Fiction: a matter of shorts

[dewline]

No, we're not talking underwear here.

Andrew Barton recently posted something that bothers me just a little over at his weblog, Acts of Minor Treason: a small commentary on the current state of short fiction and the anthology magazines that once hosted much of it in many genres.

He's got a point. I'll wait while you get to it.

And now that you're done reading his commentary, I'll add this: I came to anthology magazines later than some as well. After I moved to Ottawa, in fact. While I was certainly aware of their existence in the background, along with a large chunk of science-fiction and fantasy novels also on the market in those days - even back in the early 1980's. Regina was not exactly the sort of "podunk" town that Andrew looks back through somewhat grey-toned glasses to view Barrie, Ontario with, after all - I plead guilty to the charge of mass-media fixation. TV show and movie tie-ins and superhero comics were the focus of most of my attention back then.

(Some might argue that this is still the case. Guilty as charged, if they do.)

Analog, Asimov's, On Spec, Interzone, and a few others whose names are not coming immediately to mind...they're still there. Still being printed in actual hardcopy format. There are other venues on-line. I'm not going to advocate for either format over the other, because that's a fool's game.

Short stories should still be a vital part of the fiction mix, whatever the genre. Sometimes, the best stories are the shorter ones.

And in comics? Perhaps we need to revisit the idea there as well.

(Noting that jasonfranks - among others here on LJ and elsewhere - is already well emplaced to help rebuild that segment of the entertainment industry.)

Comments

[mariness.livejournal.com]

:: waves in a short fictiony sort of way ::

As far as the in print anthology magazines are concerned, they are still around and mostly flourishing -- produced as jointly printed ebooks and print on demand books. I have...a number of things to say on this subject but I'm kinda zonked out this week so it won't be coherent.

With the online zines and so on -- when I last checked SFWA had about 300 stories recommended for the Nebula award, plus multiple novelette/novella entries. (In related news I will not be getting a Nebula nomination for short fiction this year :) ) It's definitely out there, and going by page hits the circulation continues to creep up. Clarkesworld and Lightspeed even have paying subscribers which is remarkable for content that is also available for free.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I do wonder - as Andrew Barton does - if they might flourish a tad better if more people knew these titles and websites existed. Whether the people are retailers - as at least a couple of friendlisters here are (and are already well aware, so you and I have no worries about their competence and knowledge) - or potential readers in the wider world.

Still, it's good to know that circulation's apparently climbing again. Looking forward to learning more on that point in particular.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

Not apparent. Circulation is climbing for online zines, and dropping for print zines. (You can see a steady increase in the hits on my Tor.com posts since I started blogging there, and it isn't that I'm writing any better or that I'm writing about more popular topics.) Admittedly, with websites determining what we mean by "circulation" can be tricky -- some of my "hits" on the my Oz blog at Tor.com were from spammers attempting to sell Oz merchandise, which is not what I think you or I would call "readership," and of course there's always the issue of individual page views from separate IP addresses and total page views. It's not as clear in the web world as it was in print world. (I was told by Irene Gallo that Tor.com has a couple of different page count methods -- the public count per webpage that you can find with a bit of digging, and a second count that is considerably higher.)

With those caveats, circulation for websites is increasing. Admittedly, it's anecdotal data -- but just this past week I ran into two complete strangers who read Tor.com and Clarkesworld regularly (and io9.com, although that doesn't publish fiction.) And I don't run into that many complete strangers.

(Also admittedly, I'm informed that many of these websites are not making money or just breaking even after paying staff expenses or being used as a way to sell books (Subterranean.com, Tor.com). And the question of exactly how DailyScienceFiction.com is paying its writers remains a deep, dark mystery - I'm guessing out of the owner's pockets.)

The anthologies are an entirely different issue, especially since this year many are getting jointly released in electronic and print format. From my own experience, they tend not to be as well marketed as the webzines for various reasons -- and that's true for both small and large presses.

Anyway, my concern for your argument and that of Andrew Barton is that you are both focusing on generally print zines and treating them as representative of the state of short fiction, when in fact we have far, far more short fiction publications now than we ever did in the 1970s and 1980s, and to a lesser extent in the 1990s. I suspect that's part of the issue with the zines you list -- it's not just a decline in brick/mortar stores and newsstands, but the fact that there's so much more short fiction out there, both good and complete crap. The issue with the Hugo short fiction award last year was not a lack of nominees - in fact, so many stories were nominated that only four managed to garner a high enough percentage of the vote (5%) to appear on the list. That was a first.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

My own concern is that we maintain a mix of print and online 'zines and that, with diligence and a bit of good luck, both should end up growing the the size of the pie further in future. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a stick in the mud in that I like my reading to still be there when the next power outage hits.

That said, sounds like we've got a good thing going otherwise.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

Well, there's a couple of zines that are working with producing print and online issues simultaneously -- Shimmer (http://www.shimmerzine.com/) immediately came to mind. Clarkesworld offers print collections/chapbooks of its fiction. Others (Electricvelocipede (http://www.electricvelocipede.com/) apparently just gave up on the print option and went online.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Okay, Shimmer's getting bookmarked right now for future reference. I'll be asking 'round local retailers about that if I like what I read and hear. Thanks much!

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

I've got a bit of short fiction coming out next year. Couple of short pieces. It's great to hear that the magazines are doing better now, but will they ever be the road to success as a genre novelist again? Guys like Richard Morgan have been saying for years "Don't waste your time with short stories if you want a career," and I was just starting to see it that way myself.

As for comics shorts--man, it's a tough game. I have one more anthology coming out and after that my editorial efforts will be focused on Terra Magazine--longer stories, serialized, rather than more short stories. I've learned the lesson the hard way: creators love anthologies, but readers do not.