Short Fiction

So there's been some talk lately about the state of short fiction. I won't link to anything since you should have no trouble finding recent articles/blog entries on the subject. The most recent spate of articles talk about whether or not to support short fiction markets. Of course, my basic response to that is: yes. I am a short-fiction market, I would be remiss if I didn't feel it should be supported.

There's also been some recent activity along the lines of 'short fiction is dying.' And then reactionary (do not read that as 'inflammatory,' I just mean things written in response and I thought responsitory sounded too much like suppository so there you are) writing about how short fiction is just changing.

Now since I recently did my own drive for help, I've been avoiding posting on the subject since I didn't want people to think I was asking for more*. But I do have some thoughts on the subject.

First, supporting short fiction markets. Yep. This is good. And actually, no one has said don't do this. There are a lot of markets out there. If you think you know them all, you probably actually know about half of them. While I was mentioned in a lot of the things being written, virtually none of them mentioned that I had done a subscription drive earlier this year**. Nearly all of them mentioned the Strange Horizons fund-raising drive, however. This is not sour grapes. The SH drive began recently, while my drive started in May. It just shows how short-term the memory of the Internet is.

Second, the state of the short-fiction market: dying or alive? My answer is: yes. Or more accurately: it's changing. Yes, there are fewer people reading short fiction than ever***; i.e., short fiction is dying. I typically see this opinion expressed by younger people/people newer to the field. This could mean two things: 1. they're not experienced enough to understand the nuances of the market and to see who it's changing, or 2. they're our audience of the future and we should pay attention to the fact that our future audience isn't interested in reading short-fiction. One person even claimed that the fact was that everyone would rather prefer to read a novel over short fiction*****. That may be. I don't quite believe that's the case, but I don't know either.

I can also state (with I hope, some authority) that the number of well-made, short-fiction publications is fairly large and growing. Maybe it's not the 60s when everything had newsstand distribution, but there are a lot of things out there. And the small stuff is getting the same attention that's given to the big stuff. This is true in the book world, too. The smaller, independent presses are getting the same attention (from reviewers, distributors, authors, agents, etc.) that the big NY houses are. That's pretty significant, IMO. There's a rich, fertile proving ground for up-and-coming writers (and some experienced ones who still write short fiction) out there that people should take advantage of******.

I think people need to alter their expectations on what a short-fiction publication should be. I think aiming for newsstand distribution, or even thousands (as opposed to tens or hundreds of thousands) of subscribers will only lead to heartbreak. It's not an easy business. It costs a lot of money to start something like this (even if it's only a few hundred dollars, that's a lot of money to most people, particularly when it all comes out of your pocket). I think even expecting to break even (or mostly even) quicker than five years******* is patently ridiculous. Particularly if you coming to the field with no experience in it.

This is not meant as damning words for any individual. I've seen a lot of publications start and end while I've been doing mine. I know that it's rare for small magazines to survive beyond a few issues. It happens.

We may be entering into a time where professional-paying short-fiction markets are extremely difficult to keep running. And certainly tough to start. And despite the respect that Electric Velocipede seems to garner, the truth is I'll never see a submission form Robert Silverberg, or China Mieville, or Richard Morgan, or Scott Lynch, or John Scalzi, or [insert name here].

This is slightly unfair, as some of the writers I mention just don't write short fiction. But I'm also not a big enough venue for what they do. And I'm ok with that. I'd be thrilled to death to get a submission from anyone in that list; but I don't expect it. Part of the thrill I get from publishing EV is finding the author that no one's heard of before. This makes it tougher to sell lots of copies since people want a known quantity, but again, that's not why I started this.

This has gone on long enough. Soon I'll get my starting your own zine post series going and I'll talk about some of this stuff in even more detail*********.

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* I'll always take more, it's just not always right to ask for it.
** My subscription drive is officially running to the end of the year. At which time, the $100 Patronage will go away for the timebeing. Of course, I'm always interested in subscribers.
*** I contend that there are actually fewer people reader than ever; they're just BUYING more books****.
**** And of course, more books are published each year than the previous, so buying more sort of falls hand in hand with that.
***** I can't speak for anyone but me, but these days, I cannot get into a novel. I'd rather read short fiction every day. I acquire a lot of novels, but I read almost none of them. The thought of reading a novel just makes me freeze up like a panic attack. Yuk.
****** Just go to Ralan (who also likes support) and see the number of markets.
******* I've been doing this for almost six years now, and I'm getting close to breaking even********.
******** Of course, then I go and start making chapbooks and thinking about bigger projects, so there goes the breaking even.
********* Great. Can't wait. This is like a Hal Duncan post. It just doesn't STOP.