Year End Report – 2011

We’re coming up on the end of the publishing year, which in some ways for me has been a little thin this time around. There are reasons for that, yes, but they don’t change the result. I’ve published four stories this year in the traditional way, and I use that term loosely since only two of those were print publications. Electronic media’s becoming the new “traditional,” and soon the idea of paper except for very special projects and limited editions will be seen as positively quaint. I was on track to publish five original stories, which is pretty typical for me, but we all know what happened to Realms of Fantasy. So it goes. I started to compile what would have been a very brief summary when it occurred to me that to consider only the traditional venues marginalizes what else I’ve accomplished this year, projects which I am rather proud of, frankly, both for breaking new ground in my attitudes and pushing my comfort zone into the 21st Century. So for the first time ever I’m going to give my yearly breakdown in two separate sections: Traditional, and eBook.

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Ringing the Changes

I was checking some articles on my old web site and was struck by how, well, for want of a better word, useless some older posts on the business of writing were. I mean, take the one on manuscript preparation, for example. Perfectly good advice…for 1997. Back when most venues were still paper-only and email was only good for querying, and not always then. Now it’s email attachments or online submission forms in all cases except a handful, though when I first started submitting the publishers were fighting those kind of changes tooth and nail and more teeth. That was then, and not everyone could wrap their heads around the notion that the way it was didn’t necessarily reflect the way it would be. Continue reading

Realms of Fantasy-A Personal Eulogy

Magazines are born and die. This is a fact in and out of the field. I found myself making a list of just the print magazines I have known that are no longer here. In no particular order:

Galaxy
If
Omni
Twilight Zone Magazine

Amazing SF
Fantastic Stories
Adventures of Sword & Sorcery
Cosmos
American Fantasy Magazine
SF Age
Tomorrow: SF
Quantum SF
Odyssey
3SF
Pirate Writings
Aboriginal
Pulphouse
Century
Argosy
Fantasy Book
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine
Alchemy
Troll
Dragon
Unearth
Shayol
Galileo

I’m sure I’m missing a few (dozen), and that’s just the print list. Online/electronic hasn’t been immune either (Sci-Fi.Com, Aeon, Future Orbits, etc). That’s reality. I know it and you guys know it. Some of these paid well, some hardly paid at all. Some had more prestige and influence than their circulations would suggest, but one and all they’re gone now and every one was a loss in its own right. Now we can add Realms of Fantasy (RoF)to that very long list. Continue reading