An Open-Source Speculative Fiction Magazine Model

[zhai]

(This post is syndicated to the Homeless Moon, and with that comes my gentle request that comments and links be pointed over there! Long ramble on genre magazines follows!)

There's been a lot of discussion on the state of short fiction magazines recently in the specfic community. Warren Ellis seems to have started it with a post on subscription

Comments

[haikujaguar]

*curious* Have you been following my community-publishing experiment?

[zhai]

Wow, no, I hadn't seen it until I just checked out your journal. Or rather, I knew there was a chapbook from the illustrations (it looks lovely, by the way) but I didn't know what you were doing. How does it work?

[haikujaguar]

Well, after trying to sell the flash fiction shorts (they're ~500 words each) to markets that took them and failing, I conferred with readers and we worked things out. They agreed as a community to pay pro rates for short fiction to see each short go up on the website, for 25 pieces. Everyone donated what they felt they could, and when I hit the "cap" for the short story, I'd post it.

The results: I was paid over 4 cents a word per short for all 25 shorts. When I discussed the chapbook illustrations, people insisted they wanted to pay for that also, and have done so, at roughly $35 a plate.

I'm about to put the cover up for sponsorship; I'm just going to leave that as an open donation for a week so that people who want to get their name on the Patron list on the website and in the physical copy can do so.

By the time I put out the short story collection, I'll have made more money on this project (and spent none) than I have on any other piece of writing I've done, and that's counting the really long sales I made to Strange

[zhai]

Impressive. Is this all your own work? And the readers came from livejournal, or where were they published originally?

[dhw]

http://www.helixsf.com

[zhai]

Yeah, I know about Helix. :) And Strange Horizons, and all the rest. I don't believe Helix has any online community to speak of at all, though, which is one edge that SH even has on it. They're going on a pure donation model, zero feedback, unless I'm somehow missing a major element of the site.

[brennye]

I like the idea.. without following the links, I probably won't put much input that counts, but Baen books has most of those spots covered, and then some if you count their free library. Once such a magazine had a good fan base, it should offer that as well, the more popular stories from older issues. :) *puts down her two pennies*

[eggsniper]

Whoa, I'm not reading all that. Summarize it in one word.