World Fantasy Award Judges

The judges have been announced. From Mr. Wheeler who saw it on SF Awards Watch.* The judges are:

• Peter Coleborn
• Robert Hoge
• Dennis L. McKiernan
• Mark Morris
• Steve Pasechnick

And you can find mailing info here if you published something last year and want them to consider it. Anyone who was published or edited by me, I'm sending the material in. No need to send it in yourself.

In fact, check with your publisher. They should be taking care of this, but it never hurts to ask.** But don't assume that they are. Ask Jeff VanderMeer some time about his World Fantasy Award for "The Transformation of Martin Lake" if you see him at a convention.

You have until June 1, 2008 to get materials in to the judges. My recommendation? Do it sooner than later.
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*where I saw it, too, but since Andy's post reminded me about it, I'm giving him first credit.

**for example, I need to ask if Bantam is doing this or if I should send along copies of Logorrhea. I don't mind if I have to, I just don't want to duplicate efforts.

Subscription Rates

Electric Velocipede's subscription rates are going up starting on March 1. You can read more here.

People of Iowa

It is not illegal, nor will it damage your vehicle if you use a turn signal.

That is all.

World Fantasy Awards 2008

UPDATED

Hey folks, I was going over my nomination ballot for the World Fantasy Awards. The ballot must be postmarked by June 30, 2008 so I have plenty of time, but I wanted to get started thinking about it.

However, there was something I was wondering about. Perhaps it's a bit unfair to post it here so publicly, but these are nominations, not votes. I was trying to think of people for the Special Award - Non-Professional. I thought I should nominate Neil Clarke (publisher), Nick Mamatas (editor), and Sean Wallace (editor) for Clarkesworld Magazine.

I'm fairly that would be the right category for them as neither of them earns a living from the magazine. So, at least in my head, that's the distinction between Professional and Non-Professional. But I wonder, since they clearly pay professional rates, maybe they should go under Professional.

But, looking over who's won for that category over the years, it seems at this point they should get nominated under the Non-Professional category.

What do you think?

Short Fiction Clarification

Pursuant to these previous two posts, I feel there's a need for some clarification.

I am not saying:

1. don't try to get paid for your fiction because you'll never make a living at it
2. there isn't money to be made writing fiction

I am saying:

1. you might need/want some other motivation than money when writing short fiction
   
2. while the money may not be good, take it
3. never pay to be published; as people are wont to point out: money flows TOWARDS the author

My posts have been about genre fiction--where the money is not so great--and I've never specifically spelled that out. The reason for this is that's where my expertise lives. I realize that if you can make sales to Playboy, The New Yorker, Wired, Science, etc. you will likely get paid good money for it.

If you write short nonfiction, you will likely get paid very well for it. What's paid very well? Something along the lines of $1/word.

SF Editor Wiki

A year or so ago, the Best Editor Hugo got split into long form and short form. This was done in order to recognize the great work being done by book editors, which was being overlooked by the Hugo process in favor of magazine editors.*

The problem is, who edits which books? Tor lists its editors on the copyright pages of its books. But no one else does. So I decided to create a wiki about science fiction and fantasy editors. Shortly after making it, I realized that the wiki was a great resource beyond helping people nominate editors for the two Hugo Awards.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to promote and make it work. Some people were pretty active on it. Most people weren't. I was contacted last year by the people who run SF Awards Watch about the possibility of them taking over the wiki. Today they've announced that the wiki has gone live.

You can see the wiki here and my entry here.

February 2008 Submission Reading and Acquisitions

First off, I would like to announce that Electric Velocipede is completely caught up with submission reading. Every submission that had been sent to the zine has been responded to. I have a full month and a handful of days with no pending submissions. It's an awesome feeling. I could have never done it without my awesome slush readers. Thanks guys!

This month we had the following reading statistics:

Rejections: 53
Second Round: 4
Acceptances: 13

Second, here's a quick list of the things I've acquired this month:

Novellettes
Alex Jennings - “T ME”
Mark Teppo - “Blackmail Boxes”

Short Stories
Lyn Battersby - “The Mikarr Way”
Richard Bowes - “The Bear Dresser's Secret”
Jonathan Brandt - “Frayed”
Dan Braum - “Mile Zero”
Erin Hoffman - “Darkest Amber”
Jay Lake - “An Elderly Pirate Recalls the Death of Love”
Celia Marsh - “Nightlight”
Sean Melican - “Liminal”
D. Mercurio Rivera - “Dear Annabehls”
Anna Tambour - “Dreadnought Neptune”
Kjell Williams - “Life at the Edge of Nowhere”

I'm looking forward to getting the next issue edited and moving forward on a few projects. We re-open to submissions on April 1!

248 days until departure

UPDATED to reflect actual math rather than pretend math.

That's what my airline told me when I was checking my flight information for World Fantasy. I was talking to...drumroll...Mark Teppo while he was trying get flights to Wiscon. Then we were comparing WFC flights, etc.

248 days. That sounds like a long ways off. Do I really have to wait that long? But that's just a little more than six months, which seems really soon. Of course, it's actually more like eight months, not six. Math is not my strong suit.

The event of the year/the hub around which my spec fic year turns. We're as far away from it as we can get. Who's going?

Short Fiction Follow Up

This is a follow-up to my post from the other. To reference the discussion on the Night Shade Board, Richard Morgan rightly pokes holes in my argument by pointing out:

1. you'd have to sell 12 - 15 stories a year
2. coming up with 12 - 15 great ideas to sell is tougher than 1 great idea (i.e., a novel)
3. it's not really feasible to work at that level
4. with the limit on the number of markets, you'd oversaturate things (first annoying everyone that 'you were in every issue' and then secondly reducing the number of spaces for new writers)
5. 90,000 words is actually a fairly short book, so you'd likely have to write even more than 12 - 15 stories

These ideas are seconded in my comments on that post by people like Jeff VanderMeer, who also points out that a novel sale often leads to foreign rights sales, which is something that almost never happens with a short story.

In fact, other than reprinting in year's best anthologies (which pays pennies) the transformative thing that happens most often to short fiction is that the concept is written into a novel-length story.

Scott William Carter correctly pointed out in my comments that $5K is actually a pretty small advance, and that if you happen to write outside the genre (even moving your concept to YA which is a hot market right now) it's likely that you could triple your money or better (that's me talking for Scott there, he wasn't that specific). And then where does my math go? It goes right out the window, that's where it goes.

So why write short fiction? Why write novels? Why write at all? Most of you writing out there won't sell your story or your novel to anyone.* And for those of you who have sold your novel/story, most people won't see it.**

So you write for some other purpose. I don't believe you for a second if you claim that you write only to make money. I don't keep publishing stuff because I think it will make me famous and wealthy some day. I publish stuff because I love it. I love the process of publishing. I think about it all the time. I feel compelled to do it. If I could stay awake 24 hours a day, I'd always find something more to work on.

I think writing is like that for people. They don't write because it will lead to fame and wealth,**** they write because they can't not write. And as long as people are compelled to write, I--and many other people--will be there to publish them.
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*Of course, that doesn't apply to the 50 or so people who read this blog. You're all mostly published authors and a handful of editors. You've all sold stories and novels, but you know what I mean.

**I'm being extremely literal here. I'm not saying you won't be successful, just be aware of the fact that selling millions of copies of book just doesn't happen anymore (or not very often) and even having six figure sales is unlikely these days. If you're reading this, I'll assume you work in genre fiction, and that means cracking the six figure mark is out of reach. Heck, for lots of people earning out your advance isn't even a possibility.***

***I speak from personal experience; your results may vary.

****They may continue to write because they've achieved some level of fame/wealth, i.e., it has become their main source of income, but that's rare. And I think even for people who earn a living writing, the main reason they keep doing it is because they LOVE it.

A Little Notice About Agents

I am very proud to announce that I am now a happy member of the Scribe Agency family. I approached Scribe at World Fantasy this past year. I hope that Logorrhea is not the last anthology/project that I work on, and I feel that having an agent will aid in the success of future projects.

If you're going to be at Wiscon this year, Scribe and Electric Velocipede are throwing a joint party on Friday evening.

Whither Bill Shunn?

So the final ballot for the Nebula Awards is now available, and I see with great sadness* that "Not of This Fold" was missing from it.

I'd like to make a snarky remark, but there are so many writers whose work I enjoy remaining on the ballot, and I'd hate for someone to read it and think I was talking about them. And I do hope you win. But since nothing I published is up for an award, I won't exactly be worrying about the results.
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*Quite frankly, it sucks. I thought about pulling the story down, but perhaps there'll be some Hugo love for it.

NEW BOOKS: Shopping at the Bookstore

Here's some new books I've picked up over the past week or so. They are: Some recent books I bought: THE SOMNAMBULIST by Jonathan Barnes, THE DRAGON'S NINE SONS by Chris Roberson, WHITECHAPEL GODS by S. M. Peters, SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS by Marisha Pessl, 13 BULLETS and 99 COFFINS by David Wellington, and THE END OF THE ALPHABET by C. S. Richardson.

In a strange moment of prescience, I've already read two of these books: THE SOMNAMBULIST and THE END OF THE ALPHABET; which should say something about those books.

More Thoughts on Short Fiction

There's a very brief (hoping more people chime in) discussion in Richard Morgan's section of the Night Shade Books board that talks about short fiction. I thought I would post what I said here. First, I'll summarize from Richard his thoughts on the subject.

He compares genre short fiction writers to Pacific Islanders in WWII. White men came in, built airstrips, and planes starting coming. After the war, the white men left, but the islanders continued to work on the airstrips in hopes that the planes would come back. Yes, "if you build it, they will come" type mentality. Richard then says, "I think far too many people in the SF community are cargo culters working off the practices and assumptions of the golden age--at which time, the cargo used to actually show up."

And then I say (after Jeremy Lassen's nice post, and I've revised some grammatical errors in my initial post):

For my money, I'd rather read short fiction over a novel every time. Recently I've found myself unable to read adult novels (young adult novels are fine). Of course, this ties in to the fact that I've been reading short fiction almost exclusively since 2001.

Richard is absolutely correct with people operating on the mindset that publishing is like it was in the Golden Age. And that pertains to novels as well. The midlist for novels used to 100,000 units shipped. That's New York Times bestseller list numbers now. There are more publishers, more writers, etc. The market has changed.

I'd like to posit that it's no more difficult to make a living writing short stories than it is writing novels. Let's do some math. First-time writer gets 5K for novel. It's 90,000 words. That's 5 cents a word. That's the same amount you would make if you sold that text as stories to Analog, F&SF, Asimov's, Fantasy magazine, or Realms of Fantasy. It's actually less money than if you sold to Chizine (7 cents=$6300), Clarkesworld (10 cents=$9000), or the new Tor online community (25 cents=$22,500) to give a few examples.* None of those numbers (except MAYBE the last one) are living wages. And as a new writer I can almost guarantee that you won't earn out your advance to start earning royalties.

Now the thing novels have over short fiction is that being successful, even moderately (or even poorly) successful will lead to more money and more sales with subsequent books. This does not happen with short fiction. Still, it will take a long time, and perhaps never, for most writers to make a living writing. And it's even less likely that you'll make a good living. I don't know Richard's numbers and I don't want him to divulge anything, but it seems that Richard is doing pretty well with his books. But again, that's not typical.

So why write short fiction? Why read short fiction?**

I think there are ideas that are short fiction ideas and ideas that are novel-length ideas. And they are two different skill sets. Again, Richard is correct that you can't learn to write a novel by writing a short story. However, I think something the short story affords you is the ability to try something unusual; i.e., Jeffrey Ford's "The Way He Does It." [full disclosure, I published Jeff's story in my zine Electric Velocipede] For Richard (and I'm putting words in his mouth, so please jump all over me if I'm wrong), he has all these great novel-length ideas, he doesn't have the time or inclination to develop short-fiction ideas. But there are a lot of people (if I can judge by my submission numbers) who have short-fiction ideas, and I think it would be a shame if they had no outlet for it. I think five years from now, maybe ten years from now, you'll see a radically different short fiction market.

As for reading, it's always been the way for me to find new authors. Many of my favorite authors I discovered through short fiction: Jeffrey Ford, Liz Williams, Jeff VanderMeer, Karen Joy Fowler, Joe R. Lansdale, and others. It's rare for me to find a new writer through novels. Perhaps I'm the exception in these matters.
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*I'm focusing on markets that pay professional rates as determined by SFWA. I am not a professional-rate paying market.***

**You could very well ask: Why write novels? Why read novels? Why should I give over my little bit of reading time to a novel when I would be able to read a lot of short stories in that same time and experience a wide myriad of worlds and people instead of spending all my time with one place and one small set of people?

***If anyone wants to send me nice chunks of cash, I would be happy to up my pay rate. Or, you could offer to print the zine for free, that would work, too.

READING: The End of the Alphabet by C. S. Richardson

I've recently found myself reading novellas. It started with Margaret Atwood's The Tent, and then moved on to Stewart O'Nan's Last Night at the Lobster and the book in the title of this post. I'm currently reading The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. These are all things I'm getting from my college's library (we have a very small collection of popular books from the McNaughton book services).

I have to say that I'm quite enamored with the novella in book form. You know you've got a story with some substance to it, but it's also not something you'll need to devote weeks to. The design of all of these books is quite lovely and their size is just perfect for me to hold comfortably one-handed.*

While the Atwood was entertaining, and I'm in love with O'Nan's prose, it was the Richardson book that really hit me. The End of the Alphabet is about a couple, Ambrose Zephyr and his wife Zappora (Zipper) Ashkenazi, who learn that Ambrose has one month left to live. Ambrose decides, rather selfishly, to take his wife on a 26-day whirlwind vacation with each day being a place that starts with the corresponding letter of the alphabet.

Perhaps it's due in some part to how important my own relationship is that the idea of suddenly only having one month left with each other was so compelling. What would you do? How would you act? While there's never enough time for everything you want to do, having a timer get set for you only makes that more poignant.

But there's more to the book than that. You learn a lot about how they love each other. You learn a lot about how much they like each other's company. Each page of this books revels in the strength and vivacity of Ambrose and Zipper's love. For me, I kept seeing bits and bobs of my own relationship as I learned more about this fictional couple.

If you have someone that you care for more than life itself you should do yourself a favor and invest an afternoon into reading this book.**
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*So I can read and drive I presume.

**I enjoyed this book so much that I went and BOUGHT it.

Robert Freeman Wexler

I've updated the section of the website about Robert Freeman Wexler's chapbook "Psychological Methods to Sell Should Be Destroyed: Stories" with the finalized cover (which you can see above). This was set to come out at the end of last year, but we decided to delay it in order to bring out the best book possible.

More Productivity

With the assistance of my intervention specialist, Mark Teppo, I am weeding out my RSS feeds. I'm trying to cut down on the time suck they've become. Trying to cut down the repetition that I'm faced with every time I open up my feed reader. So, to that end, I have unsubscribed to the following feeds (and some others):

BoingBoing
Lifehacker
EW Popwatch
Best Week Ever
The Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator
Arflovers
Hobotopia
Blog Maverick
io9
Bookslut

I've also deleted my Bloglines account. I'm not stopping reading feeds, far from it. I got rid of the ones that were the most time-consuming. I have some new projects* starting, and the feeds listed above are not related to my projects. I still subscribe to 340 feeds (down from almost 400 when I started). However, the new posts on the feeds deleted is about double that of those I kept. I'm keeping my eye on Resource Shelf, LISNews.org, Sugar Frosted Goodness, Warren Ellis, and others.

None of these sites were easy to let go as I enjoy reading them. I've learned quite a few things from LifeHacker that I treasure. BoingBoing never failed to entertain or educate me. But they all took up time that I need. Plus, many of the feeds I'm still reading often point to the feeds I deleted.
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*One that will require me to be reading feeds in order to it properly.

2008 Locus Poll and Survey

Following the tradition of one previous post, I was going to post my entry for the Locus poll. But then I reconsidered, as it actually represents a vote. It's one thing to post my nominations, it's another thing altogether to post my vote, particularly before the voting deadline has passed.

So, for now the most I can do is exhort you to go and vote in the 2008 Locus Poll and Survey by April 15, 2008. You don't have to be a subscriber to vote, so go and be opinionated!

The poll is comprised of drop-down menus, which actually come from their 2007 Recommended Reading List. So, there are a few things that I published that are in the drop down menus, but there most things that aren't.

You can go here to see a list of everything I published or edited last year (that link is to my post about Hugo-eligible works). Pertinent to these awards, I am not listed in the Best Editor drop-down menu (although many worthy people, such as my editor Juliet Ulman). Also, none of the stories from last year made the recommended reading list, so if there were stories you liked from EV last year, you'll have to write them in.

Subscription Rates

With the next issue, subscription rates for Electric Velocipede will be going up. There are several factors contributing to this, mainly printing prices and postage prices. Postal rates and printing costs keep going up and make it cost more to create each issue of the zine.

So here's the deal, from now until the end of the month, current prices are in effect:
Single Issues -
US - $4
CAN - $5.50
RoW* - $8

Subscriptions -
US - $15
CAN - $20
RoW* - $25

After Feb 29, 2008, the new prices will be:
Single Issues -
US - $5
CAN - $7
RoW* - $9

Subscriptions -
US - $20
CAN - $25
RoW* - $30

Here's the cool part, issue #14 will have a cover price of $7 as it is 100 pages and features a color cover. But, it's included in your subscription rate. So subscribe now and for $15 you'll get $21 worth of issues**!
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*RoW means 'rest of world' so if you live outside of the United States or Canada, this is your rate.

**A new subscription always starts with the current issue***. Issue 13 is $4, issue 14 is $7, and issues 15 and 16 will be $5, for a total of $21.

***Unless you want it to start somewhere else or I'm in the midst of sending out a new issue.

Locus Issue 565 - Vol. 60 No. 2

Today is my day for referring to previous posts. I joked in that post that I was slowly dominating the pages of Locus magazine and that the next issue should see even more references to me.

Of course, those of you who know Locus are aware that the February issue is always the year in review issue. And, to toot my horn a bit, even if Electric Velocipede wasn't getting mention, both Logorrhea and William Shunn chapbook have garnered some prize and would likely get some mention.

So here's a ridiculous list of pages that I or my publishing projects get mentioned on: 4, 13, 37, 40, 41, 42, 44, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 60, 68, 69, and 77. The pages are listed individually since it is separate comments on each page, not lengthy articles that stretch over the course of several pages.

Some highlights: the cover of issue 13 on page 13 (how serendipitous!), both of William Shunn's new stories in his chapbook making the recommended reading list (noted here), Gardner Dozois calling Logorrhea "enjoyable," Jonathan Strahan recommending the anthology, Rich Horton stating that Logorrhea was "of particular worth," and EVERYONE recommending Daniel Abraham's story.

Some 'lowlights*': nothing from the magazine made the recommended reading list, no mention of Electric Velocipede by Mark R. Kelly in his mention of similar magazines**, and the small paragraph I got in the Magazine summary that listed: the number of issues published, the number of stories published (Flytrap got their poetry mentioned, but I did not), and the price.

I'm obviously doing something right, and it's truly only a matter of time before I get an entire issue devoted to me. Perhaps the April issue will feature a major article about me?
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*Lowlights only in my opinion, nothing bad was written about me, nor was I excluded when there were many worthwhile places that didn't even get mentioned. These lowlights are truly nitpicky, sort of how red-carpet people nitpick how awful the stars look.

**To be fair, I haven't sent copies of the zine to Mark. I think in my mind since I'm sending them to Locus, I assume Mark is seeing them. That's clearly a fallacy invented in my head. (I don't think Mark even lives in the Oakland area)

Extreme Measures Follow Up

In a previous post I talked about using the HOSTS file to block specific websites. I realize it's only been a few days, but it's really helped in keeping me off those sites.

Additionally, removing the sites from my tabbed start page in Firefox has actually probably helped more. If the sites aren't there when I start Firefox, I don't think about them.

Now I'm thinking that I need to block (at least temporarily) Firefox and IE when I'm trying to work. I can't just stop my internet connection, as I'm working over the web. And I need access to e-mail, etc. to accomplish my work.

Of course I could try self-control, but that doesn't seem like a lot of fun.

Curious Comments

I've had a strange comment or two over the past few weeks that are essentially a small ad to hopefully send people to another blog/website. When I track them down, they're always from someone in India. It's no big deal so far as there's only been two or three and I just delete them. I guess someone's hiring out people in foreign countries to hopefully drum up business through blogs? Here's the most recent one:

• Domain Name (Unknown)
• IP Address 116.193.142.# (Alliance Broadband Services Pvt. Ltd.)
• ISP Alliance Broadband Services Pvt. Ltd.
• Continent : Asia
• Country : India (Facts)
• State/Region : West Bengal
• City : Kolkata
• Lat/Long : 22.5697, 88.3697 (Map)
• Distance : 8,001 miles
• Language English (U.S.) en-us
• Operating System Microsoft WinXP
• Browser Internet Explorer 6.0
• Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)
• Javascript version 1.3
• Time of Visit Feb 16 2008 5:20:56 am
• Last Page View Feb 16 2008 5:21:51 am
• Visit Length 55 seconds
• Page Views 1
• Referring URL http://blogsearch.go...=UTF-8&sa=N&start=10
• Search Engine blogsearch.google.com
• Search Words blogger work at home site
• Visit Entry Page http://evzine.blogsp...xtreme-measures.html
• Visit Exit Page http://evzine.blogsp...xtreme-measures.html
• Out Click Post a Comment http://www.blogger.c...=8546213729086954327
• Time Zone UTC+6:00
• Visitor's Time Feb 16 2008 4:50:56 pm

Long Questionnaire That You Won't Read All the Way to the End

UPDATE: Fixed #25 with what I actually last said on IM at the time of filling this out.

From Mr. Wheeler:

1. What is in the back seat of your car right now?
A window scraper.

2. When was the last time you threw up?
Last May we all caught some awful bug. I never want to be sick like that again.

3. What's your favorite curse word?
I need to wean curse words from my lexicon (the baby likes to repeat things) but I say 'fuck' a lot.

4. Name 3 people who made you smile today?
Aubrey (my daughter), Shai (my wife), Mark Teppo (not sure how he fits into this group)

5. What were you doing at 8 am this morning?
Eating waffles.

6. What were you doing 30 minutes ago?
Using the restroom. Honestly isn't all it's cracked up to be.

7. What will you be doing 3 hours from now?
Cleaning up after dinner.

8. Have you ever been to a strip club?
No. And I truly have no interest in going.

9. What is the last thing you said aloud?
"Talk to you next week" as my boss left my office.

10. What is the best ice cream flavor?
Best? I get to decide for everyone? My favorite is pistachio.

11. What was the last thing you had to drink?
Diet Coke.

12. What are you wearing right now?
Skechers tennies, jeans, boxers with beer mugs on them, an undershirt, and an oatmeal colored sweater.

13. What was the last thing you ate?
A 100 calorie Reecees Pieces snack bag.

14. Have you bought any new clothing items this week?
No. Mark Teppo talked me down from a $40 t-shirt.

15. When was the last time you ran?
LOL! I have no idea. I'm pretty sedentary.

16. What's the last sporting event you watched?
Some college basketball last night.

What happened to 17?
Steven Brust has it.

18. Who is the last person you emailed?
Paul Jessup.

19. Ever go camping?
Does hunting count? Never been camping just to camp.

20. Do you have a tan?
It's February and I live in Iowa. What do you think? It hasn't been above freezing in more than a month.

Ok, now what happened to 21, 22 & 23????
Well crap, if you don't know I certainly can't be bother to care about them.

24. Do you drink your soda from a straw?
If my cup in a restaurant has one in it already. Otherwise I eschew straws for all things but smoothies.

25. What did your last IM say?
Fuck if I know; it was to Mark Teppo. We'll steal my last post to Twitter: @diminutivetiger green tea kit kat? that sounds delicious!
Mr. Teppo reminded me that it was: "god loves Abba"

26. Are you someone's best friend?
Now how would you know? I feel comfortable (and happy) in saying that my wife and I are best friends to each other.

27. What are you doing tomorrow?
Getting groceries, shopping for boots, and getting Robert Wexler's page proofs out to him.

28. Where is your mom right now?
Smoking.

29. Look to your left, what do you see?
The circulation desk (which is barren as we're short-staffed and the students have fled for the day since exams are done until Monday).

30. What color is your watch?
Silver.

31. What do you think of when you think of Australia?
Jay Caselberg.

32. Would you consider plastic surgery?
Only if horribly disfigured from an accident.

33. What is your birthstone?
Aquamarine.

34. Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive thru?
I don't go to them. And I despise drive-thrus.

35.How many kids do you want?
Two.

36. Do you have a dog?
No, and never will. (I love dogs, it's my allergies that have troubles)

37. Last person you talked to on the phone?
My employee Teresa.

38. Have you met anyone famous?
Outside of science fiction/fantasy people I've met Henry Rollins.

39. Any plans today?
Getting the day done and off to home for dinner.

40. How many states have you lived in?
Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, and Iowa: four. Although I've temporarily lived in the state of inebriation...does that count?

41. Ever go to college?
Did I ever! BA from University of Wisconsin-Madison in English & Philosophy; Master's in Library and Information Science from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

42. Where are you right now?
In my fish bowl of an office.

43. Biggest annoyance in your life right now?
Other than answering these questions? I wish I had more time to get everything done I'd like to get done. And I want people to signal when they're going to turn.

44. Last song listened to?
Voulez-Vous by ABBA. What? Shut up.

46. Are you allergic to anything?
God yes: dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, trees, grass, bees, mosquitos, ragweed, etc. etc. etc.

47. Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time?
Heh, I love shoes, so I have more than an average number of shoes for a guy. There's none that I wear more than others.

48. Are you jealous of anyone?
I'll steal Mr. Wheeler's answer: "Not that I'd admit."

50. Is anyone jealous of you?
Again, to steal from Mr. Wheeler: "Who wouldn't be?"

51. What time is it?
3:52 pm.

52. Do any of your friends have children?
Too many to list.

53. Do you eat healthy?
My meals are healthy, it's what I do between meals that's not.

54. What do you usually do during the day?
Library stuff.

55. Do you hate anyone right now?
No.

56. Do you use the word 'hello' daily?
Are there people who don't?

58. How old will you be turning on your next birthday?
37.

59. Have you ever been to Six Flags?
Yes. I hate it. Hate roller-coasters, etc. Hate them.

60. How did you get one of your scars?
I put my foot through a bank door. 17 stitches.

Aren't you glad you read that whole thing?

Going to Extreme Measures?

In my efforts to free up some time and to reduce the amount of 'waste' I do online, I'm thinking of going to some extreme measures. You see, in addition to:

• Reading pieces from the last reading period (2nd round stuff and stuff sent directly to me)
• Re-opening to slush submissions in April
• Finding at least one more slush reader if not two
• Finding someone to help get copies of stuff out to reviewers/year's best/awards juries
• Publishing:
• Electric Velocipede #14
• Electric Velocipede #15
• Electric Velocipede #16
• Robert Freeman Wexler chapbook
• Lavie Tidhar chapbook
• Selecting editor's choice for OWW (Online Writing Workship) every month
• Doing book design & layout for PS Publishing
• Sekrit online thing that's sort of daily/weekly thing (starting end of Feb)
• Working a full-time job
• Working a part-time job

I've been talking to some people about doing some well-paid freelance work that likely will start in March. And the well-paid is enough that I'm foolish to pass it up. So what slides? What gets cancelled?

Hopefully nothing*. The big thing is using my time more wisely. And not goofing off as much (Like posting on your zine blog during your full-time job? - MOM**). This is no different from when I was working full time in Manhattan and going to grad school full time.

To that end, I've decided to edit my HOSTS file on my computer both at work and at home. If you don't know what the HOSTS file is, it used to be used to define nodes on a network before domain name recognition came into play. That's an oversimplification, but click on the link if you're curious.

One of the things you can do with it is assign a URL the IP address 127.0.0.1. I'll let someone else explain this:

"This entry is a not an actual Internet IP address but defines a local address and can be used to direct the computer to send a packet to itself."

What that means is if you set a URL to that IP address, you block yourself from seeing. Now, I do not advocate doing this. It is an extreme measure and shows a lack of self-control. But, if you have to avoid some sites to focus yourself and get stuff done, it's an option. Typically you make these edits to block malicious sites, but then again, maybe that's what I'm doing...

At home, I've already blocked Facebook and MySpace. I'm deliberating whether I want to add Google Reader, but I can't block www.google.com/reader because only the main domain is a valid entry (I'd have to block www.google.com which isn't really an option). I could block reader.google.com but that page is a redirect, so I'd have to remove Google Reader from my Firefox home page and never type in www.google.com/reader. I've also made sure that my instant message program isn't starting when the computer turns on.

So far I haven't blocked anything at work, but I'll leave that option open to me. I'll assess what other pages I go to too often and think about adding them.

Yes this is extreme, but I may need the extra help it provides. Really extreme would be password locking the file and creating a password with mashed keys so I that I don't know what it is.
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*I did all my copyedit and proofread proofing for Logorrhea while we moved from NJ to IA.

**Henceforth there will be comments from MOM who keeps me on task and works me over with guilt so that I don't goof off too much.

So You Want to Start a Zine, Pt. 9

Terminology

This will be a short update in my ongoing series, but I thought it would be helpful to give definitions to some terms.

blue pages: if you work with an actual printer (as opposed to high-quality photocopy which is how Electric Velocipede is made) as part of the printing process you will receive blue pages as a final check before printing is started. This is your publication printed in blue ink on white paper. The blue ink makes it very easy to spot abnormalities and mistakes. It also has a funky contact-high like smell like a mimeograph (ditto) machine.

circulation: this refers to your subscriber numbers as well as any copies you get out on a newsstand. It does NOT refer to the number of copies you print. It does also not refer to individual direct sales, i.e., single copy sales. Circulation is a guaranteed number. In the business of small publications like this, if you got a hot author in an issue, you could sell out. This happened to me with Hal Duncan and issue #9. I can't say that my circulation was equal to my print run, particularly since many people bought multiple copies. My circulation is a percentage of my total print run. So, you take the number of subscribers you have and add the number of copies that get sent out to stores for sale and that's your circulation. Individual copy sales are not counted in this number.

distribution: a pipe dream. Seriously, though, if you're like me, your distribution will depend completely on the time you can devote to it. You will not be able to find a distributor who can afford to take on your couple hundred copies. It's just not worth it to them. Now, if you can do 5,000 and better yet 10,000 copies (and remember, the big three are sitting somewhere between 20K and 30K subscribers, so good luck with printing 5K or 10K) you could MAYBE get a distributor to try you out. Then you'll get to hassle with getting payment from them, getting returns from them (since it's likely people won't buy your magazine off the newsstand), dealing with the damaged returns (see stripped magazines), etc. More than likely you'll find a handful of stores that are willing to carry your magazine and you'll have to send copies to them and chase after them for getting payment (some places pay up front some pay based on sales).

ISSN: is a unique eight-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. Where an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) refers to a specific book (and no other book has that ISBN), the ISSN refers to the periodical, so every issue has the same ISSN. However, there is no unique information held with the ISSN code to identify the magazine (unlike an ISBN which has a publishers prefix and a few others things to identify the book), so if you change the title, you'll need a new ISSN*.

page proofs: These are print-outs from your desk-top design/layout program which show exactly how the page will look once it's printed. These are typically sent to a proofreader (usually someone on staff as well as a freelancer) and each other gets copies of their contribution to the magazine to proofread. I send PDFs of the stories to the authors. That's been working really well for me.

perfect-bound: Think Analog, Asimov's, and F&SF. The signatures are glued into the spine so that the spine is flat (like a book) instead of folded (see saddle-stitched). At small numbers perfect-bound is more expensive. The cost starts to even out the more copies you make. Also, perfect-bound publications can be longer than saddle-stitched, so once you get past 80 pages, you'll want to start thinking about perfect-bound.

print run: This is the number of copies you print. It does not represent your circulation, which is a portion of the print run. Determining your print run is not an easy thing. It becomes something you get a feel for. The last thing you want is to have a ton of extra copies sitting around. It's always better to reprint than to have too many. I've done second printings of two issues.

saddle-stitched: How Electric Velocipede is put together. Saddle-stitching technically refers to how publications were made a long time ago when they were actually stitched (hardcover books are still stitched). Today it typically refers to publications that are folded in half and stapled. When making small quantities, this is generally less expensive than perfect bound, however there is a limit to the number of pages you can do. The number depends on the type of paper you're using (newsprint is thinner than what I use for EV, so you can use more pages) and the trim size of the magazine. The larger the magazine, the easier it is to fold a larger number of pages.

signature: Books and magazine are printed on signatures. For saddle-stitched material, the signature is four pages: one sheet of paper folded in half makes four pages in the final magazine. Books are printed on larger signatures, and the pages are laid out in a certain order and direction so that when folded you're able to read them. Signatures are always multiples of four, with most book printing done with 32 page signatures (16 on a side). I've tried finding an image of an uncut sheet online and haven't found it yet.

stripped magazines: The bane of distribution. Often when you work with a distributor, you have to allow them to 'strip' the magazine for returns. What this means is that they tear the cover off your magazine and return that to you for a full refund. Essentially unsold copies get destroyed. The same thing often happens for mass markets. Now, you can insist on full copy returns, but that might diminish the number of places willing to carry you since they prefer to stock magazines that are strippable.

trim size: The size of your final product in two dimensions. In the US, most hardcover/trade paperback books are either 5"x8" or 6"x9". EV's trim size is 7"x8.5" (a legal-size piece of paper folded in half). This is important to know as it will be a major component of helping your printer give you a quote.

If there are terms you don't know the meaning of and would like to know, leave them in the comments and I'll update this list.
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*There are exceptions. If you keep the original title on the masthead, i.e., technically still the title of the magazine, and put a different title on the cover, then you don't need to get a new one. This is why Analog still has Astounding on the masthead. The didn't need to get a new ISSN and they keep the issues numbers going without having to start over at 1 when the name changed from Astounding to Analog.

It's Back!

Although I'm roughly a billion times busier than I was when it first started, I'm still excited to see the return of the Night Shade Books message board! (that link takes to a new post I made today)

In all seriousness, if you like the book that Night Shade publishes, this is a great place to go to interact with the writers and editors and etc. who get involved in that style of books.

Best Artist Hugo

OK, I admit it. I screwed up. There's no reason for me to not have nominated people for the Best Artist Hugo. When I got to that section of the nominating ballot, I saw that they asked for an example of the person's work from the past year. I missed the part where they said: "Cite an example of the artist's work if possible." The PDF/print version of the ballot is more clear: "If possible, please cite an example of the nominee’s work. Failure to provide such references will not invalidate a nomination." Why couldn't the online version add that second line?

When I saw that space for an example of the artist's work, it made me pause. Yes, it says "if possible" but once that idea's out there, I can't take it back. After reading that, I could not, in good conscience, nominate someone unless I knew in my head that they had actually done something nomination worthy the previous year. That would require some research.

Showing total disrespect to the profession that pays my bills (library science), I eschewed research and ignored the category. In retrospect, a bad decision.

When I make my nomination ballot, I often try to nominate people who haven't made the ballot before, or haven't won. In regards to this category, I assume that Michael Whelan or Bob Eggleton or Donato will recieve nominations from other people, and since none of them know me personally, won't feel slighted if I don't nominate them.

This amazing post from Cathy and Arnie Fenner goes into lots of details about the category, and is part of the impetus that made me write my own post. I want to steal a bit from them:

Consider that in the 52 years an award has been presented for "Best Artist", only 15 individuals have won the rockets. Here's a breakdown:

– Michael Whelan: 13
– Kelly Freas: 10
– Bob Eggleton: 8
– Ed Emshwiller: 4
– Jim Burns: 3
– Jack Gaughan: 3
– Don Maitz: 2
– Donato Giancola: 2
– Rick Sternbach: 2
– Vincent Di Fate: 1
– Leo & Diane Dillon: 1
– Frank Frazetta: 1*
– Roy Krenkel: 1
– John Schoenherr: 1

There are some talented artists who are not on that list. They also point out the reasoning behind asking for an example of the artist's work as something similar to how you vote for a specific novel or story versus voting for Robert Sawyer or Michael Swanwick for writing. Sawyer and Swanwick wouldn't make the ballot unless they had work out. Why should artist be any different? I agree.

So, as I blithely asked "where's the artist wiki?" to give one place to show who did what, little did I know that I would be eating crow when I saw this. 484 covers, not a list, but the actual cover as well as who painted/drew it and the publisher, etc. Now, I know that doesn't represent every cover/piece of art from last year, but it's a great start. Why can't Denvention link to that?

You can see that Eggleton and Whelan (and I'm not picking on them, they're both phenomenal artists, they've just won a bunch of times and I think sometimes they make the ballot based on name) did create some work last year. If you nominated them, feel safe that last year wasn't some fluke wherein they had no work come out. Now, is it their best work? From the examples on the Locus page, I've seen better work from each artist. And the Hugo should go to the people based on their work over the last year, right?

Here's my opinion of the best work from last year based on the Locus covers page (listed alphabetically):

Jon Foster
John Harris
Timothy Lantz
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio

That's what my ballot should've looked like. Sorry guys.
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*Frazetta won only once? Man, he changed the way covers were made.

AOL grumble grumble grumble

Yes, I still use AOL for some things. Mostly it's family that have our AOL addresses and the idea of making them switch makes me cringe. Also, when my hosting company's spam protection company decided to block Google (i.e., anything from blogger, gmail, google calendar, etc.) I switched some notification things to an AOL account.

Well, come today I'm getting 554 errors messages when leaving comments on my blog. Apparently AOL has decided to block Google and mail coming from Google sources. Read here on how to resolve the error.

This happens now and again because of the number of spam blogs that get created on blogger, and the e-mail places decide it's easier to block Google et al than try to actually find a solution. And I suspect Google's done nothing to change what they do.

Rich Horton Year's Best Fantasy

The final table of contents for Rich Horton's Fantasy: The Best of the Year (2008 Edition) have been released. I think they've been out for a while now, but I haven't mentioned it before.

Of note, the two stories from Logorrhea that he picked:
"Singing of Mount Abora" by Theodora Goss
"The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham

Congrats Dora and Daniel!

Meebo

You may have noticed the Meebo widget on the right-hand side of the blog. I'm trying out some different instant message software for the library to see what would/would not work for reference questions. So for now, it's Meebo. If you see that I'm online, go ahead and chat with me. Just let me know who you are or I may ignore you. :-D

Thoughts on Short Fiction

If you're interested in what I and a bunch of smarter-than-me people (like Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois, Jonathan Strahan, Lou Anders, etc.) have to say about the purpose of short fiction, you can read it here on SF Signal. A few highlights:

"In science fiction and in horror, even more, the short form (up to and including the novella) is the heart of the genre." - Ellen Datlow

"Because the turnover is high, short fiction markets, whether e-zines or traditional print magazines, need to be continually finding good new writers, which means that they actually have to READ their slush piles, as opposed to just 'dealing with' them." - Gardner Dozois

"[W]hen the death of short fiction in science fiction is discussed it almost always applies to the business of short fiction" - Jonathan Strahan

"The short form is where you can make a reputation that will carry forward into your first novel." - Lou Anders

Social Software

In my other world, social software, web 2.0, etc. is all the rage. And while I think integration, interactivity, etc. is very cool, I can't help but think it's just creating more work for me.

Instead of just having a website and a blog to update, I now also have MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Squidoo, del.ico.us, Google groups, Yahoo groups, and more and more and more every week to update. Is that really helpful? Am I gaining anything by being in all these other places as well or am I diffusing my content by spreading it so thin?

I'm certainly spreading myself too thin. I won't be actively updating anything beyond the main website and this blog. Go ahead and friend me, send me messages, whatever, but don't feel bad if the MySpace page doesn't update