A discussion of magazines/webzines vs original anthologies

[ellen_datlow]

Abigail Nussbaum, in reviewing The Del Rey Book of SF&F discusses the differences in what she finds in magazines and webzines vs original anthologies.

Asking the Wrong Questions

I just tried posting a comment in response to the below paragraph but my long post was lost so I'll just try it again here.

"There's a flipside to this, however, which became apparent when I scanned the author bios in The Del Rey Book and discovered that not a single one of its contributors was a first time writer. The reason that the genre short story scene is still vibrant is that there's a relatively low threshold for entry, with new writers making sales and putting their material before an audience every month. Just as the investment of time and money in original story anthologies dwarfs that afforded to any month's issue of a magazine, so, presumably, do the hurdles first time writers have to clear before they're published in those anthologies become tougher, perhaps even impossible, to overcome. I rarely read magazines for just the reasons stated above--because there's so much dross to wade through, and I'd rather wait for other readers to do that work and discover new voices for me. But if magazines and other venues like them become an endangered species, and original story anthologies become the dominant delivery system for new short fiction, those new voices might peter out. This should not be construed as a specific criticism of Datlow, who as I've said has put together a strong anthology whose table of contents is by no means dominated by heavy hitters, but it is telling that all but two of the contributors to The Del Rey Book were published in SciFiction, and that several of them published their best-know stories and made their reputation there. If it weren't for the webzine, would Datlow have had as varied and talented a stable of authors to approach when she made up The Del Rey Book?"


My response:
As a short story editor at OMNI and SCIFICTION, I've had the opportunity to work with newer writers who I've later used in original anthologies. And I've read hundreds of short stories in the sf/f/h fields for the past 22 years while reading for the YBFH. So I'm in a position (with a very few other editors) to have access to many many writers. When I was at OMNI I went out of my way to read the original anthologies featuring new or newer writers and asked them to submit to OMNI. Many did. Some I bought.

I've taught Clarion four times in the past 20 years and Clarion South once. Through that I've met a lot of young writers whose work I've encouraged (and even bought). So has Gardner Dozois.
Magazines to some extent face the same reality original anthologies do. There have to be enough recognizable names per issue/book for readers to even pick them up.
While at OMNI I rarely bought a first story -at SCIFICTION I bought several. I've even occasionally bought first stories for my anthologies.

Comments

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Because it's rare that I pick up a magazine or an anthology based on who is in it. I almost exclusively pick up magazines because they are publications that I know I've read good stories in, or because they look interesting and some of the story synopses appeal to me. And with anthologies, it's almost never about name recognition of the included authors; it's almost exclusively about the editor. If it's an editor I know and trust because they've got a wonderful record of feeding me good stories, and if I like the theme if it's a themed anthology, that's what gets me to buy it.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I can't judge this at ALL from a reader's point of view these days, but when I was a kid I picked up everything by Harlan Ellison --collections and anthologies. I read lots of anthos, even Roger Elwood ones--I guess I was kind of indiscriminate about it.

I have had readers come up to me (or post) that they buy everything with my name on it which pleases me very much. I guess it's all branding isn't it? ;-)

[joeboo-k.livejournal.com]

I think branding is exactly right. I confess I really haven't read anything you have edited (though the Del Rey anthology was already on my list for Elizabeth Bear's story), but certain anthologists like Jonathan Strahan and John Joseph Adams have already branded themselves for me and those names will get me looking for their anthologies. As I read more anthologies, I suspect other names will also become brands I trust.

[lferion]

I'll _only_ pick up a magazine if there is a story in it by someone I know and like, or that comes very strongly recommended for some reason. Anthologies I'll pick up for editors or authors, and sometimes just for theme, if it is a themed collection.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Blogger knows little of publishing industry, manufactures plausible yet false alternative and insists that it is true. Film at 11.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Ummmm. Possibly ;-)

[girliejones.livejournal.com]

Also lives in a fantasy world where there are many first time writers out there to choose from who also submitted to the collection and were as brilliant and polished as other writers with experience who have already done the hard slog.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Well the fact of the matter is that my original anthologies are usually invitation only. However, there were very few "first" stories that I published at OMNI or SCIFICTION--because in my opinion they were not good enough. I much more often bought second and third stories.

[girliejones.livejournal.com]

And frankly, having spent much of the year reading first stories, they just are not good enough. Harsh but fair.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I was introduced to sff through my dad's subscriptions to F&SF and Analog, and it was through those magazines (and others I subscribed to) that I came to recognize authors' names, eventually expanding my reading horizons beyond the magazine covers. My reading habits have varied over the years, often influenced by my pocketbook. When I choose an anthology to read, I look first to the editor's name; I won't say I'm not influenced by a line-up of authors I already know and love, but one of the reasons I read short fiction is to discover new authors with whom I'm not yet familiar. Recently, I've been dividing my reading time between books from the library and online magazines that offer at least a few stories for free, as my book-buying budget shrunk to zero just when I wanted to read more short fiction.

[mac-stone.livejournal.com]

As one of the small army of dedicated folks who run tiny (and not so tiny) webzines -- and so buy stories from first-timers regularly -- I find reading the bigger, better-paying markets like the above-referenced anthologies are a terrific way to keep my ear tuned.

I keep hearing about the looming death of short specfic, and I just don't see it. There are so very many online venues run by dedicated folks who continue to read, buy, and publish new stuff.

It rather seems to me like a bush-league, farm-team system. To tortuously continue that metaphor, those of us running little semi-pro ezines are managing some of those farm teams. Last year, I bought a couple of stories from new writers that ended up on Gardner Dozois' honorable mention list in his TYBSF collection alongside stories from much better known writers.

Some of those writers have already gone on to make pro-market sales. Which always makes me sigh, because it usually means I don't get first pick of their best stuff anymore. *g*

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is it. The semi-prozine fiction magazines are very important to the health of the field. And yes, I admit that when I read work I like I go after those writers and push them to write for ME ME ME!!! bwahhha....

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

I hope I didn't come off as deprecating either the breadth of your experience or your dedication to fostering new writers, neither of which was my intention. As I said, this post was written from a reader's perspective, and as a reader my first instinct is to read anthologies that promise the best payoff for my time and money - names I know, both authors and editor. My point was that readers should be cognizant of the importance of giving new writers a platform and encourage editors to do so the only way they can - with their wallets. We're only a few months past the point when readers irate at gender inequality in original story anthologies were told (for the second time) that sales were all and big names on the cover were what guaranteed sales, so it hardly seems unreasonable to me to expect the same attitude when it comes to untried or unfamiliar writers, and to examine tables of contents with both of these issues in mind - if only as a way of learning which editors and publishers can be counted on to take a longer view.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Hi Abigail, not at all. I do understand what you were saying and agree to some extent.
(also I'm sorry that my attempt at first posting my response on your blog failed--I should have at least alerted you that I was reposting on my own blog! but I was so frustrated at that point that I forgot).

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

As I said, this post was written from a reader's perspective, and as a reader my first instinct is to read anthologies that promise the best payoff for my time and money - names I know, both authors and editor.

That is hardly a universal readerly instinct. For example, in the marketing and positioning of novels, "debut fiction" is a major selling point to both the trade and to individual readers.


We're only a few months past the point when readers irate at gender inequality in original story anthologies were told (for the second time) that sales were all and big names on the cover were what guaranteed sales, so it hardly seems unreasonable to me to expect the same attitude when it comes to untried or unfamiliar writers

Eh, you were told that by a small press working with a distributor relatively new to selling trade books and with 'sales' poorly defined -- sales to the trade? To readers? Even holding the claims of the Eclipse publishers and editors to be true, while it may seem reasonable to take one claim and outfit it to another, it is ultimately not reasonable at all.. The best way to come to accurate conclusions is to deal with the concrete -- find out what it actually going on -- rather than simply abstracting some principle into a broader claim and then writing as though it were a true fact.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

1. despite the greater expense and risk of publishing a book than several pages in a magazine, when all is held equal it is actually easier to publish one's first novel than it is to publish one's first short story in a prominent magazine. That is, the novel market is less competitive than the short story market, when comparing the number of available slots to total submissions.

2. there is a huge excluded middle between "big names" and "first time writer."

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Colleen Mondor looks at "North American Lake Monsters" by Nathan Ballingrud very differently at Chasing Ray (http://tinyurl.com/5hvqjr)