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John Scalzi Helps Strange Horizons by Matching Donations

David Halpert — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:34:38 +0000

It always amazes me the power some people can leverage with the internet, so when I saw this story on John Scalzi’s Whatever blog I knew I had to write a post on it. This month (August 2009) Strange Horizons, the monthly online magazine which publishes speculative short stories, poetry, and articles, was holding its annual drive with the intention of raising US$7000 for its annual fund drive.

Scalzi, writer of such works as Old Man’s War and recent Hugo-winning book ‘Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever‘, wrote a post on his blog announcing that he would match whatever donations were made in the 27-hour period of August 14, 2009 up to $500, an additional 3 hours was tacked on for the time difference. At that point the donations were roughly $1565. However, largely in part to Scalzi’s intervention, Strange Horizons not only met its donation target but as of August 15th surpassed its previous amount to $9590 once all of the math was done. As of today (August 19) that total is $13,075.

“We’re going to keep the fund drive going through the end of the month, though. These fund drives aren’t just about money, they’re also about our community, and I know that there are probably people out there who still want to be a part of this effort but haven’t gotten around to it yet,” said Susan Marie Groppi , Editor in Chief of Strange Horizons.

Here’s an article in the LA Times discussing the event.

If you would like to make a donation to Strange Horizons click here to do so.

The Turkey City Lexicon (Part 6 – Character and Viewpoint)

David Halpert — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:29:34 +0000

Alas we come to the final section of the Turkey City Lexicon, character, viewpoint and other miscellaneous things. Sufficed to say if these are your only problems with the story after managing to accomplish every else in the other five parts of the turkey city lexicon then fixing these mistakes should be a cakewalk. On the other hand, a good, well-rounded, or even flawed character is the solid foundation of any good story. Take these suggestions to heart and with any luck you’ll be published soon enough too.

Click Here to view the Turkey City Lexicon in its entirety

• Funny-hat characterization
A character distinguished by a single identifying tag, such as odd headgear, a limp, a lisp, a parrot on his shoulder, etc.

• Mrs. Brown
The small, downtrodden, eminently common, everyday little person who nevertheless encapsulates something vital and important about the human condition. “Mrs. Brown” is a rare personage in the SF genre, being generally overshadowed by swaggering submyth types made of the finest gold-plated cardboard. In a famous essay, “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown,” Ursula K. Le Guin decried Mrs. Brown’s absence from the SF field. (Attr: Virginia Woolf)

• Submyth
Classic character-types in SF which aspire to the condition of archetype but don’t quite make it, such as the mad scientist, the crazed supercomputer, the emotionless super-rational alien, the vindictive mutant child, etc. (Attr. Ursula K. Le Guin).

• Viewpoint glitch
The author loses track of point-of-view, switches point-of-view for no good reason, or relates something that the viewpoint character could not possibly know.

Part Seven: Miscellaneous
• AM/FM
Engineer’s term distinguishing the inevitable clunky real-world faultiness of “Actual Machines” from the power-fantasy technodreams of “Fucking Magic.”

• Consensus Reality
Useful term for the purported world in which the majority of modern sane people generally agree that they live — as opposed to the worlds of, say, Forteans, semioticians or quantum physicists.

• Intellectual sexiness
The intoxicating glamor of a novel scientific idea, as distinguished from any actual intellectual merit that it may someday prove to possess.

• The Ol’ Baloney Factory
“Science Fiction” as a publishing and promotional entity in the world of commerce.

Magazine Watch for August

David Halpert — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:20:10 +0000

I’ve decided to take it upon myself keep the audience apprised of each month’s newest magazine releases for short fiction (or at least a handful of them) to save people the trouble of having to go search for them one at a time. And I shall call this post “Magazine Watch”. This will be a new monthly entry beginning with this month so I hope you enjoy and keep supporting our short fiction magazines.

Conjunctions 52 (Spring ‘09), Edited by Brian Evenson and Bradford Morrow. Postfantasy fictions that begin with the premise that the unfamiliar or liminal really constitutes a solid ground on which to walk.

Stories include:

• Stephen Wright, Brain Jelly,
• Elizabeth Hand, Hungerford Bridge,
• Ben Marcus, Secret Breathing Techniques,
• Stephen Marche, The Personasts: My Journeys Through Soft Evenings and Famous Secrets,
• J. W. McCormack, POIUYT!,
• Joyce Carol Oates, Uranus,
• China Miéville, From The City & the City,
• Jon Enfield, BiotekaKF,
• Julia Elliott, Feral,
• Jedediah Berry, Ourselves, Multiplied,
• Jonathan Carroll, The Stolen Church,
• Scott Geiger, A Design History of Icebergs and Their Applications,
• Karen Russell, Dowsing for Shadows,
• Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, La Tête (translated from the French by Edward Gauvin),
• James Morrow, Bigfoot and the Bodhisattva,
• Theodore Enslin, The Spirit of a Lark,
• Edie Meidav, The Golden Rule, or, I Am Trying to Do the Right Thing,
• Stephen O’Connor, Disappearance And,
• Jeff VanderMeer, Predecessor,
• Shelley Jackson, Flat Daddy,
• Michael J. Lee, The Next Country,
• Rob Walsh, Dr. Eric,
• Micaela Morrissette, The Familiars,
• Patrick Crerand, A Man of Vision,
• Robert Kelly, The Logic of the World.

Greatest Uncommon Denominator (Spring ‘09)

Issue 4 begins with the end of the world and moves on from there. From the unromantically magical take on Ragnarøk in the lead story “Unbound” to the curious history of squid in “A Man of Kiri Maru”, this issue is steeped in mythos, making use of the old familiar tales and some new ones, mixing cosmologies from around the world–and from other worlds as well.

But the focus, be it of prose, poetry, or art, is always on the human–on the clashes between imagination and reality, on choices and redemption, on what the Other can tell us about ourselves. And like any GUD magazine, this one’s eclectic; browse around between the covers and you’re sure to come upon some things you’ll like, whether you’re a genre junkie or a generalist. We hope you’ll find some beauty, something uncommon, and that, for just a moment, the angle of the light will seem a little bit different.

Zahir, Issue 19 (Summer 2009)

Short Fiction by Deirdre Coyle, Cassandra Clarke, Barbara A. Smith, Richard Thieme, R.I. Sutton, and B Robert Caporale.

Zahir is a tri-annual print journal dedicated to publishing the best in speculative fiction by both new and established writers. Each issue features an eclectic mix of literary fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, and stories that are not so easily classified.

Sybil’s Garage, Number 6 (August 5, 2009)

Includes Stories and poetry by:

Poetry
Liz Bourke — “The Girl”
Donna Burgess — “Ashes”
Lyn C. A. Gardner — “God’s Cat”
Alex Dally MacFarlane — “The Wat”
Susannah Mandel — “Metamorphic Megafauna”
Tracie McBride — “An Ill Wind”
Kristen McHenry — “Museum”
Jaime Lee Moyer — “One by Moonlight ”
Daniel A. Rabuzzi — “Backsight”
Michel Sauret — “Brick Wall Giants”
Michel Sauret — “Son of Man”
J.E. Stanley — “City of Bridges”
Sonya Taaffe — “Skiadas”
Marcie Lynn Tentchoff — “Sun-Kissed”

Fiction
Rumjhum Biswas — “Mother’s Garden”
K. Tempest Bradford — “Élan Vital” (read online now)
Autumn Canter — “Day of the Mayfly”
Becca De La Rosa — “Not the West Wind”
Eric Del Carlo — “Come the Cold”
Jason Heller — “The Raincaller”
Paul Jessup — “Heaven’s Fire ”
Vylar Kaftan — “Fulgurite”
Keffy R. M. Kehrli — “Machine Washable”
Sean Markey — “Waiting for the Green Woman”
James B. Pepe — “I am Enkidu, his Wild Brother”
Simon Petrie — “Downdraft”
Genevieve Valentine — “The Drink of Fine Gentlemen Everywhere”
Stephanie Campisi — “Drinking Black Coffee at the Jasper Grey Café”
Toiya Kristen Finley — “Eating Ritual”
Donald Norum — “An Old Man Went Fishing on the Sea of Red”
M-Brane SF (August 4, 2009)

Include Stories By:

GUSTAVO BONDONI: Interplanetary Bicycles and the One Back Home
TRISTAN PALMGREN: Outside the Standard Deviation
JAMIE EYBERG: Winter Solstice
STEPHEN GASKELL: Prisoners
DEBORAH WALKER: Forever Sisters
MICHAEL D. GRIFFITHS: Who Are You?
FRED OLLINGER: The Brightest Spark
COREY BEASOM: Obsolete
ROBERT E. KELLER: The Gates of Plutonis
NEIL COLQUHOUN: Machine
TOM RIBAS: The Probe from Outer Space
LESLIE LUPIEN: Wotan
RICK NOVY: Cex in the Sity

Analog (October 2009)

Novella
Where The Winds Are All Asleep by Michael F. Flynn

Novelettes
Shallow Copy by Jesse L. Watson
An Idea Whose Time Has Come by Robert Grossbach
Cold Words by Juliette Wade

Short Stories
The Hanged Man by William Gleason
Teddy Bear Toys by Carl Frederick
In The Autumn Of The Empire by Jerry Oltion

Asimov’s (September 2009)

Novella
Broken Windchimes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Novelette
Soulmates by Mike Resnick & Lezli Robyn

Short Stories
Away From Here by Lisa Goldstein
Camera Obscured by Ferrett Steinmetz
In Their Garden by Brenda Cooper
The Day Before the Day Before by Steve Rasnic Tem
Tear-Down by Benjamin Crowell
Her Heart’s Desire by Jerry Oltion

Poetry
Speculative Tai Chi by Kendall Evans
Nearly Ready for Occupation by Danny Adams
The Last Alchemist by Bruce Boston

Interzone 223 (August 6, 2009)

Butterfly Bomb
illustrated by Daniel Bristow-Bailey

Coat of Many Colours
illustrated by Daniel Bristow-Bailey

Glister
illustrated by Daniel Bristow Bailey

Each story is introduced by the author and illustrator.
Magpies and Ravens

Dominic Green interviewed by Andrew Hedgecock

Other Stories:
The Transmigration of Aishwarya Desai by Eric Gregory
illustrated by Arthur Wang
Silence and Roses by Suzanne Palmer
illustrated by LeMat

Clarkesworld (August 8, 2009)

Fiction

The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew
by Catherynne M. Valente

Advection
by Genevieve Valentine

Non-Fiction

Long Before They Were Read: Speculative Fiction Book Editors Speak Out, Part 2 of 2
by Jeremy L. C. Jones

The Minimal and Finely Focused Fantasy of Ian C. Esslemont
by Jeremy L. C. Jones

Eternal Lives on Hard-Drives?
by Brian Trent

The Turkey City Lexicon (Part 5 – Background)

David Halpert — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:05:22 +0000

One of the more difficult aspects of short story writing is getting across to the reader a clear sense of backstory to a character or place without it being one gigantic infodump. Setting a story in a particular context (whether it be that of a place or that of a character) can also be seen as the spine of a good short story, without it, it being a clear sense of backstory, the story would otherwise fall apart. Here are some simple yet effective ways to avoid that scenario.

• “As You Know Bob”
A pernicious form of info-dump through dialogue, in which characters tell each other things they already know, for the sake of getting the reader up-to-speed. This very common technique is also known as “Rod and Don dialogue” (attr. Damon Knight) or “maid and butler dialogue” (attr Algis Budrys).

• The Edges of Ideas
The solution to the “Info-Dump” problem (how to fill in the background). The theory is that, as above, the mechanics of an interstellar drive (the center of the idea) is not important: all that matters is the impact on your characters: they can get to other planets in a few months, and, oh yeah, it gives them hallucinations about past lives. Or, more radically: the physics of TV transmission is the center of an idea; on the edges of it we find people turning into couch potatoes because they no longer have to leave home for entertainment. Or, more bluntly: we don’t need info dump at all. We just need a clear picture of how people’s lives have been affected by their background. This is also known as “carrying extrapolation into the fabric of daily life.”

• Eyeball Kick
Vivid, telling details that create a kaleidoscopic effect of swarming visual imagery against a baroquely elaborate SF background. One ideal of cyberpunk SF was to create a “crammed prose” full of “eyeball kicks.” (Attr. Rudy Rucker)

• Frontloading
Piling too much exposition into the beginning of the story, so that it becomes so dense and dry that it is almost impossible to read. (Attr. Connie Willis)

• Infodump
Large chunk of indigestible expository matter intended to explain the background situation. Info-dumps can be covert, as in fake newspaper or “Encyclopedia Galactica” articles, or overt, in which all action stops as the author assumes center stage and lectures. Info-dumps are also known as “expository lumps.” The use of brief, deft, inoffensive info-dumps is known as “kuttnering,” after Henry Kuttner. When information is worked unobtrusively into the story’s basic structure, this is known as “heinleining.”

• “I’ve suffered for my Art” (and now it’s your turn)
A form of info-dump in which the author inflicts upon the reader hard-won, but irrelevant bits of data acquired while researching the story. As Algis Budrys once pointed out, homework exists to make the difficult look easy.

• Nowhere Nowhen Story
Putting too little exposition into the story’s beginning, so that the story, while physically readable, seems to take place in a vacuum and fails to engage any readerly interest. (Attr. L. Sprague de Camp)

• Ontological riff
Passage in an SF story which suggests that our deepest and most basic convictions about the nature of reality, space-time, or consciousness have been violated, technologically transformed, or at least rendered thoroughly dubious. The works of H. P. Lovecraft, Barrington Bayley, and Philip K Dick abound in “ontological riffs.”

• Space Western
The most pernicious suite of “Used Furniture”. The grizzled space captain swaggering into the spacer bar and slugging down a Jovian brandy, then laying down a few credits for a space hooker to give him a Galactic Rim Job.

• Stapeldon
Name assigned to the voice which takes center stage to lecture. Actually a common noun, as: “You have a Stapledon come on to answer this problem instead of showing the characters resolve it.”

• Used Furniture
Use of a background out of Central Casting. Rather than invent a background and have to explain it, or risk re-inventing the wheel, let’s just steal one. We’ll set it in the Star Trek Universe, only we’ll call it the Empire instead of the Federation.

Jim Baen’s Universe to be Closing in 2010

David Halpert — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:39:58 +0000

Apparently this has been on the wire for over two months but for those aspiring writers out there hoping to get their short stories published some day, they should note that Jim Baen’s Universe will be closing with its last issue to be published in April 2010. The bimonthly online science fiction and fantasy magazine launched in June 2006 by Eric Flint and the late Jim Baen. Mike Resnick joined the magazine in its second year of publication.

As to the reasons surrounding the magazine’s closure, Eric Flint released the following information on Jim Baen Universe’s website:

“In a nutshell, we were simply never able to get and retain enough subscribers to put us on a sales plateau that would allow us to continue publishing. From the beginning, we were too dependent on the income from the Universe club. The Club’s purpose was to provide the magazine with a much-needed initial surge of income—which it did indeed provide—and then, after the first year, to continue as an important but subsidiary source of income. Instead, the Club wound up being the source of about half of our annual income, from beginning to end.”

New subscribers can purchase a US$30 subscription for access to any issue of the magazine since its inception in June 2006 through to the last issue coming in April 2010. For people that have been subscribing since the very first issue of the magazine in June 2006, they will either be reimbursed for however many issues they don’t receive (at $5 per issue) or the magazines will figure out alternative arrangements that suit them. It’s just such a shame to see another one of the great short fiction magazines of our time get shut down in its prime but according to the webpage it was simply a matter of funds.

The Turkey City Lexicon (Part 1 – Words and Sentences)

David Halpert — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:44:01 +0000

In anticipation for Anticipation (WorldCon ‘09) in Montreal, I decided to take it upon myself to sign up for a writing workshop to get some insightful criticism on my latest novel, “The Seducer’s Handbook” before I go about editing the second draft. The five-person writing workshop set to take place at this year’s Worldcon involves two professional authors (in my case, Elizabeth Bear and Mark L. Van Name respectively) and two other aspiring authors (who will remain nameless) whose stories I’ve read and critiqued.

So what is the Turkey City Lexicon?

In its most basic form, the Turkey City Lexicon is a glossary of terms that lists a lot of the pitfalls and traps that many aspiring writers fall into with their novels and short stories. While this material is not copyrighted, I don’t want to make it appear as though I had any hand in the creation of these terms. This glossary has evolved over the decades from authors, editors, publishers, and workshops as an aid for aspiring writer to hone their writing abilities.

I only heard about the Turkey City Lexicon last week having written for six years now, so I can only imagine the thousands of aspiring writers out there that don’t know that this primer already exists. The Turkey City Lexicon will be released as a six-part series over the next week or so but for those that are eager feel free to Click Here to View the Turkey City Lexicon in its Entirety.

This first part focuses on the words and sentences that make up a short story and the common pitfalls into which many aspiring writers fall.

Brenda Starr dialogue

Long sections of talk with no physical background or description of the characters. Such dialogue, detached from the story’s setting, tends to echo hollowly, as if suspended in mid-air. Named for the American comic-strip in which dialogue balloons were often seen emerging from the Manhattan skyline.

“Burly Detective” Syndrome

This useful term is taken from SF’s cousin-genre, the detective pulp. The hack writers of the Mike Shayne series showed an odd reluctance to use Shayne’s proper name, preferring such euphemisms as “the burly detective” or “the red-headed sleuth.” This syndrome arises from a wrong-headed conviction that the same word should not be used twice in close succession. This is only true of particularly strong and visible words, such as “vertiginous.” Better to re-use a simple tag or phrase than to contrive cumbersome methods of avoiding it.

Brand Name Fever

Use of brand name alone, without accompanying visual detail, to create false verisimilitude. You can stock a future with Hondas and Sonys and IBM’s and still have no idea with it looks like.

“Call a Rabbit a Smeerp”

A cheap technique for false exoticism, in which common elements of the real world are re-named for a fantastic milieu without any real alteration in their basic nature or behavior. “Smeerps” are especially common in fantasy worlds, where people often ride exotic steeds that look and act just like horses. (Attributed to James Blish.)

Gingerbread

Useless ornament in prose, such as fancy sesquipedalian Latinate words where short clear English ones will do. Novice authors sometimes use “gingerbread” in the hope of disguising faults and conveying an air of refinement. (Attr. Damon Knight)
\
Not Simultaneous

The misuse of the present participle is a common structural sentence-fault for beginning writers. “Putting his key in the door, he leapt up the stairs and got his revolver out of the bureau.” Alas, our hero couldn’t do this even if his arms were forty feet long. This fault shades into “Ing Disease,” the tendency to pepper sentences with words ending in “-ing,” a grammatical construction which tends to confuse the proper sequence of events. (Attr. Damon Knight)

Pushbutton Words

Words used to evoke a cheap emotional response without engaging the intellect or the critical faculties. Commonly found in story titles, they include such bits of bogus lyricism as “star,” “dance,” “dream,” “song,” “tears” and “poet,” cliches calculated to render the SF audience misty-eyed and tender-hearted.

Roget’s Disease

The ludicrous overuse of far-fetched adjectives, piled into a festering, fungal, tenebrous, troglodytic, ichorous, leprous, synonymic heap. (Attr. John W. Campbell)

“Said” Bookism

An artificial verb used to avoid the word “said.” “Said” is one of the few invisible words in the English language and is almost impossible to overuse. It is much less distracting than “he retorted,” “she inquired,” “he ejaculated,” and other oddities. The term “said-book” comes from certain pamphlets, containing hundreds of purpleprose synonyms for the word “said,” which were sold to aspiring authors from tiny ads in American magazines of the pre-WWII era.

Tom Swifty

An unseemly compulsion to follow the word “said” with a colorful adverb, as in “‘We’d better hurry,’ Tom said swiftly.” This was a standard mannerism of the old Tom Swift adventure dime novels. Good dialogue can stand on its own without a clutter of adverbial props.

Locus Editor, Charles N. Brown, Dies at 72

David Halpert — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:07:21 +0000

While I didn’t know Charles N. Brown personally, I feel a post is in order to announce his untimely passing. I heard the news after reading Robert J. Sawyer’s blog and thought it was only prudent to dedicate a post to his life and contributions to the science fiction field. The following biopic was taken from Locus Online’s website and posted on July 13, 2009:

Locus publisher, editor, and co-founder Charles N. Brown, 72, died peacefully in his sleep July 12, 2009 on his way home from Readercon.

Charles Nikki Brown was born June 24, 1937 in Brooklyn NY, where he grew up. He attended the City College of New York, taking time off from 1956-59 to serve in the US Navy, and finished his degree (BS in physics and engineering) at night on the GI Bill while working as a junior engineer in the ’60s. He married twice, to Marsha Elkin (1962-69), who helped him start Locus, and to Dena Benatan (1970-77), who co-edited Locus for many years while he worked full time. He moved to San Francisco in 1972, working as a nuclear engineer until becoming a full-time SF editor in 1975. The Locus offices have been in Brown’s home in the Oakland hills since 1973.

Brown co-founded Locus with Ed Meskys and Dave Vanderwerf as a one-sheet news fanzine in 1968, originally created to help the Boston Science Fiction Group win its Worldcon bid. Brown enjoyed editing Locus so much that he continued the magazine far beyond its original planned one-year run. Locus was nominated for its first Hugo Award in 1970, and Brown was a best fan writer nominee the same year. Locus won the first of its 29 Hugos in 1971.

During Brown’s long and illustrious career he was the first book reviewer for Asimov’s; wrote the Best of the Year summary for Terry Carr’s annual anthologies (1975-87); wrote numerous magazines and newspapers; edited several SF anthologies; appeared on countless convention panels; was a frequent Guest of Honor, speaker, and judge at writers’ seminars; and has been a jury member for various major SF awards.

As per his wishes, Locus will continue to publish, with executive editor Liza Groen Trombi taking over as editor-in-chief with the August 2009 issue.

Locus Award Winners Announced

David Halpert — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:31:10 +0000

To me the Locus Awards are much more than a popularity contest. They are a symbol of the times and a fantastic indicator of any trends we’re seeing in the genre or with the reading public. Every year Locus Magazine, the trade magazine for the science fiction and fantasy publishing industry, holds its annual Locus readers’ poll and whichever nominee receives the most votes wins the award. Winners of the 2009 Locus Awards were announced at a ceremony and banquet June 27, 2009 in Seattle WA during the Science Fiction Awards Weekend.

Science Fiction Novel: Anathem, Neal Stephenson (Atlantic UK, Morrow)

Fantasy Novel: Lavinia, Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt)
First Novel: Singularity’s Ring, Paul Melko (Tor)

Young-Adult Book: The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins, Bloomsbury)

Novella: “Pretty Monsters”, Kelly Link (Pretty Monsters)

Novelette: “Pump Six”, Paolo Bacigalupi (Pump Six and Other Stories

Short Story: “Exhalation”, Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)

Anthology: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s)

Collection: Pump Six and Other Stories, Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade Books

Non-Fiction/Art Book: P. Craig Russell, Coraline: The Graphic Novel, Neil Gaiman, adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell (HarperCollins)

Editor: Ellen Datlow

Artist: Michael Whelan

Magazine: F&SF

Publisher: Tor

John W. Campbell Memorial Award and Theodore Sturgeon Winners Announced

David Halpert — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:17:39 +0000

It seems there’s no stopping Cory Doctorow and Ian R. MacLeod as both tie in winning the 2008 John W. Campbell Memorial Award with their novels Little Brother (Tor) and Song of Time (PS Publishing) respectively. Locus Magazine noted that this is the third tie in the award’s history. It should also be noted that Ian R. MacLeod recently won the 2009 Arthur C. Clarke Award for the same novel and that Little Brother is also nominated for this year’s Hugo Award as well as the Prix Aurora Award.

Similarly, James Alan Gardner’s story “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” (which is also nominated for the Hugo) won this year’s Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award after appearing in Asimov’s last year.

According to Locus, the awards were announced early, but will be presented at a banquet July 10, 2009, held during the Campbell Conference in Lawrence KS, from July 9-12. For more information visit

15 Ways Science Fiction Publishers Can Increase Sales, Save Money, and Promote Publicity

David Halpert — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:18:59 +0000

In these troubled times publishers can use every advantage to make them one step ahead of their competition. However, with a stressful ever-increasing workload sometimes it’s easy to become jaded into what your readers think about your imprint when you work from the inside of the publishing industry. Fortunately, I’m in the unique position of being outside the book publishing industry, but educated enough in publishing to offer a valid opinion. So here are 15 ways science fiction publishers can increase sales, save money, and promote publicity. With any luck spark some new ideas among science fiction and fantasy publishers.

1) Prepare Publicity Kits for First-Time Authors

Publishing can be daunting, not just as an aspiring author hoping to get published but also the publishing industry itself. If you’re a first-time author whose literary work is about to be published and you have little to no knowledge of how the industry operates or the process a book goes through from start to finish to get published, you will likely be marred by feelings of confusion, anxiety, and maybe even dread.

Authors are not public relations experts. Many times they are shy, introverted, solitary creatures (myself included) who have to have their hands held while on book tours. As you no doubt already know, the publicity budgets for first-time authors is relatively low in the place of authors who already have a media platform to work with. As a result, the first time author is largely his or her own publicity agent. Bottom line, if your clients/authors don’t know what the hell they’re doing in terms of publicity, you (the publisher) are going to lose sales. It’s that simple.

The solution, create a publicity guide or manual to give to your authors as a kind of stepping stone to promote their works. “What is in this guide?” you might ask. Anything you want: websites, resources, how to design a media kit, brochures, newsgroups, how to book an interview, the process of book publishing, trade publishing magazines, basically a one-stop shop for any new authors joining your ranks.

2) Forget Review Copies, Use Kindle

I read an interesting post a few weeks ago from someone in the book publishing industry who claimed that it was in fact cheaper for publishers to purchase a Kindle for their cornerstone reviewers (i.e. associate trade press, influential bloggers/websites, etc.) and simply offer them an electronic version of the book to review instead of its printed counterpart. Now these numbers would have to be viewed by someone with more authority in the publishing industry than myself to make sure the numbers are sound, but here are a few things that are true.

While a Kindle may costs US$400-500 as an initial purchase, it is a fixed cost that doesn’t have to be reinstated until the device has to be replaced. And how much do review copies (ARCs, bound galleys, costs of shipping, etc.) actually cost in terms of real dollars. While I will most likely prefer a tangible copy to an electronic one, wouldn’t it make sense to give the reviewer who has a stack of books on his/her desk the option to go electronic? While they may in the end choose to go for the book, most people won’t refuse a free gift, much less a Kindle. They’re also probably likely to review your books as a sign of gratitude.

3) Move Away From a Brand and Towards a Community

If you were to go to Tor.com for the first time, you’d never suspect it was a book publisher. At best you might think it’s a publisher’s blog but it would definitely take some digging before you realized that this was in fact the largest book publisher of science fiction and fantasy in North America. Let me make something clear, when I say move towards a community I don’t mean to simply add Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious icons to your website or to have a newsletter—these should be givens already.

If you were to go to the major science fiction imprints (i.e. Roc, Ace, Bantam Spectra, Dell, etc.) they would appear very similar—if not identical—to the website of the publishing house that represents it. Now once again I’m singling out Tor.com because of it’s boldness to take a chance on something different. It’s a website for the well-informed (and well-read) science fiction aficionados, with blog posts as well as original stories from its community of authors that are informative, enjoyable, and regularly updated.

Tor.com gives more than it takes and has become a vehicle to discuss issues of science fiction, literature, and the publishing industry in general. In addition to creating a loyal fanbase where people repeatedly visit on a daily basis, it has also become a unique platform for Tor to market its own works without coming off as preachy or desperate. Many book publisher websites give off the impression that publishing is this closed off industry in big Ivory Towers, but Tor’s website fosters an atmosphere of transparency, acceptance, and most importantly, inclusion, and hopefully some science-fiction publishers will soon follow suit.

4) Don’t Just Offer All of your Authors under One Publisher Username (Twitter)

While I applaud science fiction and fantasy houses for creating accounts on Twitter many are forgetting one simple fact, “We don’t read every author across your imprint!” Say, for example, that I’m a fan of Robert J. Sawyer (which I am) and only read Robert J. Sawyer under the Tor/Forge imprint line, then why would I join a group of thirty or more authors and receive tweets from authors I hadn’t even heard of, let alone like. Take note: if you’re going to cluster all of your authors into one Twitter username, make sure you highlight authors with individual accounts as well close by. By doing this, not only does it save your readers the hassle but each author’s individual account also acts as a yardstick to gauge which authors are more popular across your imprint.

5) Consider Freelancing Your Artwork

They say you should never judge a book by its cover. This is true. However, if you don’t have a firm grounding in literature and what’s out there on the market, chances are all you’re going to care about is the artwork. Case in point is the cover to the first edition hardcover for Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin released by Tor a few years ago. Personally I think this is one of the worst covers to be released by a science fiction publishing house.

It’s far too dark, ugly and quite frankly looks like it was put together by a junior high school student for an art school project. It’s hard to believe I was so close to not reading this book, because not only did it win the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2007, it was also one of the best science fiction novels I’ve ever read period.

Now compare this to another classic like Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash which in my opinion is one of the best crafted covers in science fiction literature, no doubt helping push sales over the last fifteen years, despite some of the literary shortcomings of Stephenson’s novel.

6) Offer More Contest / Giveaways!

It’s true, people like free stuff, especially books, and readers tend to take note of a publishing house or book being promoted that would otherwise go unnoticed. I myself enter 100 contests a day, and while I keep up-to-date with a lot of things related to books, authors, events, and the publishing industry at large, much of the general public does not.

It’s very easy to stand out even among other contests. How? Offer a Kindle, or if you’re dealing with Canada, a Sony Reader (still don’t know why we can’t get them here) in lieu of books. What’s the advantage here? Let’s say you hold a contest and your prize is a fantasy novel, it’s very likely that the only people that will enter the contest are devouted fantasy readers. This pigeonholing will ultimately lead to a loss of publicity, however, appeal to every reader and you’re in like Flint. It’s also a good idea to offer free ebooks on sites like Suvudu as well.

7) Start a Newsletter

Without sounding as if I’m favoring one particular author, one of the reasons why I’m such a huge fan of Robert J. Sawyer is the way he markets himself. He’s a perfect balance between fantastic storytelling and author branding (but his books are fantastic nonetheless). One of the ways he does this is with a quarterly newsletter and I got to tell you, getting a newsletter every couple of months automatically sent to my inbox outlining some of the author’s accomplishment, events, and musings saves me the time of having to go online to search for it myself.

Now obviously a lot of publishers have done this already, and some might be rolling their eyes at this post saying stuff like, “Well, we have an RSS feed” or “We have Twitter account”. But those of us too lazy to subscribe or prefer our information given to us clumped together at successive intervals starting a newsletter only makes sense. If you’re a publisher sending out a newsletter to agents, publicists, and media outlets already, why not make some of that information available to the public as well. Email is not dead. It’s a solid medium to get the word out and provides another metric for analyzing your consumer base.

8 ) Offer Books for Free Under a Creative Commons License

Okay, I can already tell that a lot of you are cringing at this suggestion. You probably think I’m one of those Gen-Yers with a “Let’s Give Everything Away for Free” mentality. And maybe I am, but there are some sound reasons for doing so. Cory Doctorow and Peter Watts (both Canadian!) are just two authors that have claimed that offering their books online for free has only increased their sales counts.

Now as a publisher whose ultimate goal is to make money, I completely sympathize with your position. I understand most will probably not want to put a link towards a free downloadable PDF. But at the very least (for the love of God!) place a creative commons symbol notifying if your author’s works are already under a creative commons license and let the readers judge whether or not they want to download their works. The fact is if people like what they see online many will in fact go out and purchase the hard copy at the bookstore. It’s easy word-of-mouth advertising and will likely do more good than harm.

9) Branch into Other Subgenres

As near as I can tell there are approximately 10-12 different subgenres within science fiction. Cyberpunk, hard science fiction, alternate history, apocalyptic – these are some of the categories that make up the genre. Fantasy does this as well — epic fantasy, high fantasy, erotic fantasy, urban fantasy. Yet sometimes I find that some big name imprint publishers are very rigid and uncompromising when it comes to the subject matter across their entire line of books.

The last thing a publisher wants is to be pigeonholed into one subgenre by its audience or readers. Science fiction has always been a genre of inclusivity, not the other way around. If you feel that your imprint branding is seen as rigid it might be time to consider taking on one or two new authors whose works tend to drift along the edges as to what you consider ‘normal’. Baen Books recently did this by publising a few fantasy titles for a book publisher that has traditionally only published military science fiction with some space opera elements. A good move in my opinion.

10) Use Twitter (if you’re not doing so already)

By now this strategy is sort of self-explanatory and being utilized across many markets but there will always be some publishers that want to clinch to the traditional avenues for publicity and media rather than to get on board with the latest in social media. However, in this instance if you want to not only spread your network, increase your audience, and reach anyone then having an account on Twitter is absolutely crucial in today’s publishing market. More people are reading ebooks, less people are reading period. It takes literally five minutes to set it up and best of all it’s free. For more information as to why social media is important click here to read, “What the Fuck is Social Media?”

11) Highlight Editors Blogs

If there’s something I love more than reading the blogs of my favorite science fiction authors, it’s reading the blogs of their editors. Editors are largely the face of a publishing house, working hard behind the scenes to bring you the literature on the market today. They’re also very knowledgeable and at times candid about what goes on in their daily lives.

But they’re also interesting to read. Reading an editor’s blog humanizes editors rather than giving them the image of a gatekeeper whose sole responsibility it is to reject manuscripts. That’s not the idea! For me, reading editors blogs helps me to better understand not only what a particular editor is looking for but also how to gain an intimate first-hand knowledge of the publishing industry that you can’t get from reading books on publishing. If you don’t already highlight an editor’s blog on your publishing website, DO SO IMMEDIATELY! It will easily increase traffic to your publishing house, and with any luck increase sales as well.

12) Discover New Authors through the Blogosphere

Now this suggestion is not directed to one publishing house, and will likely not increase sales in the traditional sense but it always makes me hopeful. John Scalzi is a science fiction writer that for the past ten years has owned and operated his Whatever blog, which to date gets an estimated 50,000 viewers a day. While back in 2001 Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden found some of Scalzi’s work and offered him a book contract that would become his first novel Old Man’s War. Now Scalzi’s example is very rare in the publishing industry and Scalzi deserves much credit for sticking with his blog for a decade as well as being an early adopter of blogging platforms.

Nevertheless, it makes you think of how the traditional routes for getting published have changed and just how hard it is for aspiring writers to get published today. But if you’re an editor consider some of the advantages to finding an author through their blog rather than through a literary agent. They’re obviously dedicated if they have a completed novel available (with possibly years of writing experience on their blogs). It’s also likely they have some kind of audience alrady and media platform to work from.

This is why I blog? While writing has always remained a passion of mine I feel that it is important to find other avenues of trying to get published other than simply sending out query letters. And for all of those literary agents and editors out there click here to view my novel “Second Death”.

13) Avoid Trends

Now at first this might sound counter-productive, and it probably is. A lot of publishers think they can piggyback on the success of other books when in fact this might be doing more harm than good in the long run. Two obvious trends today: vampires and zombies. Now unless you’ve got a completely original manuscript with a fresh take with these tropes, such as Mario Acevedo’s The Nymphos of Rocky Flats or Max Brook’s The Zombie Survival Guide it would probably be best to avoid trends.

Why? Well, for starters it usually takes a year or two to get a book from an editor’s desk to the bookshelves anyway, right? Is your trend going to be as popular a year or two from now as it is today? Similarly, if other publishers are already following these trends, the best thing you can probably due is back off and pool your resources for a different promising project. Readers are very savvy. If they see your publishing house is trying push more copies of a cookie-cutter vampire book (largely on the heels the Twilight series) they’re going to view your company’s image as clichéd, unoriginal, and will likely avoid your books across your entire imprint.

14) Put All of Your Authors on a Level Playing Field

Now I have really no empirical evidence to back this one up, if anything this rule relies solely on instinct rather than fact. In my opinion no two authors are created equal, a publisher’s website is proof of this. Granted some authors have been around for decades, have a strong devoted fan base, and sell in the thousands but should they be offered any more opportunity than any other writer on your current client list? Absolutely not.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying to pull down your most popular authors or books off the front homepage. What I’m saying is that if you offer an author profile, a photo, a bio, a bibliography, and sample chapters for one author, it would be a good idea to extend the same package to all of your authors across your list. If an author chooses not to have a photo up, say “no photo at the author’s request”. If some authors get upset over this, tell them to create their own website (if they haven’t done one already) and give them complete control to do whatever they wish with it.

Doing this gives your website a more consistent feel. If your readers see one author is given ten pages of content with all the bells and whistles to go along with it while another author just starting out is given the bare minimum, what does that say about your publishing line?

15) Make Your Social Media More Visible

I think it’s great at the number of book publishing websites that have embraced the various forms of social media out there that exist (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, etc.). What I hate is having to go to great lengths to locate the appropriate icons on the homepage in order to join or subscribe to these social mediums. This is the result of two things, either (1) the icons are too small or (2) the icons are not located in plain sight. This is the easiest thing a publisher’s website can change to increase their subscriber base. SF Signal is probably one of the best examples of this (Click Here to View). In recent months, the website’s owner enlarged their icons and placed them on the upper-left corner of the site, making it the first thing you see when you access the site, and over the last few weeks I’ve noticed the number of subscribers increase substantially as a result.