New Year’s revels + a bout of stomach flu = not as much accomplished as I had hoped for.
Feeling better now, thanks. I did manage to catch up on some correspondence, and got a few mss back in circulation.
On the plus side, I garnered my fastest acceptance ever–just a matter of hours from AnthologyBuilder, for “Alan Smithee Lives in Hell.”
In case you haven’t heard of this one yet, AnthologyBuilder is the brainchild of
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. It’s one of those smack-yourself-in-the-forehead brilliant ideas: A website wherein a reader selects a customized anthology of short fiction from an online database, up to 350 pages’ worth. The selected stories are, through the miracle of print-on-demand technology, assembled into a perfect-bound trade paperback and delivered to your door. Voila!
If this ain’t the coolest thing since sliced bread, it’s . . . well, it’s pretty darned cool.
To be eligible, stories must have been previously published in paying markets–so the reader knows they were good enough to sell at least once. There are also some public domain classics available, so you could mix some Arthur Conan Doyle with . . . well, with me, if you like. Can’t beat that with a stick.
It’s still early days for AnthologyBuilder, btw; a large publicity push is forthcoming. Even so, the list of available fiction is growing fast.
I chose “Alan Smithee” as my first submission to this exciting new market for a couple of reasons: first, it’s probably the hardest to find of my published work. It appeared in now-defunct British mag Here & Now back in 2005. Second, the story has already lined my pockets twice–a second-place finish in the 1997 Science Fiction Writers of Earth contest, and the aforementioned sale to Here & Now–so it’s already earned its keep. Anything else it earns will be proverbial icing on the cake.
“Alan Smithee” was my first Hollywood story. (“Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown” was the second. I managed to sell both of them. Maybe I need to write more Hollywood stories, eh?) If you never got a copy of it and would like one, hie thee to AnthologyBuilder and add it to your very own book of short fiction.
I’ll be sending more work to AnthologyBuilder soon.
And since I have a moment, now seems like a good time to mention that I’ll be at OSFest, the Omaha Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival, July 11-13. Aaron Allston is the writer GoH, Mike Cole is the artist GoH, and Rusty Hevelin is Toastmaster (media GoH is in flux at the moment). I’ll be on program, too.
Omaha’s convention scene has been–um–lackluster, at best. The OSFest folks are working hard to change that, and I commend them for their efforts. Local support is, of course, critical. So if you live in the Midwest, I’d like to put this one on your radar. Please do consider joining us in July.
In other con news–I’ve secured WorldCon memberships for me and the wife. Hope to see you there, too!
Write Club update: IGMS bounced “A Walk in the Woods, with Voices” with a tier one rejection. Response time, three months.
And I’m out.
