Publishing News for January 2020
One of the great aspects of science fiction and fantasy is how so many people pay it forward and nurture the genre’s next generation of writers.
A prime example of this was award-winning author Vonda N. McIntyre, who sadly passed away in 2019. It has now been revealed that McIntyre “left her literary assets to Clarion West, expressing her wish that ‘the organization manage her literary copyrights in perpetuity.’ She also left a bequest of $387,129 to the program, the largest single financial gift in the organization’s history.”
In addition to winning the Nebula Award for her ground-breaking novel The Moon and the Sun, McIntyre helped rescue Clarion West in the 1980s when the workshop almost had to close.
I never met McIntyre in person but I spoke with her online a number of times and both loved and was inspired by her stories. When I mentioned to her my love for The Moon and the Sun she was kind enough to mail me an autographed copy.
She was always helping others and now, with this bequeath, she’ll help influence new generations of writers.
What a wonderful legacy.
#SFF2020: The State of Genre Magazines
For the last few months I’ve been working on #SFF2020: The State of Genre Magazines, a detailed look at science fiction and fantasy magazine publishing in this day and age. This report includes interviews with the editors and publishers of nine major SF/F magazines and includes a good bit of information and behind the scenes details which writers may find useful.
This report is available here and can also be downloaded in the following formats:
An Author’s Guide to Understanding BookScan
If you’re an author or aim to be one, you need to understand a strange force which can affect your writing career: Nielsen BookScan. BookScan tracks the sales of print books in the United States, relying on voluntary reporting of sales numbers by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.
Why does BookScan matter to authors? Because publishers and agents use these numbers to determinate your future potential as an author. If an author tries to land a new agent or publisher, the first thing these people will do is check that author’s BookScan numbers. Low reported sales numbers definitely hurt an author’s career.
Read more about why BookScan matters to authors.
Other News and Info
- After months of lax security and moderation at Goodreads enabling trolls to coordinate attacks against author Patrick S. Tomlinson – including the use of spoofing other authors on the site and doxxing people – it appears the book review site finally decided enough was enough. The attacks appear to have totally stopped, including the associated attacks on other authors. That said, it can’t be confirmed if Goodreads actually updated their security to permanently stop trolls from spoofing other people and authors.
- If you’re trying to catch up with what’s going on with the Romance Writers of America, new president Damon Suede and organization’s executive director Carol Ritter finally resigned after Harlequin, Avon and other major romance publishers pulled out of the RWA national conference. However, it now appears Ritter won’t actually leave RWA for a while and is overseeing an audit into what RWA did wrong. Gee, no conflict of interest there. For an overview of everything that’s gone on, see this excellent Vox article.
- The Wall Street Journal has a paywalled article talking about top authors like Dean Koontz and Patricia Cornwell allowing Amazon to publish their new books in a direct challenge to traditional publishers. Koontz’s first Amazon-exclusive releases are the Nameless series of short fiction books, released in November and available only as e-books and audiobooks. According to Koontz the books generated over a million downloads in the first month.
- The Authors Guild examines California’s new law classifying freelance workers as employees. Read the entire post for details, but it appears the law does not cover book authors.
- Dreamspinner Press is still saying they’ll pay the royalties they owe even as they somehow never actually make the payments. And oh yeah, it has been alleged they faked the “ISBN records of the two non-existent titles Damon Suede used to support his application to RWA Presidency.”
- Why the 2010s didn’t bring the e-book revolution everyone expected.
- Crossed Genres Publications is on indefinite hiatus with the expectation of permanently closing once their current titles are out of print. In good news, World Weaver Press picked up one of Crossed Genres’ pending anthologies.
- Big warning about Pressfuls Literary Magazine. As Victoria Strauss says, there are a ton of big, red, screaming flags here which should make writers run the other way.
- According to Slate, YA literature spent the last decade at the top but is now eating itself alive.
- New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan’s effort to trademark the word “dark” with regards to book series has ended. After significant push back from readers and fellow authors, Feehan apologized and says she has withdrawn the trademark application.
- Bree Bridges, one of the two authors behind the romance pseudonym Kit Rocha, wrote an illuminating thread about the romance publishing ecosystem and the brutal expectations on how often romance authors will release new books. According to Bridges, “in 5.5 years we wrote 9 novels in (our Beyond) series, 3 novels in a spin-off, 3 novellas, a handful of short stories. 2-3 books a year.” Despite this, some readers still complained their books weren’t being released fast enough.
- Hope Nicholson, founder of Canadian comic book publisher Bedside Press, “has shut down the publishing company following an admission that she was the perpetrator of an act of alleged sexual assault against comic creator Tres Dean.”
- Good article on how assistants to literary agents can help an author’s book get selected.
- Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware warns of serious issues with Audible’s ACX, including possible rights fraud and issues with promotional codes.
- Strauss also says she’s been contacted by multiple writers about young adult publisher Month9 Books. Evidently the issues raised in 2016 with Month9 Books are still going on, including “late (sometimes very late) royalty and subrights advance payments and statements (in many cases received only after persistent prodding by authors and their agents), and allegations of irregularities in royalty reporting.”
Jason Sanford
Jason Sanford is a two-time finalist for the Nebula Award and has published more than a dozen stories in the British SF magazine Interzone, which also devoted a special issue to his fiction. In addition he has published numerous stories in magazines such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and other places, along with appearances in multiple "year's best" anthologies and other collections. His fiction has been translated into nearly a dozen languages including Chinese, Spanish, French, Russian, Polish, and Czech. Jason's website is www.jasonsanford.com and he publishes a weekly Genre Grapevine column on his Patreon at www.patreon.com/jasonsanford.