Book View Cafe
Amy Sterling writes in to tell us about a new website called Book View Cafe that brags a stellar roster of bloggers: Maya Kaathryn Bahnhoff, Brenda Clough, Katie Daniel, Laura Anne Gilman, Christie Golden, Anne Harris, Sylvia Kelso, Katharine Eliska Kimbriel, Sue Lange, Ursula K. Le Guin, Rebecca Lickiss, Vonda N. McIntyre, Nancy Jane Moore, Pati Nagle, Darcy Pattison, Irene Radford, Madeleine Robins, Amy Sterling, Jennifer Stevenson, Susan Wright, and the blog’s driving force, Sarah Zettel. You can access each author’s content from the menu.
What will it contain? From the FAQ:
Book View Cafe represents a new approach to publishing made possible by the Internet. While most of the fiction on the site is free, authors will also be offering expanded work, additional content, print versions, or subscriptions for a fee. Our authors are all seasoned professionals with publishing credits in the print world. The Internet is giving them an opportunity to make their out-of-print, experimental, or otherwise unavailable work to you. We love feedback on how we are doing.Every day, new content available no where else will be served up on Book View Cafe. This content will be in the form of short stories, flash fiction, poetry, episodes of serialized novels, and maybe even a podcast now and then. The content will be archived and available after the posting date by visiting the author’s bookshelf.
There’s also a corresponding blog.
They’ve just gone live, so bear with them and whet your appetite on this freebie story: “The Natural History & Extinction of the People of the Sea” by Vonda N. McIntyre featuring illustrations by Ursula K. Le Guin.
[Note: Book View Cafe has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog.]
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- Here’s a Nice Book Finding Site
- Does a Book’s Popularity Entice You to Read it?
- Book Bump
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Isn’t that ‘Book View Cafe’?
Er…yes…yes it would be.
Heh – nothing like reading a post that changes while you read it
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Seriously, the name change made all the difference. I was about to get a little ranty about these authors suddenly deciding to review other authors and acting like journalists. But this is different. Looks like these authors just wanted to put a place together where they don’t have to worry about the technology. A co-op for web publishing. I like it!
One thing I couldn’t help noticing is that the authors are all women. Kudos to John for not mentioning that in the post (it really isn’t relevant to their launch) but it is interesting. I wonder what the story is behind this. Hmmm….
Scottsh — the story behind it being all-female is that the idea came up on a mailing list for women writers of genre (sf/f/romance), and we agreed to keep the membership limited at first to minimize launch-time chaos. No bias intended, just a quirk of where it began.
We already have a waiting list of people who have expressed interest in joining.
I’m curious (and not in a sniping-way) why it even occured to someone that the authors were women. I see list of authors and think “Oh, I know that writer’s work!” The last thing that ever crosses my mind is “oh, yeah, that’s a male/female author.” It’s just a curiosity on my part, as a female SF/F writer who refuses to use a pen-name. I think of writing and reading more along the lines of radio vs hollywood. You don’t need a pretty face to be on radio, and you certainly don’t need a Y chromosome to write really great SF.
I guess I don’t have an easy answer Kristine. I suppose I could say it was because I am constantly concerned about the plight of female authors and always looking out for ways to see that some form of gender equality is being reached in a male-dominated publishing world.
Of course, that probably isn’t true. I saw almost immediately that the list of authors included only female names. I think that says far more about me than I’d like.
The reason I mentioned it was because I was thinking that it had something to do with how the group was started or what they wanted to accomplish. Turns out I was right, but that is a subject for another article
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Never be ashamed by an honest answer
I just find it a curious thing, how the gender of a writer is perceived by some. And, on several levels, I’m sure I’m just as guilty in many respects!