SF Signal: MIND MELD: Is The Short Fiction Market in Trouble?

[ellen_datlow]

"One of the many perennial arguments in the science fiction blogosphere centers on the health of the short fiction market, so we turned the Mind Meld microphone to people in the field and asked them:

Q: Nobody questions the relevance of genre short fiction, but there is some debate about the health of the market itself. From your perspective, is the short fiction market in trouble? If not, why the debate? If so, what is the cause?"

David Moles, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert Reed, Mary Robinette Kowal, Sarah Langan, Neal Asher, Jeffrey Ford, Paolo Bacigalupi, A.M. Dellamonica, Rudy Rucker, Abigail Nussbaum, Jason Sizemore, Charles Coleman Finlay take on the question:
Mind Meld

Comments

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Speaking from experience, I agree with Rucker's assessment, because generally the smaller the magazine, the more arrogant the editor/publisher. One of the final straws that convinced me to quit writing on a professional basis was when one of these darlings contacted me to contribute an article or two, and when I asked about pay rates, I received a letter starting "Since I'm not a well-heeled trust fund baby, we'll pay when we're profitable..." I have a good friend who quit being an artist for genre magazines for the same exact reason: he spent years being chased by editors who wanted his work but expected him to work "on spec" because "you need to pay your dues", and he finally asked himself "Isn't twenty years of dues-paying enough?"

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

Wow, that really hurts. Those people should be shot (or just generally disparaged or... something).

GUD's take on art, since we can't pay proper rates for it, is we're primarily looking for NOT spec work, but rather just "stuff that works with what we've got and is a story in and of itself". Stuff that the artists have already done and would like to get a little something extra for and perhaps a little more recognition for. Or that's our goal, anyway. We've begged spec work here and there, but we know it's a tough proposition. I do a lot of trawling through deviantart, asking folks if they'd consider submitting this or that...

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Arrogance is unacceptable from anyone. Although I admit that I DO get annoyed when submittors don't follow guidelines--and have to force myself to not get rude when scribbline on the submissions I'm STILL getting for SCIFICTION that the goddamned website's been dead 2 1/2 years....