Clarkesworld Magazine just keeps getting better and better. Neil just announced that the legendary Gardner Dozois is going to be heading up the magazine's new reprint department. It looks like two stories an issue chosen by one of the best of the "best of"ers. You can read the original press release on Neil's site.
The May 2011 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine is live with my story The Architect of Heaven in it. I noticed in a note from Neil that the story will get a podcast version on May 15th. That's awesome. I'm assuming Kate Baker will read it. She has this amazing, classical music radio station kind of voice that just sounds great doing readings.
I just got word from Neil over at Clarkesworld Magazine that my short story "The Architect of Heaven" will be appearing in the May issue. Once again, I'll be ToC-mates with Cat Rambo. Neat, huh? Last time, my story "Brief Candle" appeared with her story "The Mermaids Singing Each to Each" back in the November 2009 issue.
I should mention that, if you prefer to read on a reader device (as do I), instead of the Web, Clarkesworld is available by subscription from Weightless Books, along with Bullspec, Lightspeed, and others. Weightless appears to be filling the void left when Fictionwise stopped doing magazine subscriptions, signing up small press and Web-based magazines and handling e-fulfillment. It's not quite as convenient as a nook or Kindle sub, in that it doesn't just appear on your device, but neither did Fictionwise subs, and I did those for years.
I have no idea how successful Weightless is for the publishers, or what the deal is on sharing subscriber information, but more outlets are better. Period. Also, Weightless is using the standard "buy it all at once" subscription model, as opposed to the "pay per issue" model. So I'll add that more business models are better, too. Choice and diversity are the only real way to see what the market wants.
My novelet "The Long Fall" is now available in the Grantville Gazette's Universe Annex. The issue doesn't officially go live until September 1st, but it's up early. The story features Mi Dimarco and is a prequel to "Johnny Plays 'Round Saturn's Rings", which originally appeared in Jim Baen's Universe and is now available at Anthology Builder.
"Brief Candle" got a nice review and a "RECOMMENDED" from Lois Tilton in the December issue of IROSF.
My thanks to Cheryl Lynn for her kind comments about "Brief Candle" in Clarkesworld Magazine.
Since it's shown up in the preview, it appears my short story "Johnny Plays 'Round Saturn's Rings" is set for the December issue of Jim Baen's Universe in the Introducing section. If you subscribe now, you won't miss it. If you don't want to subscribe, you can buy single issues for $6.00.
The online edition, hosted at HappyHacker.org, has down for quite a while, and the e-mails have been pouring in. Problem solved! The online edition is now being hosted right here. As an extra added bonus, the viewing script has been tweaked for a better reading experience. And, as always, you can read it absolutely free.
Read the new online edition of THE HERETIC. The new layout maintains the page form better and copes well with adjusted font sizes. Overall, it should make for a much easier reading experience.
Meanwhile, we have new downloadable e-book versions in the works. First up will be an edition for the Sony Reader. If you haven't checked it out, you should. Check back to see when the new formats will be released.
by Jason K. Chapman
Content is King. It's one of the oldest saws in the Web business. It also happens to be true.
No one hangs around a Web site just because the navigation looks cool or because the background GIF is nifty. People go to Web sites for the words, the pictures, the information, the content. They keep coming back because they expect to find more of whatever content attracted them in the first place. If a site doesn't deliver, the surfers won't return.
The deals are flashing back and forth at eSpeed. Amazon.com wants to broaden their product line with "Health and Beauty" content, so they go to Drugstore.com. Microsoft wants computer news on MSN, so they go to C|NET, ZDNet and others. Everybody has everybody else's content popping up in frames and windows everywhere. The "strategic partnership" has become the most valued coin of the realm. All in the name of content.
What's next? What happens when all the megaportals and megamalls have the same content--when the only distinguishing factor is the logo at the top and the arrangement on the screen? What happens when they've run out of content-swapping deals and are back to needing content that's new, fresh, and unique?
Magazines, the Web site's closest relatives, have had the solution for years: Fiction. Targeted-interest magazines have been adding related pieces of fiction to their content for a long, long time. Short stories and serialized novels have been published in magazines like The New Yorker, Harper's, Playboy and many others.
These magazines use fiction to help fill their need for fresh, interesting content. The author gets paid for the story and gets the added visibility and respect that comes with appearing in a major magazine. Everyone wins.
Does Online Fiction Work? (more...)
Those who have been around the Internet writing communities will be quick to tell you that the answer is "No." They'll point to self-published poetry on a Geocities Web site that gets twenty page views a month. They'll mention fiction-centric sites like Mind's Eye that had trouble making the ad-sponsored concept profitable for short fiction. They'll bring up the difficulty of generating Web traffic for any new site.
Granted. Those models don't work. Draw those same examples back into the magazine analogy and you'll quickly see why. Online fiction needs established traffic and a flowing revenue stream to support it.
When HappyHacker.org arranged to publish THE HERETIC online, the site already had steady traffic, an established following, and an existing advertising revenue stream. The content of the novel and the content of the site are a good match. It seems only natural that a computer security-oriented Web site would be interested in publishing a cyber-thriller. A royalty arrangement based on the ad revenue generated from the novel's pages sealed the deal.
So far, the novel has racked up over 500,000 page views. The royalty model is hurt some by Web cache systems and by readers who choose to surf with images disabled (filtering out the ads), but overall it works. The rest of the Happy Hacker site has maintained it's traffic level, so the novel's readership represents a net gain of 15% to 20% in traffic.
It's not hard to imagine the concept of sponsored online fiction spreading to other kinds of Web sites. Travel-related sites might publish travel-related stories, space-related sites might sponsor science fiction novels, a site about automobiles might publish a novel like The Betsy or a site about dinosaurs might publish something like Jurassic Park.
There are a lot of excellent writers out there producing some really good fiction. It's been proven that surfers can and will read online fiction. Web sites need fresh and stimulating content. It won't be long before the Web industry puts it all together.
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