Progress
Well, as of this week I have a perfect record with Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. Three submissions for three form rejections. We'll see if the next one maintains the record ;)
I find myself taking a warped amusement in the growing collection of form rejections. They say nothing about the quality of my writing, and everything about what is wrong with SFF short fiction publishing today.
Take a look in your local Barnes & Noble, or Borders, or... Where do the SFF readers go? Straight to their little ghetto of the bookstore.
Now look for the SFF magazines. You won't find them anywhere near the genre ghettos. They live over in the magazine stands, buried somewhere in the hobbies or literature section - if they're there at all.
Now have a look at them. One shining example of all that is wrong with genre magazines is Realms of Fantasy. I've never seen an issue that didn't have a cover absolutely screaming "Dungeons and Dragons gamer heaven in these pages". Take a look inside and what do you see? More space given to ads than to the stories. And the stories are, for want of a better word, "literary" in the worst sense.
And they wonder why sales are falling.
I cannot remember the last time I saw a short story in any of the major SFF magazines that I actually enjoyed. There seems to be this idea that a well told, fast moving plot with characters people can identify with is somehow sub-standard.
Well, sorry, but that's what most people want to read. I've never met anyone who reads SFF for the literary value. Heck, I've never met anyone who reads for the literary value. People read because they want to be entertained. They want a few hours outside their regular routine where interesting things happen and the choices and individual makes can matter to the world at large. Or they want something that makes them laugh.
I'm a reader. I have a relatively small collection, for a genre reader - about 1000 books. I'm one of the thousands paying for editorial salaries.
And I say to the editors of the SFF major magazines, get a clue, people. I am not going to buy your magazines if you publish maybe one story a year that doesn't make me want to barf. I want stories. I want people I can care about, in worlds that I'd like to visit. I want to see your offerings when I go to the bookstore, not have to find them hiding in the depths like the unwanted relative at a wedding. And I am not alone. There are thousands of people like me.
Until you get it right, we won't be buying your magazines. If you never get it right, no-one will buy your magazines except people wanting to be published in them. And that, dear editors, is nothing more than an entirely too public form of mutual masturbation.
Kate
I find myself taking a warped amusement in the growing collection of form rejections. They say nothing about the quality of my writing, and everything about what is wrong with SFF short fiction publishing today.
Take a look in your local Barnes & Noble, or Borders, or... Where do the SFF readers go? Straight to their little ghetto of the bookstore.
Now look for the SFF magazines. You won't find them anywhere near the genre ghettos. They live over in the magazine stands, buried somewhere in the hobbies or literature section - if they're there at all.
Now have a look at them. One shining example of all that is wrong with genre magazines is Realms of Fantasy. I've never seen an issue that didn't have a cover absolutely screaming "Dungeons and Dragons gamer heaven in these pages". Take a look inside and what do you see? More space given to ads than to the stories. And the stories are, for want of a better word, "literary" in the worst sense.
And they wonder why sales are falling.
I cannot remember the last time I saw a short story in any of the major SFF magazines that I actually enjoyed. There seems to be this idea that a well told, fast moving plot with characters people can identify with is somehow sub-standard.
Well, sorry, but that's what most people want to read. I've never met anyone who reads SFF for the literary value. Heck, I've never met anyone who reads for the literary value. People read because they want to be entertained. They want a few hours outside their regular routine where interesting things happen and the choices and individual makes can matter to the world at large. Or they want something that makes them laugh.
I'm a reader. I have a relatively small collection, for a genre reader - about 1000 books. I'm one of the thousands paying for editorial salaries.
And I say to the editors of the SFF major magazines, get a clue, people. I am not going to buy your magazines if you publish maybe one story a year that doesn't make me want to barf. I want stories. I want people I can care about, in worlds that I'd like to visit. I want to see your offerings when I go to the bookstore, not have to find them hiding in the depths like the unwanted relative at a wedding. And I am not alone. There are thousands of people like me.
Until you get it right, we won't be buying your magazines. If you never get it right, no-one will buy your magazines except people wanting to be published in them. And that, dear editors, is nothing more than an entirely too public form of mutual masturbation.
Kate
posted by Kate Paulk | 4:40 PM
6 Comments:
::chuckle::
My, part of that sounds very familiar, Lady Kate. I think we've been reading each other's mail. ;)
You're so right. I've never actually seen any of the F/SF mags anywhere around my locations. And even Analog, which I used to read for a great many years, started shifting mainly towards stories that were tedious, hideous, boring, and stretched over multiple issues. When it'd cost me as much to buy the book as it would to buy all the mags the book is in, and then they've got the adverts as well... why bother to buy the mags?
-perhaps I'm being unfair to Analog. I've not read them for a couple of years now... maybe they changed.
'Fiend, sadly, not that I've noticed. The last issue of Analog I saw was more of the same.
What's worse, the e-zines are no better. There's a new one I saw the other day, (won't inflict name or URL on you) which pays near professional rates, and has atrocious standards.
I opened a story at random to see what sort of things they published. The first paragraph included a gravedigger who congregated with himself. Um. That first paragraph would have been an instant toss out of any slushpile I read, unless the gravedigger had multiple personalities and I met one of them immediately.
Darwin, I'm sure we have been reading each other's mail. We've got to find the time and $$ to get a good zine going.
Unfortunately bookstores, and not magazine publishers, decide where the merch is placed.
It's a magazine so it gets placed with magazines. Full stop.
If a publisher wants specific placement then it has to pay and I mean pay ($50,000 annually for a devoted table). End caps (books on special shevles at then ends of bookcase rows) are reserved for best sellers. SF&F and Analog, nevermind Andromeda Spaceways (Australian) or Neopsis (Canadian), just don't have than kind of cash or clout.
That leaves interested parties at the chain stores (B&N, Chapters, Indigo, Borders, etc...). Buyers are already doing their job (depending on your tastes, they are either doing a very bad job, or merely an adequate one) by bringing these magazines but they only classify the books (SF, Fantasy, etc) and have no say in where in the store it goes. That leaves the merch people and they are much more interested in expanding sales in ways that will be noticed by their bosses and shareholders which means bestselling general fiction, award winners (Hugo and Nebula are jeapardy answers they do not know the questions for) and non-book merch. So now you're down to rebellious store managers and SF fans working the trenches (shevles). Rebellious store managers are audited for their merch placement quite regularly so they don't last long as rebels and can't aford to piss anyone off for the pay they're getting. Now it's down to Bob, the SF fan, who is the clerk in charge of the Fiction section. People like Bob are not hired as often as they should be because most bookstore managers view SF as a static market and spending time improving sales won't be half as profitable as concentrating on best sellers (They make as much on two copies of The Lovely Bones or The da Vinci Code then they do on all the issues of SF&F and Analog they sell) and award winners so SF gets short shift in mindshare and personel. Saying your an SF fan does not get you a job at B&N and either way one clerk shelving SF&F in the SF section has the impact of a fart in a tornado.
What you can do is write a letter and get your friends to do the same. I don't mean an email. I mean a letter; hand written, polite and never forget to mention you're a PAYING cusotmer, a frustrated one, but one who regularly spends cash and wants to spend more. Hand written snailmail is worth 1000 times what the stamp cost you because they are counted by marketing people as they opinion of a 1000 customers.
As for the content of these magazines, well you've got to be a little more sneaky. If they're not buying what you're selling, sell them something they'll buy and they'll be much more open to buy whatever else you're selling. Connie Willis could write, "A story SF&F would never buy" and SF&F would buy it. Corrupt them from the inside.
If you want things to change, either start your own mag (the ultimate test of your ideas) or become a seditious bastard and change things from the inside out.
Kel,
Thanks for the industry insider insight. SF isn't the only genre suffering from this kind of nonsense: it just happens to be the genre I read most often.
I'm trying to come at it from both sides - to get published and corrupt the market internally, and to get a magazine started and corrupt it from the outside ;)
The plus-full-time job, 4 in progress and two in outline novel projects as well as the short story a week challenge eat into time to design and create a new magazine.
And yes, I am certifiable. Actually, I'm certified and medicated. But that's a whole nother story.
Kate
Kel, that's a pretty interesting look at it, but also what I'm saying is that quite simply- I'm not buying what the 'zine is selling. It doesn't all have to be a hyper-polite drama about the tender child who was abused by the cold cruel world and spends three or four issues whining about it. I don't CARE if it takes place aboard a poorly-thought-out space station, it's still garbage that doesn't belong in a S/SF magazine.
If the magazines themselves increase their readership, then the stores that sell them will place those magazines more prominently because it would appear to be a growing market. As it stands, when people ask me what I'd recommend to them for new reading material, Analog and company are not what I tell them.
It's frustrating, as well, because collections of short stories are one of the best ways I can think of to find a new author that I like.
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