longer there.
(2) For those who think a magazine isn’t publishing more of what you want to see, start your own publication (making sure you do it up right). Starting with Jabberwocky back in the 1980s and then Leviathan, that’s what I did, to provide a home for what I thought I wasn’t seeing in the magazines. Then, with the rise of Small Beer Press (Trampoline being an excellent antho from them) and a ton of others, that didn’t seem as important any more, because the entire paradigm had changed. Now it does, once again, seem important because the genre, to my mind, is getting somewhat conservative again. (Nothing wrong with that–just means unconventional stuff needs more support.) But, if you do start up a publication, you’re now going to have to go against the LCRW model in terms of design and approach because there are a lot of mags doing that right now. (And, wearily he says, do not interpret this as a dig at LCRW.)
(3) See my post about closed versus open anthologies. Jeff Ford in a comments thread said anthologists should be able to invite whoever they want to their anthologies. This, of course, is true, but I hope new editors entering the field think carefully about the implications of how they operate, on writers and the field.
(4) Support short fiction writers you love or think are interesting or need more attention on your blog (for example, my nascent Bookless interviews) and by buying their short story collections. This last is especially important and story collections tend to sell poorly.
(5) Support the free online publications like Strange Horizons and Clarkesworld that consistently publish new writers and aren’t afraid to publish a variety of traditional and non-traditional material. Also remember that publications like Weird Tales are extremely open to new writers and deserve support.
You can do all of this, in essence engaging in a positive dialogue, while still being critical and wanting to change the paradigm. Changing the paradigm doesn’t have to mean taking a blow torch to what’s already out there. But the point is, too: no matter what you say somewhere, that doesn’t mean nearly as much as doing something.
Jeff
October 20, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I think it’s important to realise that short fiction is a medium of its own distinct from the rest of genre publishing. So a lot of us might go “I don’t read short fiction, why should I care if the mags go under?” and actually not be cutting off our own noses to spite our faces… especially as publishers tend to lack the time to read these mags as a way of uncovering talent.
I think it’s a medium worth preserving (Ted Chiang justifying the medium by himself) and so it is, as you say, worth investing. I just wish that the magazines had more obvious agendas allowing you to sensibly choose between them without having to compare issues going back years.
I can also invision a future without dead tree magazines and don’t think that this is necessarily a future to be feared. There would still be paying markets and decent venues but they’d be far more accessible (particularly to us Europeans who frequently run the gauntlet of time dilation that is the intercontinental postal service).
October 20, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Ageed on all points.
JV
October 20, 2007 at 2:35 pm
If you don’t mind, could you expand on what you meant by saying new zines will have to go up against LCRW in terms of design? I am currently trying to put out issue 2 of my zine (it got delayed due to health reasons), but have never seen an issue of LCRW, though of course I’ve heard of it & know about what type of fiction it publishes. I think it’s had some really good stuff, but I tend to like slightly more accessible stuff than a lot of its stories (at the risk of not being edgy;). So could you expand on what you meant about design?
October 20, 2007 at 4:03 pm
The LCRW model is folded over, usually photocopied, saddle-stapled 11 x 17 (I believe) paper. Low quality production values, but on purpose. It’s a highly effective way to ensure low overhead, but can still look sophisticated. It’s the classic ‘zine approach. My argument isn’t that it’s not a good approach, but that if I were doing a magazine today, I’d now switch it up, do 8 x 11 or some other size, with the corresponding change in layout and design that a different format requires.
Jeff
October 20, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Jeff: I have issue #20 of LCRW in front of me and doing a quick eyeball and comparing it to an 8.5X11 sheet of paper, I’d say its 8.5X14 (legal size) folded to 8.5X7.
Electric Velocipede appears to be the same size.
October 20, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Thanks–that’s what I meant! Again, it’s great zine size and approach, nothing wrong with it, but it’s being done a lot. Just my two cents.
JV
October 20, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Thanks, guys! As I did the 8×11 folded in half style to begin with, I feel quite proud of myself. ;) (Actually, it was the easiest & most obvious design to my mind.) Anyway, if you want, check Cats With Wings out at my website, which I believe Jeff puts as a link on the poster’s name. Thanks for letting me plug!
October 21, 2007 at 3:11 am
On a point that Jonathon M made :-
Sell your short story collections electronically, too. Not to mention Weird Tales. This is probably more important now with your crazy post office?
While fancy hardback collectables are nice if you have access (or can afford it, one of them perhaps being the price for a 2 year magazine subscription), once those few hundred are gone, that is it, making you doomed to an audience of a few hundred North Americans perhap, or UK people (or Australians if you are talking Terry Dowling or Sean Williams or someone like that), as far as local small publications go.
Or, do you want to be collected or read, I suppose. :)
I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that, or how those small presses make their money. Do they reprint much if they sell out? Do they think people won’t buy them if their customers know some bloke in Northern Ireland has an electronic version with the same stories sitting on their harddisk with exactly the same content?
October 21, 2007 at 11:54 am
That’s true. I like the idea of book as artifact, but if you can provide an online version people can print out and feel comfortable reading, nothing wrong with that.
I’m debating putting my Secret Life collection out as creative commons.
jeff
October 22, 2007 at 9:26 am
“Also remember that publications like Weird Tales are extremely open to new writers and deserve support.”
Second that. I’ve always found WT to be an excellent market for submissions and have received the best rejection letters from them (besides the one from our host). So Ann will be plagued with my submissions for some time to come. Sorry about that. :)