GUEST POST: Jennifer Brissett Weighs in on the Writer Pay Rate Flap
Jennifer Marie Brissett is an MFA candidate at the Stonecoast Creative Writing program, where she concentrates in speculative fiction. Her short fiction can be found in Warrior Wisewoman 2 and The Future Fire. She has a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Engineering (Electrical Engineering with a concentration in Visual Art) from Boston University and once owned and operated a indie bookstore in Brooklyn, NY. Her site can be found at jennbrissett.com.
Brrr… did anyone else feel that chill? Well, I did. I haven’t been able to think about anything else since this whole Black Matrix flap started.
I’ve been reading the blog posts from Scalzi and Rachel Swirsky’s guest blog post on Jeff Vandermeer’s site and I must say that I’m more than a little disturbed by the whole thing. The chill I feel is the people at the pro level pulling up the ladder saying, “you stay down there, kid.” These major editors and authors with large clout slamming on a small non-pro market feels just wrong. I plain don’t understand why Scalzi is insulted by the pay rate that has nothing to do with him. He clearly would never submit to Black Matrix, but other new writers might. Writers like myself.
The speculative genres have an open door to new writers that mainstream fiction doesn’t have. That open door is provided by the semi-pro and non-paying markets, NOT the pro-rate ones. They play a role in the development of new writers. New writers have a chance to be recognized and develop. They often provide more feedback and encouragement rather than a form letter that arrives six months later, or even worse a rejection form email that comes back so fast that your computer is smoking from the speed of its arrival (makes you wonder if they even read your piece.)
I’m not a big name author. I’m just starting out. I have no connection with any of the parties involved in this discussion. I’m just a new writer who hopes to have a career in the genres. I began with Critters, then I took an online writing class, then I joined two writing groups. Now I’m in an MFA program. I’ve worked hard to improve my writing to the point where I got my first sale. It was to a semi-pro market. And I was thrilled. The amount I got from the story was enough to maybe buy a trade paperback book and Chinese take-out, but it was money from my writing. I’m proud of that. My story that was overlooked by the pro-markets went on to get some pretty good reviews from Analog, The Fix, and SF Crowsnest. I say this to say that the pros aren’t always right and, because of the smaller markets, they are also not the only game in town.
If it were left to editors like Rachel Swirsky there would be no new writers at all. Her market is a reprint, pro-rate market that–by her own admission–takes stories from only the pro-rate markets. She admits in her blog piece:
I could tell you lots of things about slush. I could tell you, for instance, that if you are submitting an unsold story to a reprint market and your name isn’t Tim Pratt or Greg Van Eekhout, you are not going to sell that story to me. Why? Because you’re competing with stories printed in the best magazines, chosen by the best editors in the business. If your story was ready to compete with top-level stuff, some other editor would have seen that before your story made it down the market list to find me. Could there be an exception? Sure. There are exceptions to everything. But so far, I haven’t found one to this rule.
So why does she have a slush pile??? It’s a waste of everyone’s time, including hers. I don’t get it. If it was advice that Swirsky wanted to offer about cover letters then maybe the thing to say was to put your five best market sales on it and leave it there.
And the silence on this is just too much. I know that people are scared to say anything to these bigwigs in the field. I guess I’m just stupid enough to do it (I prefer gutsy, but I digress.) These smaller non-paying, or low-paying markets play a critical part in the development of the speculative genres. They encourage new writers and give them a place to be heard. New writers are given a shot in these markets that they are often denied in the pro-rate markets. It’s the smaller, so called “crappy,” markets where the new voices are found.
BTW, calling a market “crappy” because they cannot pay SFWA pro-rates is downright rude. There are plenty of really great markets that pay semi-pro rates, token rates, and even nothing. I’ve run a business and I know how hard it is to keep things afloat when all you get in return for your efforts is love. It seems like a mean thing to say about someone’s efforts.
Related posts:
- Is It Over? The Writer’s Strike
- The Writer at Work
- Monday YouTube Bonus: Harlan Ellison Says Pay the Writer
- And the Greatest Living British Writer is…
- Ray Bradbury Speaks at Writer’s Symposium
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Lou Antonelli’s point seems to have been lost in the malestrom here.
Personally, I second his point. While I don’t have as many stories out there, I have appeared in Interzone and Apex Online formerly Apex Digest.
One point I want to make about Apex Digest. When I made the choice to submit my story to them, my primary consideration was whether or not The Limb Knitter would fit the market. It didn’t seem to fit anywhere else and rather than grouse about that, I sent it to Jason Sizemore to see what he thought.
When I sent it to Jason, Apex Digest was a print mag available at Barnes and Noble (where I first encountered an issue). The pay rate was one cent per word but I didn’t care. It was print and I like print mags on principle. The story was accepted and I figured, “Well, the Knitter found a home.”
Strange thing happened on the way to press. Jason transitioned to an online model and upgraded the pay to 2.5 cents. He graciously agreed to pay me the new rate.
Then he doubled down and offered the SFWA rate. Again, I was upgraded.
Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing. Instead, I sent my story to a place where it would fit and find a readership. The Limb Knitter found a home and it did well enough to receive a mention in the YBSF’s Summation and an Honorable Mention in Gardner Dozois’ anthology.
I don’t know how Black Matrix will perform over time. Perhaps as Rachel Swirsky has said elsewhere, it will fall apart under the strain. That is possible. On the other hand, I have a story or two that might fit there. I just might send one or two their way. I’m willing to take a chance and see.
And I got to say, this fracas does seem like a bit of snobbery.
Or more like the union workers telling the rest of us not to undermine their economic position. Fortunately, there is no picket line to bypass.
Respects,
S. F. Murphy
On the Outer Marches
Where did I say that Black Matrix would collapse? I’ve chattered away a bit, so I’ll believe I did, but I don’t remember saying it. I would say that I’m not optimistic about their chances of survival based on what they’ve presented about their business plan, but I usually try to avoid strong statements like “this will collapse.”
“Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing. “
Except that isn’t his argument and never has been so, as has already been established in this thread and elsewhere. His argument was that BM, unlike other semi-pro magazines, was taking advantage of writers. Other semi-pro magazines offer writers a respected venue, a good editor, an attractive product and good distribution — benefits to the writer — and the best rate they can manage. What BM seems to have done instead is say we can have four magazines or pay writers 1 cent a word — we’ll go with four magazines. We can have really glossy production values or pay writers 1 cent a word — we’ll go with glossy production values. We’re going to charge $10 for our publications, but pay less than 1 cent a word to the content providers. And what Scalzi was pointing out is that this makes BM a lousy publisher whom authors might want to think twice about working with, as well as any other publication that makes business plans like this, and to start aiming higher for publications that treat their authors much better, like the pros and like semi-pros like Apex.
Jen’s view of fiction authors, fiction publishing, and especially of SFF magazines (which I like to call the industry of love and cookies,) is pure hokum. That she’s in a MFA program and believes all this is saddening. I agree with Andrew Wheeler about Internet dogpiles and I wish her well in her writing career, but I’m sorry for any person who believes illogically that SFF authors are locked in viscious competition, trying to spike each other’s careers, while pro editors laugh and spend their days rejecting submissions they don’t read.
I love this debate if for no other reason that it gives name and voice to all the good or appreciated magazines out there where a writer might seek to be published. Some of these names I knew but some I didn’t and I’m sure that is true for others. I might not want to be published in all of them but it opens up new possibilities.
I didn’t want to say anymore on this, but I really don’t like people puting words in my mouth.
“but I’m sorry for any person who believes illogically that SFF authors are locked in viscious competition”
KatG, I never said this. This is what people assumed I was saying which IS pure hokum. What I did say was that “major editors and authors with large clout slamming on a small non-pro market feels just wrong.” We all want space out there AND there IS space out there for everyone. There is NO competition, especially when the little guys are not regulated to be “crap.” All this has been cleared up in previous comments above. Please read them.
Now, back to our regular programming…
SF Murphy sells story to Apex for five cents a word, concludes from this that it is good to sell story to someone else for one-fifth a cent a word? Well, I think we’ve found the end of this conversation.
Guide for the perplexed: how could SF Murphy have found a “pro” home for Apex without submitting it to semi-pro Apex? The answer is simple—had Murphy only ever submitted to “pro” venues, he still would have submitted that story to Apex once it raised its rates and the editor of Apex still would have liked it.
I am thankful to have stumbled across this blog because it has given me some food for thought.
I’ve submitted to the big 3 and others and been rejected. I have a few publications at for the love and token markets.
I’ve been writing about a year.
I don’t feel that my writing has reached a pro-level rank yet, but I have grown a bit in my writing from comments that editors have made on my stories.
Thank you everyone for this discussion.
So, Jenn, what exactly did you mean by the following from your original post?
“The chill I feel is the people at the pro level pulling up the ladder saying, ‘you stay down there, kid.’”
“If it were left to editors like Rachel Swirsky there would be no new writers at all.”
“I know that people are scared to say anything to these bigwigs in the field. I guess I’m just stupid enough to do it (I prefer gutsy, but I digress.)”
And here is what you said in comments that followed:
“Unlike others, I don’t worshop at the alter of John Scazi and he for damned sure don’t scare me.”
“What you are doing here is pulling up the ladder and you ARE in fact looking after your own interests.”
Seems to me you still believe that this divide between pros and new writers exists, and you’ve said nothing to indicate that your position on this has changed.
Yes, Mike, thank you. What you said, Jen, was that big name writers were trying to keep you out of pro markets (“pull up the ladder”,) that those markets were closed to you, that they do not look for and discover new talent, that name writers were trying to denigrate semi-pro markets in their own self-interest to make writers published in those semi-pro markets look bad (because for some reason you’re all a big, bad threat or something — i.e. viscious competition,) that you suspected the pro mags didn’t even read submissions, and various crap like that. And when confronted with the inaccuarcy of your comments, as well as your misreading of the people you were criticizing, your response wasn’t really an apology, but a demand to be reassured on one or two points and then you wouldn’t be mad at them anymore. But all the misleading things you said about the magazine industry and your fellow, more established authors, you pretty much let stand. And other new writers are going to believe that crap and reiterate it, as indeed some did in this thread. So thanks so much for perpetuating a Hollywood conspiracy theory of fiction publishing.
Fiction writers do not directly compete with each other, and they are marketed symbiotically. The success of one writer can help other writers. Further, there is a tradition in SFF — started from the magazines in fact — of mentoring, of writers further along trying to help out other, newer authors — doing collaborations, giving them advice, publishing them in anthologies, teaching them in courses, offering blurbs for their book jackets, co-promoting with them, supporting them at conventions and so on. And Scalzi particularly follows this tradition. He has helped authors fundraise, let them talk about their work on his blog, talked them up on the Web, spent time putting together a Hugo award reader for his rival nominees and for awards he’s not even up for to get voters interested, because he felt it helped all the writers and the field. And that’s why he went after Black Matrix. Whether you agree or don’t with his advice (once you understood what that advice actually was,) your insinuations about his motives show that you’re pretty clueless about the market.
As for the magazines, even the semi-pros don’t really have to look for new writers at this point. They can stick to the pros and the semi-pro authors. But even the pro mags want to find new talent. And so they all — pro and semi-pro — spend a considerable amount of effort reading through a lot of submissions to find the occasional story that might work for them out of the thousands they receive. It’s a bad ratio, but it always has been because a lot of people want to be published. Just because the odds are long and subjective doesn’t require you to accuse those mag editors of trying to con you or snobbishly ignoring you.
You weren’t being brave, you were being spiteful and ignorant, and I don’t have to put words in your mouth because the ones you spit out were unattractive enough as it is. And the really funky thing is that the SFF community won’t hold it against you, especially if they think your stories are good. We still will wish you good luck, and as I said, I do. But if you’re going to continue in the fiction market, you might want to stop trashing other fiction writers as your rivals and magazine editors as slimeballs, and start actually learning about the business instead of making up fantasies about it. Because your version of things is incorrect.
Nick, the pay didn’t matter to me, that is the point I was making. Apparently not clearly enough for you since I didn’t use my ballbat.
Rachel, you didn’t specifically identify Black Matrix, however on your blog you did mention that you will wait to see if a market is viable, maybe a year or so. Is that not correct? Granted, I’ve been grading finals so maybe I missed something.
KatG, Scalzi’s offering a dressed up version of the Union argument against scab labor. How does he know that Black Matrix isn’t going to become a respectable market? He is judging apparently based upon word rate alone and to be perfectly honest, I don’t even see where he has a dog in this fight.
BTW, how many non-American writers have weighed in on this pay scuffle? I’m kinda curious because I know that SFWA isn’t exactly popular with non-American SF writers. Be nice to know how many Brits, Aussies and the like are onboard with Scalzi.
In any case, the great thing about this is that I really don’t give a shit what every other writer in the SF community does. I’ll continue to do things my way, which even Scalzi says I have a right to do.
S.F.Murphy:
Yeah, uhm, so, you put a all your chips on 22-Black, the little white ball landed on 22-Black, and so that makes it a good strategy for everyone to play by???????? Because that’s what folks are talking about here: good strategies for aspiring writers, right? And your advice for submission strategy is to submit to a non-pro-rate market on the bajillion-to-one odds that between acceptance and payment they jack their rates up? I hope you’re not grading math finals.
Jenn:
Speaking of putting words into people’s mouths, please grep this thread for the string “people … saying blah”. And if putting words into people’s mouths isn’t enough, you’ve asserted a number of statements about the way the SF markets work that are contrary to the facts. Patrick Nielsen Hayden from TOR has already pointed out that they accept submissions from never-been-published-before authors and buy some of them as well. And yet you assert that semi-pro-rate markets provide an “open door” to unpublished authors that pro-rate markets don’t, that the pros maintain a two-tier system, that pros try to “pull the ladder up” on the non pros, that pro-markets return non-pro submissions immediately via email without reading it simply because they’re submitted by a nonpro.
You completely misrepresent reality and ignore all the people pointing out this misrepresentation to you. And the one thing you object to is a subpart of a subparagraph of KatG’s post that isn’t actually quoting you, but is summarizing all the myths about the publishing industry that you’ve made up.
Here’s a couple of simple yes/no questions to clarify what you’re trying to say on this thread:
(1) Is it general policy of pro-markets to reject non-pro authors without even reading their submissions? This is what you imply and accuse in your original post.
(2) Are you saying Scalzi is “pulling the ladder” up on non-pro authors because he wants to say to the non-pros “you stay down there, kid” (also from your original post)? This being the same Scalzi who is one of the many grossly underpaid instructors at Viable Paradise that *helps* aspiring SF/F writers?
(3) Given that pro-rate markets like TOR accept and sometimes buy stories from never-been-published-before authors, doesn’t that match your definition of an “open door” that your original post said only existed in the semi-pro markets?
If you really, really, really, want to delve into the accuracy of people’s statements, then by all means, lets start with the accuracy of the statements in the original post of this thread.
You’ve been telling a lot of stories about the SFF industry. Most of them aren’t true.
SF, I was simply pointing out that your claim:
Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing.
Was 100 percent wrong. If pay was your primary objective, you would have simply submitted that story to Apex when it announced its new per-word rate, and you would have sold it at that point.
If pay isn’t relevant to you, well, why don’t you just send the money from that sale back to Jason? WHy not rip up the checks when they are sent to you? (Those are rhetorical questions, by the way.)
S.F. Murphy: “How does he know that Black Matrix isn’t going to become a respectable market?”
Well given the following facts:
1) BM Publishing is planning on putting four magazines out.
2) Black Matrix pays at a rate that was low in the 1920s.
3) BMP Publishing is putting forth two book lines.
4) Said book lines aren’t paying advances.
5) BM Publishing circled their wagons saying “we’re in this only because we’re fans” only when publicly called out for paying insultingly miniscule rates.
I’d say it’s pretty clear that respectability is not going to be theirs… ever.
Nick, nice and slow.
Pay
Was
Not
My
Primary
Objective.
Say it with me three times.
I am willing to accept what the market in question is willing to pay. If Apex can pay five cents a word, then I’ll take five cents a word. If they can pay one cent per word, then I’ll take one cent per word.
Pay
Was
Not
My
Primary
Objective.
Finding a market that fit my story was the primary objective. If Black Matrix is a fit for one of my stories, I’ll send a story to them. If I have another story that fits at Apex, I’ll send it there.
Hell, maybe if the stars pop into alignment, I might even send something to Strange Horizons (ha, never). I’m looking for the right fit, not a set pay scale.
Besides, over the last nine years of tracking this community on the internet, I have heard this phrase over and over again. Writers shouldn’t be in this for the money. But then we talk out of the other side of our mouths and demand five cents a word. Which is it? One, or the other.
Another point is this. There are plenty of five cent markets to be found but the word counts are low. If you are a writer who is comfortable around 7000 plus to 15000 plus words, you are going to have a superbitch of a time finding a viable pro-market. Many of the pro markets have word counts lower than five thousand, which, if you’re strength is 7K plus, isn’t a happy situation either.
In fact, I believe there is a marekt called Panverse, edited by Dario Cirello. Pay is $75 per story running 12K on the word count side. I’ve not done the math but I suspect that isn’t much different from the Black Matrix situation.
And so what if Dario is paying that rate? He does have respectable writers submitting to Panverse.
Mike, per your point, how do you know they’ll never be respectable? Because you don’t like the current set up that means they’ll never be acceptable? And so what if they are fans? Bewildering Stories pays Zero and yet stories there get mentions in Dozois’ YBSF as well.
No one answered my question about non-American writers and their feelings per this matter. Since the foreign blogs are strangely silent about this I’m guessing they are probably saying, “Tis muchado about nothing.”
Which it is.
Murphy, my point is that Black Matrix Publishing is trying to build a business with four magazines and two book lines, and they’re doing it by shafting the writers and paying them in breadcrumbs. When called on it, they bascially responded with “we’re not a business, we’re just in it for love of the genre,” when their own website seems to indicate otherwise.
You have to give respect to earn it, and with an abysmally low pay rate, BM Publishing is being disrespectful to the writers. If it had been one mag run as a fan-zine, I imagine those of us with professional aspirations and have actually approached this as a business and a craft as well an art would just say “yeah, right,” and move on. These guys had an advert on the Locus website, along with the afforementioned publishing plan, and are registered as an LLC. Looks like a business, smells like a business, guess what? It is a business, and it’s one that short changing the people upon whom it depends on to supply it with material so that it may exist.
This is something that Scalzi has pointed out on Whatever already. So pay may not be your primary objective, but personally, I want to be a writer for a living. The best way I can do that is to hit the pro-paying markets again and again, until I succeed.
“KatG, Scalzi’s offering a dressed up version of the Union argument against scab labor.”
No, he’s not. There isn’t any writers union in written fiction, the pro magazines aren’t union publications and the semi-pros not, and all the writers in all the semi-pro mags are no threat to Scalzi whatsoever. (Neither are the ones in the pro mags because writers are not directly competing.) This is not about who belongs to the SFWA or not. Dozens of established U.S. authors don’t belong to the SFWA. What he’s talking about is that Black Matrix is a lousy publisher that is treating their prospective authors badly. Whereas other semi-pros treat writers responsibly, trying to give them either decent pay rates or equivalent benefits. Now, it’s a matter of debate whether Black Matrix is making bad choices out of stupidity or deliberate intent, which Scalzi himself acknowledges, but as long as they are making bad choices, they remain a dubious market for anyone’s work. And because, as we’ve seen with Jen, new writers often don’t understand that and how it effects the short story market as a whole (hint: it effects it badly and further kills it off,) Scalzi’s advice was don’t go with the stupid or deliberately misleading guys because it makes it worse for you and worse for the market for writers as a whole. He was suggesting that writers be more strategic, take more chances and shoot for the best venues. If you go to the lower paying ones, at least try to go to the ones that will give you something out of it.
The reality is this: pro magazines look at new authors, with or without credits at other mags. Semi-pros look at new authors, with or without credits at other mags. Both pros and semi-pros can only publish a few new people per issue, but they are dedicated to keep doing it because they feel new authors are important, both to their magazines and to the field. Pro magazines love semi-pro magazines. That the short fiction market for SFF survives and is as large as it is, is a miracle and semi-pro mags are very much part of that vitality. But semi-pro mags that take advantage of authors for the sake of their own advancement are bad for business. Established authors like semi-pros too because they help keep the market for short fiction percolating, and even though the established authors don’t really make any money off of short fiction anymore, it’s still seen as an important part of the field. Established authors also like new authors and most of them try to help the newer ones out, because new authors bring excitement to the field and excitement means more sales for all. Established authors got helped, and most of them pass it on. It’s not about having a dog in the fight, but preferring to not let new authors get torn apart by dogs, because that makes it worse for everybody else. You want the market to be healthy and supporting writers, not just using them.
Can Black Matrix be more respectable? Yes, if they stop making bad choices and start making smarter ones that allow them to pay writers decent rates. But do you really want to be their guinea pigs in the meantime? Some writers will, because they’re desperate, they don’t know any better or don’t care, and/or because they have a Hollywood notion of how fiction publishing works, like Jen. But it certainly doesn’t hurt anything for Scalzi to call this magazine out and say, “your business practices suck” and warn authors that they aren’t helping themselves by thinking this is okay.
You can disagree with that viewpoint in the case of Black Matrix if you want. But saying that established authors are trying to keep new authors down or attacking the semi-pro market, and that pro-markets are trying to shut new authors out is patently false.
“You can disagree with that viewpoint in the case of Black Matrix if you want. But saying that established authors are trying to keep new authors down or attacking the semi-pro market, and that pro-markets are trying to shut new authors out is patently false.”
Once again I ask you to look at the comments above:
“I think the confusion is generated by the fact that no one — including me — will specifically name the magazine names that make them wince (well, apart from Black Matrix).”
Both Rachel and I agreed that this was the sticking point. This was cleared up. I said thank you and as far as I’m concerned this beef is over. Move along kids. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say things that I didn’t say and most certainly didn’t mean.
”I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say things that I didn’t say and most certainly didn’t mean.”
Once again, Jenn, what exactly did you mean by the following from your original post?
“The chill I feel is the people at the pro level pulling up the ladder saying, ‘you stay down there, kid.’”
“If it were left to editors like Rachel Swirsky there would be no new writers at all.”
“I know that people are scared to say anything to these bigwigs in the field. I guess I’m just stupid enough to do it (I prefer gutsy, but I digress.)”
And here is what you said in comments that followed:
“Unlike others, I don’t worshop at the alter of John Scazi and he for damned sure don’t scare me.”
“What you are doing here is pulling up the ladder and you ARE in fact looking after your own interests.”
These are your exact words as posted in this discussion. You have not said anything to indicated a change in stance since, so I can only come away with that you still believe that this divide between pros and new writers exists, and you’ve said nothing to indicate that your position on this has changed.
So Direct Question time: Do you believe there is some divide between professional writers and those not yet in the pro markets, and do you beileve the pro writers and editors are trying to keep new writers out of what you consider the big leagues? I should warn you, not addressing this question will imply a “yes,” based on what I’ve quoted here, and your attitude in general.
‘That open door is provided by the semi-pro and non-paying markets, NOT the pro-rate ones.’
That is an assertion of fact which is patently false; claiming that you did not say it in the first place is also patently false. This is not the way to build a readership…
Have you notice no is beating this dead horse but you guys? It’s over. All missunderstandings are cleared up. More than 160 comments discussed this issue. It came to a head then a conclusion.
jenn, if you don’t wish to participate in the conversation, by all means don’t. Nobody will come to your MFA program, drag you kicking and screaming out of your Tuesday-morning workship and superglue your hands to the keyboard.
But you posted something on a site not your own, which invites comments to said posts. Your authority to tell people that they have to STFU and go home because you’re quite finished is zero, and your repeated attempts to pretend you have that kind of authority are risible.
S.F. Murphy, you’re distorting the argument(s) a bit in your attempt to set up a false dichotomy. Perhaps I’m just not hanging out in the right parts of the Internet, but I’ve never heard an actual, professional writer argue “writers should not be in it for the money”, in the sense of meaning “you shouldn’t care whether you get paid or not.” I have, however, heard that phrase used to mean “if you think that you’re likely to retire to Cabo on the proceeds of your epic sword-and-sorcery novel, think again”. This is particularly sensible given that many professional writers – including that ladder-pulling bastard Scalzi – make, or have made, their living selling the kind of writing that is done almost solely for pay (journalism, business copy) rather than as a feat of creative expression.
BM is making a two-faced argument. It is telling writers that their work is worth an insulting pittance and they should be grateful for the chance to be published, but it is telling readers that same writing is worth just as much, if not more, than work published in an SF/F magazine that pays pro rates.
Jenn:
I quoted you, verbatim, on multiple points you made in your original post.
As much as you want to pretend that “All I was saying was that smaller markets shouldn’t all be lumped together as crap”, that isn’t the case. If you want to *continue* to pretend that’s all you ever said, then you wrote words that either (1) you didn’t mean what you said and have no idea how your words are landing on your readers (lousy writer) or (2) you did mean what you said but now you won’t take responsibility for the untruths you stated (irresponsible human being).
If you want to just tuck tail and stop replying that’s one thing, but to actually repeatedly come out and say that all you were saying was “smaller markets shouldn’t all be lumped together as crap”, and tell people to move along, then turn around and accuse people of saying things about you that you didn’t say or mean, when people have *quoted* you verbatim, well, that’s taking things to a whole new level of Dick Cheney-ness.
If you don’t want to undo all the untrue statements you made about the SFF market, fine. But don’t pretend people are misquoting you when they’re quoting those untruths of yours verbatim.
SF: Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out (on 5 cents a word)
SF: Pay was not my primary objective.
So, your first statement is bad logic. as pointed out before, if you followed Scalzi’s pay argument, you would have submitted to Apex after Apex announced their new rates. That would probably mean you would have submitted it to one or two markets in between when you originally submitted it to Apex (at semi-pro rates) and when you would have submitted it at the pro rates.
If you followed Scalzi’s argument, you would have submitted to Apex, they would have still accepted your story (unless you’re saying they changed their acceptance criteria), and you would have followed Scalzi’s pay argument AND gotten published. There would have been nothing you would have “missed out” on by following Scalzi’s pay argument with Apex, other than a couple month delay.
All your second statement says is that you did NOT follow Scalzi’s pay argument. So what? If you did, you wouldn’t have missed out anyway, except for a couple month delay. And you woudl have still gotten published.
SF: Finding a market that fit my story was the primary objective.
What does that mean in any objective sense? That they would publish your story? If they accepted your story and published it, doesn’t that mean that your story, by definition, “fits” the market? So, if an aspiring writer is going to find a market that “fits” their story, doesn’t that mean they’d find the market that will publish it? And if that’s the criteria, getting published, then wouldn’t pay rate be orthogonal to getting published, to “fitting”? So, wouldn’t the best advise to an aspiring writing be to get published in a market (“fit”) that pays the best rate?
If you want to play subjective literary games with what “fit” means other than “they published it”, then all you’ve done is blow smoke and use mirrors to hide that what you’re really saying is that you submit to the market least likely to reject your story, regardless of how little they pay. If you look for “fit” first, that means you look for the most likely to accept your story and publish it, and if you don’t look at pay rate, then that means you’re playing some kind of weird “the rich are wrong” or “the poor are good” fallacy.
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say things that I didn’t say and most certainly didn’t mean.”
Well now you know how Scalzi and Rachel felt, don’t you?
But you did say them. You made assertions about what was possible for new authors in the pro mag market, which were wrong. You made assertions about Scalzi which were wrong. And you didn’t make much of an apology for it when you were corrected. And when I responded to other people’s posts asking questions about Scalzi’s position and questions they asked me about my posts, I’m supposed to ignore them? I don’t really care if you feel you’ve been sufficiently spanked, Jen, I’m more concerned with people who believe the falsehoods you presented. It’s not really beating a dead horse if people are still confused because you confused them. I agree that what needs to be said has pretty much been said, but your misunderstanding had consequences. And I hope that this isn’t the way you continue to operate in the SFF field.
myth, it was said frequently at Asimov’s Form over the last nine years per the money issue and short stories. And it isn’t just said in the SF writing community. I have heard that from writers (published, paid, professional) outside of SF.
KatG, I suspect you don’t know me, which is probably a good thing. But everything you are writing about the slush piles is not news to me. I’ve been at this game for nine years. There is not a union per se, but SFWA is the default trade organization and they do impose a five cent a word standard their guideline for what they consider to be a professional market.
Now, if I went by that guide (and I don’t) then Interzone would not qualify. Yet by every measure, it is a professional publication. If I went by the argument of simply lining my pockets, I would never have sent my first story to see print to Interzone.
Conversely, I am aware of writers with no credits getting published in the pro mags (I was very nearly one of them back in 2004 until I got screwed, blued and tattooed by an editor which just took the helm of one of the pro mags, which I think is something worth grousing about).
Further, I think you are assuming that I’m just another aspirant. I’m not. I have two story sales (Interzone and Apex) two Honorable Mentions, two reprints and one publication in an upcoming anthology. In addition, I do military research on the side for novelist John Birmingham.
In other words, I know the drill.
And I’ll repeat what I said previously.
<b>I select markets based upon whether or not the story will fit that market.</b>
If that market happens to pay five cents, then fine. If it pays what Black Matrix pays, then fine. If if pays nothing, then that is fine too.
And how is it patently false that this is not an attack on Black Matrix for the purpose of keeping the market tight?
One problem I have with many of the existing markets is that their word counts are too low. Another problem I have with some markets (Strange Horizons being the prime example) is that they have a list of Thou Shalt Nots which run nearly 19 pages when it is printed out. I don’t need Jed, Susan or Karen writing my story for me. That is my job not theirs and I’ve been round and round the merry go round on that issue. Another problem I have is that many of the markets in the US especially are particularly hostile to any story which might feature the Midwestern US in anything but a negative light. They are also actively hostile toward stories which concern matters military that again portray those matters as anything other than negative.
Of course, there is the simple fact that as a reader of science fiction, I find very little that interests me these days. Most of it tends to be very heavy on the polemical and very light on actually telling a story. If one is going to proceed to lecture me about the political in their story then I’m going to put the story down almost every time. E. P. Thompson usually did a better job of it anyway.
So, Kat, given all that, I find that while I am certainly welcome to send my material to many venues, I also find that I can’t bring myself to write the sort of story they are most likely to buy.
In other words, my stories aren’t going to fit a place like Strange Horizons. In fact, if I had sent Tearing Down Tuesday or The Limb Knitter to that market, they’d have rejected them both. They both violate the lengthy list of Thou Shalt Nots (and I defy anyone to show me how I could have gotten around that list while maintaing the integrity of the story).
On the other hand, perhaps Black Matrix has a market where one of my stories will fit. If they do, then rest assured, I’ll send them the story.
Jenn,
Please answer the direct question I made in my pervious comment. Do not attempt the color the issue by saying things are “resolved” without actually addressing the things you did say, and have been quoted here repeatedly. As Greg has put out, you’re marking yourself as either a bad writer, or an irresponsible person, but at this point I’m inclined to believe you’re acting both roles here.
There’s been some good discussion in this thread, and Rachel’s list of ‘zines was worth the price of admission. However, it’s starting to feel like we’re returning all the way back to the beginning when significant progress has been made in the comment thread, progress which seems to be being ignored. For the people still banging on what Jenn said in her original post, what should she do, practically, to satisfy you? Update the original post itself to say, ‘I was mistaken about some things, others were unclear about others, we’ve been through all this in the comments?’
Without defending John Scalzi (who certainly doesn’t need any help defending his own self), it does appear to me that Black Matrix Publishing (BMP) was trying to have it both ways, claiming to be a Pro market while paying well less than Pro rates. When they were called on that, they tried to duck behind a technicality, fooling nobody who’s been paying attention to the discussion. Lou Antonelli (whom, in full disclosure, I have happily published myself) manned up and tried to take the responsibility for the flap by noting that he’d promoted BMP at Locus through the Blinks mechanism. While taking responsibility was a really stand-up thing to do, it really wasn’t Lou’s fault, and I think people understand that. Furthermore, it’s clear that the buck stops back with Guy Kenyon and the BMP people and their marketing decision to charge their customers market rates without paying their authors market compensation. Scalzi observed that was dirty pool and called them out. If you’re an author that doesn’t care about such things, fine, but you’re going in with your eyes open.
Along the way, there was some real confusion about what the Pro writers were saying about the virtue or lack thereof writing for non-Pro markets. That has been pretty soundly worked out, as well. Other than continuing to bang on Jenn, I’m unclear on the point of continuing to drag this thread out (unless schadenfreude is the only thing remaining, which isn’t either helpful or sporting).
Are we already at the point where SF simply repeats his initial claim because he is literally incapable of thinking?
I was pointing out, simply, that when you said “Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing,” you are factually wrong. If you’re basing your silly point on the experiencing of publishing with Apex, that makes your point rather worthless. The end. That is the alpha and the omega. Scalzi’s plan would NOT have led you to miss out. The same exact story would have appeared in the same exact publication for the same exact pay under Scalzi’s plan. Period.
But do go on with your right-wing crankery (oooh, unions bad!), your unattributed source claims about what people are say, and your endless hype of your two whole publications. And the Internet will point and laugh.
Jenn—if you’re feeling uncomfortable because the grown-ups are still talking about your little hissy fit, then you should take the lesson: don’t have big public hissy fits.
Greg, Scalzi’s argument or any like wasn’t in my mind at all when I sent The Limb Knitter to Apex.
Nice and slow, I’ll type it again.
I
Sent
The
Limb
Knitter
To
The
Market
That
Fit.
Say it with me three times.
What does fit mean to me? One of the bits of advice all publications give to writers is to read a few issues and get a feel for what they are looking for. Apex was looking for a combination of SF and Horror. Conversely if you go and look at Strange Horizons’ very long list of Thou Shalt Nots, there are all sorts of provisos on the use of violence (it used to say some nonsense about it being artful which often prompted the quip, “Does that mean when I blow someone’s head off that it has to make a butterfly pattern on the wall?”) and sex.
TLK wasn’t going to fit SH. My first story, Tearing Down Tuesday, wasn’t going to fit at someplace like Asimov’s. It did, on the other hand, fit at Interzone.
I pick the markets that I think will be a fit for my stories. I don’t see what is so difficult for you to understand about that.
On the pay front, I got lucky. It went up. I asked if I could have the pay increase. Jason gave it to me. He could have said no and I’d have replied, “Cool. Look forward to seeing my story in print anyway.”
Why?
Because The Limb Knitter fit Apex. If I’d have been a snob about the pay issue I’d have put myself a year behind on selling The Limb Knitter. If I had waited too long I’d have screwed myself royally because Jason lowered the word count limit a few months later.
So the likely response would have been, “Gee, Murph. I love this story, but it is too long for me. Good luck selling this piece. I really liked it.”
My point is pretty simple, perhaps it is too simple.
You can cheerfully screw yourself out of an opportunity if you stay wedded to that five cent a word pay rate.
Dance, monkey, dance. Keep pretending you didn’t say
”Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing,”
Look, I’ll repeat it a few more times.
”Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing,”
”Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing,”
“Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing,”
“Now, if I followed Scalzi’s pay argument, then I’d have missed out if pay was my primary objective in writing,”
Hmm, nope, repeating it didn’t help. Still wrong! Still a stupid lie! Just like your shrieking about the military and the midwest (hilariously, in your conjunction with your glorifcation of Interzone!), just like your babble about SH’s guidelines, just like every other bit of babbling nonsense you’ve been spouting for years and years. You’re not even a good troll; they evolve their schticks occasionally. Not you, though — you have your little life of failure and pretend enemies all set up, so why change?
Pathetic.
<i>
Along the way, there was some real confusion about what the Pro writers were saying about the virtue or lack thereof writing for non-Pro markets.</i>
Real confusion, John, or real defensiveness and attempts to obfuscate the issue for fifteen seconds of fame?
Nick, did you take your meds today?
I suspect you didn’t.
Gotta admit, I really don’t care if you get it or not.
Well, then it will hardly matter that I do, indeed, get it—specifically I get that you are wrong.
It is always fun to see you waddle out out of your cave and embarrass yourself again though.
“Rachel, you didn’t specifically identify Black Matrix, however on your blog you did mention that you will wait to see if a market is viable, maybe a year or so. Is that not correct? Granted, I’ve been grading finals so maybe I missed something. ”
Hi Stephen,
I tried to post this earlier, but it didn’t go through for some reason. I did say that I wait a year. Nick has suggested that my reasons for doing so are not very well-thought out, and he may be right. There’s more back-and-forth about it on Vandermeer’s blog.
Good luck with grading finals.
S.F., lots of things are ‘said’ by different people, some of whom write SF/F. I don’t see that this proves that the pro SF/F writing community is claiming that writing should be for love alone but also should receive high word rates.
Accusing writers of criticizing BM to ‘keep the market tight’ is a pretty serious charge. You’re claiming that professional writers are flat-out lying about their motives and are attacking an otherwise worthy market purely for the purposes of shutting new writers out of the field. Is that really your argument? It’s handily irrefutable, I suppose; having painted someone as a liar with base motives, you can handily dismiss any counterargument they make because, duh, hello, they’re a liar with base motives!
If love is the only motive for your writing, then there’s no reason to submit to BM. You can publish on your website, or to a community blog, or heck, start your own online semipro or amateur publication that fits the kind of things you write. But selling to BM is not ‘for the love’. They are paying you the equivalent of a pat on the head, and then turning around and reselling your work for prices equivalent to (or greater than) a professional, for-money-not-love venue. They sure aren’t doing it for the love.
If money is at least part of the motive for your writing, then again, BM is a poor idea. See previous and detailed posts by others about the economics of writing. And, again, BM is not reselling your work at the level of what they’re paying you for it.
It’s a bit like taking up with an obnoxious, abusive partner who treats you poorly and raids your paycheck because, well, at least s/he’s a great cook and besides, you have a very hard time finding anybody else. And then lashing out at anyone who criticizes your SO because they clearly are jealous.
Oh, look everybody! Nick’s going to demonstrate what it’s like to be a grown-up! Go ahead, Nick.
I agree with Nick in that one must be careful when posting a rant, for it invites criticism of that rant (and, subsequently and apparently, every relevant and non-relevant thing about you, check local listings).
Meanwhile, regardless of Jenn’s naive and provocative initial post, she did have a valid concern, which has subsequently been clarified and put to bed in the course of the thread. Furthermore, Rachel posted a fine list of publications as examples. Finally, the girls (ladies? women? Rachel & Jenn?) have already gone ahead and arrived at consensus while the boys are still comparing the size of their members.
This thread was ultimately helpful even if it got off on the wrong foot. (What are the chances we can leave it at that?)
SF: You can cheerfully screw yourself out of an opportunity if you stay wedded to that five cent a word pay rate.
OK, OK, I think I understand the issue here. You, SFMurphy, are a genius and slightly empowered with the gift of prognostication. You can tell, in advance, which market will publish your story and which will not. You can prove this because statistically speaking (Oh, wait, you’re no good at statistics) your acceptance rate is far higher than anyone else who has been submitting as much as you have. All the others submit higgledy piggledy and get lots of rejections, you, oh thou great seer, can tell in advance the one perfect market that simply cannot refuse to reject your stories. In fact, you’ve never been rejected, because you always find the market with the right “fit”.
Well, I wouldn’t want to insult your amazing abilities of divination, nor could we possibly question your acceptance rate far above any other writer in your caliber.
So, I won’t.
Nope.
Not me.
But what I will say is that your advice, if given as advice to a new, or aspiring, or up-and-coming writer, who is not gifted with the soothsaying gene like you are, then I will say that your advice, as far as it applies to the aspiring-muggle-writers, then your advice is crap.
You might as well tell a newbie skydiver to only go up in planes that aren’t going to burst into flame on takeoff. You of course have the gift of forsight to know which planes will go splewy on the runway, but the others won’t. So, your advice is crap. It’s useless.
Oh, certainly, you know the drill. You’ve been in this game a long time. You’re the master of your domain.
You’re not just another aspirant. Oh no, you’re not. You have two (count them, two) story sales (Interzone and Apex) two Honorable Mentions, two reprints and one publication in an upcoming anthology. In addition, you do military research on the side for novelist John Birmingham.
None of the folks here who have disagreed with you or who have raised an issue the Black Matrix have anywhere near as many publications as you.
But for all the others out there who are aspiring to become professional writers, your advice is probably harmful to them. They just don’t know the drill the way you do.
So, to the muggle-writers out there, I would say this: Write the best story you can write (take courses, workshops, join writers groups, get critiqued) and then find all the markets that might publish it, and submit them in order from the highest pay-per-word market to lowest. And while you’re waiting for each response, write another story. When you get a response, if it’s a rejection, then go to the next-highest-paying-market on the list, submit it there, and get back to writing your other story.
Any aspiring writer who is submitting to a cheap market first because they think they’ve got better odds of getting accepted, rather than submitting to a possible pro-paying market first, all to avoid and minimize the number of rejections they have to deal with, is selling themselves short as a writer. And the last thing I would want to see is some aspiring writer submit to what he thinks is an “easier” market to avoid rejections and then try to hide that fact behind your “advice” that he thinks the cheaper market is the better “fit”.
I know you’re too gifted to do such a thing, SF. But you’re like a 10th level wizard giving 7th level advice to 1st level mage wannabes. And your advice might end up making some writer play the part of Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. They’ll get themselves in trouble.
So, again, to all the aspiring writers out there, write the best story you can, submit it to the best-paying-market-that-might-publish-it first, and while you’re waiting, write another story.
And don’t worry, SF, this doesn’t apply to you, because like you said, you know the drill.
I would not want to question your skill in that regard.
Hmm, Johne, let’s say you get off a couple more vague insults (dick size, etc.) and then call an end to the conversation…how do you think that might go?
You’re impressed with Jenn’s transparent attempt to save face by pretending that nobody was naming names of good non-professional markets, or, for that matter, that naming names matters at all as regards her post or her claims. And, frankly, Johne, you’re doing the same thing. You’ve been doing it since the beginning of this discussion at Scalzi’s.
Here’s the post that started it all:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/12/01/in-the-spirit-of-the-pulps-and-paying-even-less
Your comments from the beginning have involved throwing up the same flak and prevarications, the same nonsense about “places where up-and-coming authors can learn their chops” etc. Let’s call it the Little Lie technique—start talking about something else and pretend that some agreement has been reached when other people say, “Yeah yeah, but we weren’t talking about that and we already said that.” You and Jenn and pretending that “Yeah, Yeah” is the whole of it. It’s not.
Jenn is doing it, you are doing it. It is simply not true that this argument was about people failing to “name names” when it comes to good semi-professional venues. There was no confusion about Black Matrix or semi-pros, except for the confusion purposefully sown by, well, you and Jenn and a few others. That’s it.
If Jenn wishes the conversation to end, she should just acknowledge the factual errors she made and apologize for propogating them and for defending them so viciously with personal attacks. She hasn’t done so, not by any real definition of apologizing. The one thing that comes even remotely close — “God, you guys are reading a lot more than I was trying to say. Yes, this all got very personal. For any part in that I played appologize. But some stuff is being said here just is going too far” — is a variation of “I’m sorry you’re all a bunch of assholes.” It’s childish crap.
Rachel, rather inexplicably to my mind, has apologized for several things which were in no way wrong or incorrect. That’s on Rachel, not anyone else. Lots of people apologize just to make whatever nitwit they’ve found themselves entangled with shut up. Maybe Rachel’s doing that, maybe she’s not. It hardly matters though.
If Jenn wants to be treated with anything other than contempt, she should act less contemptibly.
About 17 years ago I was a member of the local school board. We had a long, drawn out protracted debate among ourselves on some motion, and after maybe 45 minutes of everyone holding forth, I was speechifying myself.
After I talked another ten minutes, I realized that while the debate had been cathartic, we weren’t going to accomplish anything, and thought it would be a good idea to ask the motion’s proponent to withdraw the motion.
So I asked, “who made this motion?”
And the other six members said in unison, “You did!”*
It’s nice that everyone had their own opinion. It’s also nice that this is a free country. We can all do what we want. As for me, while this subject – in all the places it has been carried on – has been interesting, I think at this point we are beating a dead horse into mucilage.
That’s probably why we are degenerating into ad hominen attacks.
I will continue to write what I like and submit where I like, in the order I like, for the pay rates I like. I hope everyone else out there does the same. There are some aspiring writers out there who may have learned something from all this. I don’t think my attitudes and experience are typical, so I wouldn’t hold myself out as an example for anyone to follow. For myself, I know what I want and what I am doing in the field.
The issues of what you are willing to sell a story for, and to whom, are intensely personal. The subjects of what you need, want and care for are also personal. I also think that the best advice is always personal. I’ve had some people over the years tell me some tips and encouragement I have given them – when buttonholed at some convention – have been a great help. That’s because I ask questions back, look them in the eye, and size them up a bit.
Advice gleaned from these kind of internet intrigues are, I believe, are much less useful. But if you learned something helpful, that’s fine. For my part, I don’t think I learned anything about the genre. I may have learned something about some people, though.
Merry Christmas, y’all. Peace and goodwill and tranqulity abound. At least for a little while.
Lou Antonelli
* Yep, I didn’t win re-election.
I didn’t sow confusion as much as radiate it. Nick, you write I have been asking the same questions since the beginning of Scalzi’s thread, and that is completely true. I have been consistent throughout because I was genuinely confused, and clearly was not the only one. We were asking questions which weren’t being answered initially, and kept asking them until they were. That hardly seems sinister to me.
In the course of these threads, some (many? most?) have been more than patient, some have been barely civil, and some have been dicks. But that’s par for the course for internet threads, so no-one should be terribly surprised. What is surprising that so many writers who have the reputation of being careful observers of people were not perceptive enough early enough to know that they were not being understood.
When Jenn made her post, replete in naivete and bluster, I understood where she was coming from. Without endorsing her defiance or her flip attitude (especially toward John Scalzi, yikes!) I understood Jenn’s confusion and her feelings that some were acting superior and condescending. Acting rude and sophomoric at the outset didn’t help Jenn’s cause, and I’m not defending her initial tone.
However, some good things have unfolded here, and Jenn has modified her attitude from her initial defiant posture. That goes more to the patience and the willingness of the mature community to come together one more time and make these issues clear than anything, and kudos to all who took part, both in Scalzi’s handful of threads, elsewhere, and here. It took some time to explore the other side of the BMP issue, but I’m very glad it was. It was apparently necessary to others just coming into the scene and who did not understand the unspoken subtext which was apparently clear to the Pros.
The intent of the hangers-on who seem bent on punishing Jenn further puzzle me. There’s a fine line between discipline and bullying / abuse. I have had kids, and I understand the purpose of discipline. It is about restoration, not punishment. It is twofold: to correct behavior, and to restore relationship. It is not about punishment, it is about teaching, where a more mature person patiently helps a less mature person become better. It seems to me that both purposes of discipline have already been accomplished in this thread. Good has been done here, awareness has been raised, and the primary purpose of the thread seems to have been long fulfilled. Sticking around to continue to batter Jenn is pointless, rude, and small.
“For the people still banging on what Jenn said in her original post, what should she do, practically, to satisfy you? Update the original post itself to say, ‘I was mistaken about some things, others were unclear about others, we’ve been through all this in the comments?’”
That would be nice, along with “I apologize for trashing the short fiction market without knowing what I was talking about and calling Scalzi the equivalent of a chucklehead” but I doubt we’ll get it. Again, my big concern isn’t Jen but the people she continued to confuse with her confusion. I don’t have any need to punish Jen, but this was her ill-considered attack on other people, not mine.
SF, I wasn’t trying to dis your publication credits. I was just clarifying what Scalzi was saying and why Jen was wrong in her comments about the market. The SFWA is not a trade organization. It’s a writers group that advocates for writers and helps them promote and get information. There was some grousing at their narrowing their membership requirements, but they are entitled to set them, and you can’t really blame them for wanting to see writers decently paid. Their rates are suggestions and the people in the SFWA do not think that the semi-pro magazines are crap. But they are considered semi-pro because they can’t offer authors full rates. Black Matrix is not even offering standard semi-pro rates. Interzone may not offer the “pro” rate, but it does try to offer a pretty decent rate and it offers other benefits — reputation, good editing, a decent audience and distribution.
“And how is it patently false that this is not an attack on Black Matrix for the purpose of keeping the market tight? “
Because they don’t want to keep the market tight. You’re applying a model to the short fiction market that doesn’t actually exist.
“One problem I have with many of the existing markets is that their word counts are too low. “
They have to weigh production costs with how high they can price the magazine. Publishing longer stories means publishing fewer stories per issue (and fewer new writers.) So magazines choose. The bigger magazines can do longer pieces usually. Reader preferences are also sometimes involved.
“Another problem I have with some markets (Strange Horizons being the prime example) is that they have a list of Thou Shalt Nots which run nearly 19 pages when it is printed out. I don’t need Jed, Susan or Karen writing my story for me.”
And they don’t need authors telling them they have to buy a story that isn’t going to interest their particular audience. It’s not a Thou Shalt Not list; it’s a our readers don’t want this list, which is probably compiled out of A) things they see a lot that don’t interest them; and B) things they know aren’t going to interest their audience. As you say, they need stories that are going to fit.
“Another problem I have is that many of the markets in the US especially are particularly hostile to any story which might feature the Midwestern US in anything but a negative light. They are also actively hostile toward stories which concern matters military that again portray those matters as anything other than negative. “
I find this an odd assertion, given that I’ve read western and mid-western stories that were positive in the past and that military SF — which often shows military folk in a positive or semi-positive light — is exceedingly popular in the States. (In fact, Scalzi writes it.) You may have run into an editor with a preference, but overall, I’d caution about believing rejections are a matter of prejudices rather than that the story didn’t grab them.
“In other words, my stories aren’t going to fit a place like Strange Horizons. In fact, if I had sent Tearing Down Tuesday or The Limb Knitter to that market, they’d have rejected them both. “
Well since Strange Horizons has their list, that may well be the case, but it’s rather hard to know for certain whether a particular magazine is going to reject your story or not unless you submit it to them. Writers have limited time and have to choose, but ignoring better markets on the presupposition that you’ll be rejected seems rather self-defeating to me. Short fiction marketing is largely a matter of playing the odds — the more stories you have out there and the more magazines you submit to, the better your odds. But submitting to a publication that doesn’t know what it’s doing and takes advantage of writers doesn’t seem like a very sound strategy to me. But every writer gets to decide.
“On the other hand, perhaps Black Matrix has a market where one of my stories will fit. If they do, then rest assured, I’ll send them the story.”
I’ve had too many friends enter into similar situations that I would be interested in Black Matrix, because the benefits are slim to none and there’s often a cost. I’d rather take a shot at a pro or decent semi-pro publication. Stuff like Black Matrix is pulling tends to help shrink the market and turn off readers. But again, it’s the writers choice. Take Scalzi’s advice or don’t.
Johne: The intent of the hangers-on who seem bent on punishing Jenn further puzzle me.
Good lord. The intent of *Jennifer* is what puzzles me. She’s the one who keeps coming into this thread announcing nonsense like “All I ever said was” and then rewrite reality. I’m certainly not “bent on punishing” her, but I do respond to her posts when they’re chock full of nonsense. And her posts have been full of nonsense.
But even now, I’m not “bent on punishing” Jenn, I’m replying to people like you who also seem to have an amazingly selective memory.
I don’t expect Jenn to apologize, or to say “yes, I said that and that was wrong”. And I don’t expect you to either.
But what you *can* expect is every time you post something on the internet that is untrue, don’t be surprised if people respond by pointing out the untruths. That’s not “bent on punishing” anyone, that’s just putting a spotlight on malarkey that needs spotlighting.
Jenn said a bunch of nonsense. People called her on it. Her most recent statements about the whole thing are that she only said one thing and everything else has been wiped from her memory. Course, people can still read the nonsense in the original post. She just can’t remember it and appears to have trouble focusing on it.
Oh well, at least she stopped trying to say “We all agree that all I ever said was…”
And then there are folks like you:
What Jenn did in the original post is make numerous statements about other people that were flat out untrue. What I find just absolutely hilarious about that entire paragraph of yours up there is that of all the descriptors you manage to use, not one of them acknowledges all those untruths that Jenn wrote.
It wasn’t just naivete and bluster, it was untrue. It wasn’t just defiant and flip, it was untrue (especially towards Scalzi, yikes!). It wasn’t just confusion, it was untrue. It wasn’t just rude and condescending, it was untrue.
And yet, of all the words you can find to describe the original post, “untrue” never comes up.
OK. Fine.
I don’t expect Jenn to acknowledge the untruths she wrote about other people any more than I expect you to call those words the untruths that they were.
What I expect is people like you calling the truth some kind of “punishment” that you just can’t understand.
Alrighty, Greg. You’ve revealed the truth about the truth of the truth. Truer words were never as true. (People like me? Greg, there’s nobody else like me. You can thank your lucky stars or favorite deity for that!)
Strange Horizons and Asimovs both publish Deb Coates who writes fantasy that takes place in a positive, peaceful midwest. (Mostly mentioning this because I <3 her stories and everyone should read them.)
The Corporations Division database maintained by the Oregon Secretary of State says that Black Matrix Publishing LLC is a Domestic Limited Liability Company. It’s not a nonprofit. Here’s the basic link if anyone wants to look at the info or pay to get a copy of Black Matrix’s Articles of Organization, which were filed in March 2009.
http://www.filinginoregon.com/index.htm
Holy shit. Nick Mamatas and S. F. Murpy in a flame war?! It feels like 2002 all over again! I’m glad some things never change.
Good show… Match to Nick.
So, Johne, given your non-reply, I take it that you agree with every single word that Jenn has said? It’s all true? The pros are out to keep the non-pros down? The pro markets shut all the doors to non-pro authors? Pro authors beat up on non-pro-rate-paying markets simply to remove the ability for non-pro authors the ability to get their “tokens” and keep them out of the pro markets? They’re pulling up the “ladders”?
It’s all true? the only thing that needed to be cleared up was that one and only thing that Jenn “really” said, which was that not all semi-pro markets should be lumped together as “crap”. Right? Everything else stands? Don’t call all the semi-pro markets crap, be sure to clear that up, but all the nonsense about the pros and pro markets is the gods-honest truth.
Glad you cleared up the truth for us, Johne.
Oh, that, and you pay ten dollars for stories over 1,500 words. That’s the truth. Or maybe that’s just a fact. Either way, I guess it’s less than half a penny per word for most stories.
So really, you’re only concern here was that RGR not be labeled “crap”. Everything nasty said about the pro market was just, what, water under the brider? Venting frustration? Doesn’t count because people had their fingers crossed when they said it?
What’s hilarious is that no one actually called RGR “crap”, but you seem to have had a dog in this fight specifically because that’s how you took the attack on Black Matrix. You decided it was an attack on you as well. Meanwhile, Jenn spews forth a litany of false statemetns about pro authors, pro markets, and pros in the field of SF/F, but you just can’t be bothered to sic your dog on those untruths, can you, Johne?
No, now that poeple said for the millionth time that no one ever said all non-pro markets are crap, well, everything you or Jen or anyone else on your side ever said just sort of fades from memory. Just because Jenn wrote it, and just because it wasn’t actually true, well, who keeps count of stuff like that. What’s important is that “ray gun revival” didn’t get lumped in with the label of “crap”, right? The rest of it was really irrelevant.
Come on, Johne, mock the concept of truth one more time.
Greg
I am holding you personally responsible for the mouthful of croissant that I have just scraped off my keyboard; the next time you refer to a website could you please give some warning?
I appreciate that the blurb on RGR isn’t meant to be funny but that’s no excuse.
Johne, what can I say? I don’t think you were honestly confused. I think you were and are just running interference for your own magazine. I think so because this is what happens, in broad strokes, any time this discussion comes up. Not with you, necessarily, but with anyone who might be frequently submitting to bottom-tier publications or running one.
I just find it more than a little amazing that the “confusion” people experience tends to adapt exactly to their perceived short-term self-interests, and turns them into the heroes of their own little dramas. And that it happens every single time.
I’ve never been so confused in my life.
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Greg, do you always put words in the mouths of your opponents? You’ve certainly put a lot in mine. I’ve already said what I think, and it is more nuanced that you have restated.
There’s opinion and there’s perspective and there’s fact. Truth? I leave truth to philosophers and theologians.
My observation is that Jenn had an opinion based on inaccurate facts. After the facts were clarified, her opinion was apparently modified based on those facts to more accurately reflect reality.
My observation is that this discussion is substantially over and has been for quite some time. My opinion is that to continue to bang on Jenn’s first post after subsequent ones displayed a changed opinion as she better understand the real facts seems brutish to me, and I questioned the value of beating dead horses, and the sportsmanship of flaying the author of a post when so much has happened since then.
Reading anything more into my own perspective is silly.
Nick,
In John Scalzi’s original thread, he wrote:
Taken at face value, as one who is, indeed, editor of a token payment rag, that was a very chilling. But after thinking about it, I figured that couldn’t be correct. I’m a token pay editor looking at things through that perspective. I figured context is important, and it gradually became apparent to me that John wrote his post from his own perspective, that of the Pro author. That was consistent with the primary point of the post, and perhaps should have been assumed. A number of us asked the question in a number of different ways, and to the best of my knowledge, he never answered those questions in that thread. However, he did make a new post a day or two later that settled that question for me as far as he was concerned. Others, however, continued to say what Scalzi was not, that writers, especially up-and-coming writers, would all be better off only submitting to Pro (or Semipro) publications. So while my confusion was clarified as far as John was concerned, the issue was not completely addressed.
When I read Jenn’s post, while I didn’t agree with her tone and questioned her conclusions, I understood where she was coming from, and hoped that her questions would be answered.
They were, as were my lingering ones. For this, I am grateful. That’s it.