What Not to Wear

John Joseph Adams, the Slush God (erstwhile assistent editor at the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction [F&SF]) provided a post recently discussing a submission he received for F&SF. You see, instead of following instructions like these from William Shunn, the person felt they could do their own thing with the submission. Things like:

[I]t was full of red, white, and blue stars, which got all over the place when I opened the envelope.

Not a good idea. You need to think of sending in a submission like a job interview. You wouldn't walk into an interview and throw a handful of confetti all over the person, would you? F&SF has pretty clear submission guidelines. Nowhere in them does it state that the editors would like a handful of confetti with the story.

I'll never understand why, 1) authors don't follow the guidelines put forth by the publication, and 2) authors want to question guidelines. The guidelines are there to make sure you have the minimum sense of following instructions. Should an editor like your story, most likely you will have to follow more instructions before the story is published. Instructions such as editorial notes where the editor tells you what problems to fix in your story. Don't take it personally. Everyone needs editing, and I mean everyone.

You'll hopefully see a set of page proofs to make sure there are no errors in the final form of the manuscript, and the editor will give a deadline to turn those in. Ignore the deadline instructions, and that egregious error you discovered will not get fixed. If the editor wants the manuscript set in Courier, do it. Not doing so gives the editor an easy way to say no to your submission.

You think this doesn't happen on the job front? If the job ad says send in your resume, salary history, and three references, and you only send in the resume, you won't get called. You've already shown that you can't complete a task set forth by the company. A simple task at that. If you can't follow the job application instructions, why would you be able to perform any of the tasks associated with the job?

Here is a quick list of don'ts when it comes to submissions: don't send your submissions set in cute typefaces or any typeface different from what the editor asks for (unsure, use Courier), don't send your submissions on funny colored paper, don't ask if you can e-mail a submission when the guidelines say they don't accept e-mail submission (I guarantee the editor will remember your name when and if you mail in the submission), and finally, don't send confetti, prizes, toys, food, or anything other than a cover letter and SASE with your submission.

The editor already has limited space for fiction, don't give him or her easy (and stupid) reasons to toss your submission in the trash.

John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede

Tags: submission guidelines, science fiction, Slush God, instructions
writers, writing, publishing, zine

Available now!

Jeff VanderMeer's amazing novel/collection The City of Saints and Madmen is now available in a trade edition from Bantam. Amazon is selling the book for a measly $11.20. If you haven't picked up this book yet, you have no excuses now. Even if you have an edition already (or like me, have three or four editions) you should pick up this new volume.

From Jeff's blog:

Today the Bantam trade paperback edition of City of Saints & Madmen appears in bookstores all over the U.S. and Canada. This 700-page edition features the wonderful cover created by James Hollywell at Pan Macmillan and the definitive text.

And:

Juha Lindroos has revamped my website to coincide with the release and Mark Roberts and I, with input from Bantam, have created the definitive City of Saints fun page for readers, and the definitive press kit. You can also download the banner ads and use them on your own websites. I hope some of you will. Here are the links.

This is one of the few books I've actually gone back and re-read. You can see from this discussion thread that I have a lot to read. And yet, I felt compelled to come back to Jeff's book and take another look inside its cover. There's always something new to find. If you haven't already experienced this book, you won't regret it.

If you go the entry Jeff has created for the Bantam release, you'll get links to all sorts of new things he's made in preparation for this book coming out from Bantam.

John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede

Tags: Bantam, science fiction, VanderMeer, writers, writing, publishing

The face of the future of science fiction?

gavin_grant_and_john_klima_kgb
Originally uploaded by gumboeditor.

Just wondering.

Photo copyright Ellen Datlow.

Tags: zine, science fiction, velocipede, writers, writing, publishing

Two Quick Pieces of News

First, issue #9 has been reprinted and copies are available at $4 apiece. Please e-mail me if you are interested in obtaining a copy. There was a lot of good fiction in this issue, hence the reason why it sold out. Here is the table of contents for that issue:

FICTION
The Chiaroschurist by Hal Duncan
Another Day by Mark Rich
Hard Time by Mark Tiedemann
A Taste for Flowers by Jay Caselberg
Braids of Glass by Jonathan Laden
In Strange Countries and Foreign Parts by Anna Tambour
The Euonymist by Neil Williamson
Solipster by Jason Erik Lundberg

POETRY
Stalling Wonderland by Kristine Ong Muslim
The New City by Kristine Ong Muslim
In Search of the Shrine by David C. Thompson

NON-FICTION
Attic Space by Bill Braun

Second, Electric Velocipede is now a paying market. The rate is about 1 cent/word. However, this is not an exact science since I round word counts, I'll be rounding the final amount up to make a nice number (i.e. $40 instead of $39). There will be a $25/story minimum payment. I'm still working out exactly what I'm paying for poetry. More on this later.

Tags: zine, science fiction, velocipede, writers, writing, publishing

Tagged

OK, so Andrea over at Library Tectonics tagged me to do this four things meme. I'm gonna cheat first, and then do some work.

First, the cheat. I did this meme last year. Check it out here.

Second, the work. I'll do the meme again.

Four Jobs I've Had (I've had more than a dozen, I'm sure):

• Fast-food worker (Wendy's)
  
• Special Waste Sales Agent (Waste Management, I would cold call people to see if they had special waste to get rid of, i.e. paint, asbestos, oil, etc.)
  
• Editor (Tor Books, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Facts On File, Night Shade Books, and more)
  
• Librarian (Franklin Township Public Library and Rutgers)
  

Four movies I can watch over and over:

• Coming to America
  
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)
  
• Singin' in the Rain
  
• Dead Man
  

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:

• Lost
  
• Good Eats
  
• Sportscenter
  
• The Office (as much as I loved the UK version, I LOVE the US version; it's my FAVORITE TELEVISION SHOW EVAR)
  

Four Places I've been on Vacation:

• Glasgow
  
• London
  
• Montreal
  
• New Orleans
  

Four Favorite Dishes:

• Jambalaya
  
• A nice burger with some blue cheese
  
• Fish Pie (you have to try it, it is SO good)
  
• Whatever new recipe my wife and I find next
  

Four Websites I visit Daily:

• Bloglines
  
• IMDB
  
• ESPN
  
• Night Shade Books discussion board
  

Four Places I'd Rather Be:

• Counting my lottery winnings
  
• Accepting a Hugo award
  
• New Orleans
  
• Madison, WI
  

Four books I'd recommend:

• The Phantom Tollbooth
  
• The Great Gatsby
  
• Frankenstein
  
• and it depends on what I've read most recently...
  

People I'm tagging...if you read this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged.

Kick out the jams

Well, following the trend of Mr. Duncan and Mr. Rowe and Ms. Bond, here is my punk roots:

Black Flag This is where you belong in the annals of punk history!

Oh man, if people knew what was good for them, they better stay out of your way. No one knows the fury and rage that boils in your veins. Only you do and the only way to let it out is to shout at the top your lungs and barrel over anything or anyone who tells you otherwise! Someday, your wisdom will be second to none, you've lived hard and have the battle scars - inside and out, you just need to mellow out...fuck that!

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 46% on wild apathy You scored higher than 93% on pissed off You scored higher than 9% on comically evil You scored higher than 32% on socially aware

Link: The What classic punk band are you Test written by DrLebowski on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

And I'm not surprised. They are my favorite punk band after all. :)

Bow Before Matt Cheney

Have you read Matt Cheney's blog Mumpsimus? It's always interesting and well thought out. For my dollar, something from Matt is always worth looking at. If he ever gets a novel published, I'll be among the first to buy it. It's not a word I like to throw around, but there are times when I think that Matt is brilliant.

Then he goes beyond what I expect from him and writes essays like this.

There's a lot to look at here. There are a lot of ideas presented by Matt, and more questions raised than answered. The initial problem of how do you get a new reader to see beyond the words and look for potential meaning in the text is never completely addressed. I think that in a lot of ways, Matt does now know the answers himeself.

This essay does what Matt Cheney writing always does, it makes you think. Matt is not the type of person to throw off some words on a page (like I do) and be satisfied with them. He thinks about what he's going to commit to the page before he does it. Every word was selected carefully.

One of the more striking passages is this:

The first time I read William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, I threw it across the room after the first twenty pages. I had never actually thrown a book before, but I couldn't figure out what kind of novel this was, I didn't understand what was happening, I couldn't find a way in, and I felt stupid, a fool. But I also felt guilty for throwing the book, and so I walked over and picked it up and continued reading. After reading thirty more pages, I threw it across the room again. Still, I felt guilty. I picked it up, continued reading. After forty more pages, I threw it across the room again. I screamed. I gnashed my teeth. I whined and moaned. I picked up the book, and continued reading.

It remains my favorite novel, the only book that gives me absolute, euphoric pleasure when I read any page of it.

I read this essay out loud to my wife--a high school English teacher with a Master's in Education--and she stopped me when I finished this passage. She said, "That's exactly right. When I first read A Portrait of Dorian Gray in high school I found it so ponderous. But now, it's one of my favorite books and I discover new things every time I read it." I was lucky enough to come to some texts as an adult and have my English/Philosophy degree behind me before I tackled them. Texts like the aforementioned A Portrait of Dorian Gray, The Scarlet Letter, Frankenstein, and The Great Gatsby. At the same time, I still struggle through writers like Derrida and Hesse, because I know the pay off will be worth it, but it's hellish at the time.

What's the point of this little 'love poem' to Matt Cheney? Well, if you're trying to figure out who to nominate for Best Fan Writer, nominate Matt Cheney. He has a lot of work online, so you should have no problem finding examples to read.

Syndication...does that mean I've hit the big time?

Just noticed that someone has syndicated me onto LiveJournal. That's pretty cool. I know that people who use LiveJournal have an easier time of linking to and reading other LiveJournal accounts than to non-LiveJournal accounts, so the work is appreciated.

If the person who did so wants to step forward, e-mail me and get a free subscription.

Also, this makes me think about how people are reading blogs in the first place. Very early I found it necessary to use some sort of aggregator. I initially used a downloaded aggregator since I was at one desk eight-nine hours a day. Since I've left that job and now work at home and several part-time jobs, I've find it necessary to use an online aggregator, which I like a lot.

My downloaded aggregator had a couple hundred feeds in it and was overwhelming at times. My online version has grown slowly, but I've been more selective about what I add. (I like that I can add UPS numbers to my online aggregator and track packages through an RSS feed) I sat around 50 feeds for a long time until I read that Steven Cohen, of the always amazing Library Stuff, has almost 600 feeds in his aggregator and unwittingly (and unintentionally) shamed me into adding more. I have about 100 feeds right now. You need to be careful and not let them overwhelm you. Set aside some time when you read everything (twice a day is a nice way to stay caught up) and not continually update the links (which I sometimes do when the work day slows down).

I personally like the aggregator since I can read Blogger, LiveJournal, ALA, personal, Netflix, and other RSS feeds. But, how do you read blogs and RSS feeds? Are you only in a set community (like LiveJournal) or do you use an aggregator and read all over the place?

John Klima
Editor
Electric Velocipede

More books = more gooder

Tuesday was a good day. I finally got a chance to go to my PO Box, and there's two titles in it from the Hard Case Crime book club. I love good hard-boiled crime books. It's a weakness I have. First, there was Erle Stanley Gardner's Top of the Heap. Looks good; I don't know anything about his work, but I've seen the name around. Second, there's Charles Williams' (I'm assuming not the same Williams who was in The Inklings with Tolkien and Lewis, but who knows?) A Touch of Death. The cover makes me shiver. I love a good pulpy cover of a dame in distress (yeah, I just said dame), except that if you really look at it, she's far from distress. She'll kick your ass if you're not careful. Always good to see some books from Hard Case. I love their covers and I love the mix of reprints and original work they're publishing. Really fantastic stuff.

Then there's the ARC of Barth Anderson's The Patron Saint of Plagues. This is one of my most-anticipated titles of this year. I'm excited to get the chance to read it before it comes out. I've enjoyed Barth's stories and his blog is a pleasure to read in its own right.

It's always cool to go the PO Box and have meaningful stuff in it. (unlike the attempts for more credit cards and loans that I usually get) Also got a coupon for Cold Stone Creamery. Score! Not that I need such decadence, but when I can have it for a bargain, I'm going!

Then I get home on Tuesday. My wife says, "We got a box from Amazon. Did we order books?" Why yes we did! Rick Bowes' From the Files of the Time Rangers (A book I've waited FAR too long to pick up; I heard Rick read some of this at KGB before it came out and it sounded fantastic) and Tamar Yellin's The Genizah At The House Of Shepher (a book that's been recommended to me from many sources) to be specific. I was not-so-seriously chastised by my wife for spending the money on books (she's a high school English teacher, she never gets all that mad about more books coming into the house) instead on things for our soon-to-be-born baby. But have you met Rick? I'm sure he's great with babies!

What an awesome day! Five in one day. That's almost like the giant-killer.

Science fiction in the mail

So today I got some pieces of mail (one physical, one virtual) that were science fiction themed. The first one was in my PO Box from Clarion West. This was curious to me. I'm not a writer, and I can't imagine that they'd ask me to be an instructor. It turns out it was a flyer for writers, at least that's what I assume it was.

The gist of it was that the deadline is fast approaching--March 1--for applying to Clarion. Now, while I will not be applying to Clarion myself, but I can't recommend the program enough. I've published more than a dozen Clarion graduates (including Catherine Dybiec Holm, Trent Walters, Edd Vick, William Shunn, Beth Adele Long, Jonathan Laden, Jason Erik Lundberg, Daniel Braum, Alan DeNiro, Jeff VanderMeer, Alex Irvine, Mark W. Tiedemann, and Sharon Woods; apologies to anyone I missed) in the pages of Electric Velocipede. Suffice to say, I like what the writing program is doing.

This year's instructors are fantastic (as always):

• Paul Park
  
• Maureen McHugh
  
• Ian MacLeod
  
• Nalo Hopkinson
  
• Ellen Datlow
  
• Vernor Vinge
  

So, get your application in before the deadline if you want to make a difference in your writing career!

Now, the other piece of mail. This had to do with the Locus Reader's Poll and Survey and how it's open for ballots. You don't have to be a subscriber, although subscribers receive an additional issue on their subscription just for filling out the survey.

Here you can vote for (either from the drop-down list comprised of the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2005* or by writing in an entry) what you felt were the best books, stories, editors, publications, etc. of last year. Now, Electric Velocipede is in the Best Magazine category (although I don't think I have much of a chance against perennial favorites like Asimov's, Analog, F&SF, Realmf of Fantasy, and others). You'll also find me in the list for editor. With the exception of Hal Duncan's "The Chiaroscurist" (a novelette), all of the fiction from last year should go in the short-story category.

* I have to note that NONE of the fiction from Electric Velocipede made the recommended list this year. Very frustrating, as it takes two...TWO...people to suggest something for it to be on the list. Sigh. I thought there was some very strong fiction in Electric Velocipede last year, but I seem to be alone on that opinion. But, that's why the poll has write-in entries!! Go and write-in your favorite Electric Velocipede story from last year.

Six more weeks of winter my butt!

OK Mr. Weather Predicter, where is this winter you speak of? It's almost 60 degrees today, the day after your prediction. In fact, if this year, as it seems so far, follows last year, your prediction is just so much bunk.

I want winter. I want some cold. I want some snow.

Except not in the first two weeks of March when I may need to drive to the hospital with a baby on the way.

Well, I guess I know when the snow storm is going to hit, don't I?