I’m on my way out the door to work, but before I left I wanted to say some quick words about a pair of kickstarter projects that should be on your radar.
1) What Fates Impose: Tales of Divination– this is a collection of short stories that will be published by Alliteration Ink and edited by Nayad A. Monroe. It will feature tales from folks like Tim Waggoner, Lucy A. Snyder, Sarah Hans, and Maurice Broaddus. Steven Saus’s main goal with this Kickstarter is to raise enough money to pay these artists professional rates. If stretch goals are reached, more stories and artwork will be added to the collection.
2) Time Traveled Tales: A Speculative Fiction Anthology– this project’s goal is to reprint and enhance the original collection, which received a very short print run for last year’s Origins Game Fair. The collection contains stories from my friends, Sarah Hans and Steven Saus, along with Timothy Zahn, Michael A. Stackpole, and Jean Rabe. It is a great collection of stories that truly deserves more exposure. Also, a portion of the profits for each book sold will go towards charities devoted to improving literacy.
You may be thinking, “Why do you give a crap about these projects? You don’t have a story in either one of them.” The literary world is changing at a very rapid pace. You don’t need me to tell you that. Brick and mortar books shops are vanishing from the landscape. And with the advent of e-publishing, markets that pay professional rates and/or promote writers are drying up. Are you, like me, just starting out as a genre writer? Go peruse Duotrope for a bit, then come back and tell me how many publishers are paying an advance or any money at all.
Not bloody many, right? Publishers like Alliteration Ink and Silence in the Library are trying to bridge the gap between the old publishing models and the new e-paradigm. And they’re trying to do that by providing quality products without screwing the artist. If this anthology does well enough, then the next anthology may be able to pay professional rates, too. The more paying markets that are out there, especially ones that are open to new writers, the better off we are all going to be.
Also, have you read Sidekicks!? Did you look at the list of writers for What Fates Impose? The stories and writers are diverse, and I’m not just talking about the genres. Look at the current state of the SFWA. Perceptions need to change. There are a few publishing houses that are working towards that. Most of them are in the realm of small press, and unfortunately their projects don’t get much attention. Alliteration Ink is one of the good guys.
I really gotta go. But, pretty please, with sugar on top, look into each of these projects. Support them!