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Show HN: The first issue of Compelling Science Fiction
- mojoe 11y agoTwo months ago I posted about a new online science fiction magazine I was creating: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11151062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11151062 I'm happy to report that the first issue is now live! I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback. I will continue to refine the magazine as time goes on, but I believe we have a great collection of stories for you, which is what we set out to do.
- personjerry 11y agoI asked this on the original thread too but never got an answer, and I ask it again because I'm not familiar with how publishing works: If I submit a series of short stories, would I still retain the right to collect them into a book and have it published elsewhere, like Asimov did with Foundation?
- mojoe 11y agoI'm sorry I missed your question the last time around. Yes, you retain the copyright, I just buy 'first world electronic print rights.' This means that I'm buying exclusive rights to publish electronically for a period of time (in this case 6 months) and after that I have non-exclusive publishing rights (so you can sell or publish reprints any time after 6 months). After 3 years you have the option of terminating my non-exclusive rights altogether, although you don't need to to sell your own reprints. I've been told by authors that my contract is the most author-friendly they've seen (it's based on SFWA's model magazine contract).
- personjerry 11y agoThat sounds good, thank you for the thorough answer.
- sohkamyung 11y agoThe rights are mentioned on their website [1]. It states that: 'Our contract follows the lead of SFWA's Model Magazine Contract.' [2] [1] [ http://compellingsciencefiction.com/submit.html http://compellingsciencefiction.com/submit.html ] [2] (PDF) [ http://www.sfwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ModelMagazineContract.pdf http://www.sfwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ModelMagazine... ]
- arcticfox 11y agoWow, this is an awesome idea! I'm a very casual sci-fi fan (don't make too much time to read any more) but this appeals to me a lot. I like how you've structured everything as well. I'm going to try to read the first issue on my phone, if they're good stories, I'll probably subscribe.
- mojoe 11y agoI appreciate the compliment, I've spent many weekends on this. There is plenty of room for improvement, so please email me at joe@compellingsciencefiction.com if you have suggestions!
- joeax 11y agoCongrats on the launch. I had a short story in mind that I was going to submit after reading your last post but I didn't realize you were going the hard science fiction route. Although I strive to be as scientifically accurate as possible I can't classify my stories as hard since there are fantasy components-- I have a deep obsession with time travel, parallel universes, bending spacetime, etc. I also like to mix in mythological components from ancient to Mesoamerican.
- anotherevan 11y agoWould you consider publishing an epub format version (either of the individual stories or altogether for each issue)?
- mojoe 11y agoWe definitely have an epub version, it can be downloaded right now by patrons of Compelling Science Fiction on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/compelling https://www.patreon.com/compelling We're currently discussing additional methods of distribution of e-reader formats. We would like to set up an automated system that emails subscribers .epub/.mobi versions to their address of choice, but we need to put together an in-house subscription system first.
- sohkamyung 11y agoWould you consider distributing the magazine (including subscriptions) via Weightless Books [1]? They are also handing lots of other magazines like Clarkesworld, Locus, NYRSF, etc. [1] https://weightlessbooks.com/ https://weightlessbooks.com/
- mojoe 11y agoI would certainly consider it, I'll check out their terms. Thanks for pointing them out! We want to get our stories out to as many readers as possible, so we're looking at many different channels.
- fit2rule 11y agoPlease consider adopting some of the emerging trends in sharing, such as IPFS.io, too. It would be amazing to know your works are always available through such a system ..
- 3stripe 11y agoLove the concept, good sci-fi is hard to come by. Design thought: the reading experience would be vastly improved by a larger font size and shorter line length. See https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ https://edwardtufte.github.io/tufte-css/ or similar for inspiration.
- mojoe 11y agoThanks for the suggestion, I will certainly review the link you sent! I don't have any volunteers who have front-end design experience, so there is a lot of room for improvement.
- kbaker 11y agoIn Firefox, you can click the little book icon to turn on better readability. (Reader View) It definitely improves the layout, you can copy that design basically. Smaller content width, bigger fonts. Also, thanks for putting this together!!!
- mojoe 11y agoThanks! It's an expensive hobby :)
- applicaonerro1 11y agoHow do we sign up to be volunteers :)?
- mojoe 11y agoSend me an email at joe@compellingsciencefiction.com with a little info about yourself! I'm sure we'll get along great. I'm very respectful of volunteers' time.
- danadam 11y agoAll it takes is "7 fucking declarations": http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/
- ashitlerferad 11y agoSome more sci-fi: https://escapepod.org/ https://escapepod.org/
- mojoe 11y agoI'm getting an invalid cert.
- cstuder 11y agoMe too, try this link: http://escapepod.org/ http://escapepod.org/ ;-)
- rayalez 11y agoMore hard sci-fi: http://rationalfiction.io http://rationalfiction.io
- foota 11y agoYou may want to consider turning off the debug flag in Django as advised here: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/#debug https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/settings/#debug
- aidenn0 11y agoFor some reason I've always preferred my Science Fiction in short-story form, and my Fantasy in novel form, so this is nice. I do regret that in all of my moving around during college years, I got rid of my print magazines.
- IndianAstronaut 11y agoFinding hard scifi is so hard. Most of science fiction is purely the realm of science fantasy.
- personjerry 11y agoI think it's a difficult line to draw, typically (except in the case of high fantasy, like magic). We might find that our understanding of science to be "wrong" at any point, because science is not as "rigorous" as mathematics. At one point modern computing with semi-conductors would've been impossible (classical mechanics), but then we discovered that on microscopic levels quantum mechanics applies instead, and this allowed computers to the extent that we have today.[0] [0] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/112615/why-is-it-said-that-without-quantum-mechanics-we-would-not-have-modern-computers https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/112615/why-is-it...
- eggy 11y agoTrue in some senses, but take 'Interstellar' for instance. I would personally categorize it as hard science pushing the fringe into fantasy/speculation. 'The Martian' I would consider more hard science fiction overlooking some technical issues for dramatic effect. In any case, I enjoy SF that is mainly in the realm of hard SF. I read John Cramer's 'Twistor' years ago, and although some have panned it for some stereotypes, I loved reading it at the time. I'll have to revisit it. Professor Cramer is a physics professor at Univ. of Washington in Seattle.
- cstuder 11y agoI always love to get some fresh Science Fiction stories and just pledged my support on Patreon. I sincerely hope your stories won't be bland (Haven't read the first issue yet). As a longtime Escapepod listener and supported I love how diverse and creative the stories can get, once you move away from the classical Spaceship & Lasergun stuff.
- mojoe 11y agofeel free to email me with your thoughts at joe@compellingsciencefiction.com!
- matthewwiese 11y agoAwesome stuff and I plan on submitting some stories in future. I am more than pleased to see you creating a further avenue for writers, and sci-fi in particular, to get their work into as many eyeballs as possible. Definitely another thumbs up for paying six cents per word even when you're just getting your feet off the ground.
- mojoe 11y agoI'm passionate about supporting content like this, so I'll be paying for it as long as I can!
- llSourcell 11y agostop with the greek name bullshit already. pick another culture's mythology there are so many out there (hindu, african, persian, etc.) it will help you be a fresher writer
- nicois 11y agohey, why not allow people to supply a Kindle email address so you can push straight to them? they need to whitelist you as a sender of course..
- mojoe 11y agoThis is a great idea, and we're currently working on a system that will accomplish this.
- VLM 11y agoConsider becoming a kindle magazine. I subscribe to F+SF and would surely subscribe. Its mainly a convenience feature, magically new issues appear on my tablet as they're released and magically you get a predictable monthly cash flow. I subscribe to 2600 on my kindle; its clearly not a "giant publishers only need apply".
- mojoe 11y agoUnfortunately Amazon has discontinued "Kindle Publishing for Newspapers & Magazines Beta". A lot of the small magazines that signed up through that program were grandfathered in. I've sent a query about other ways to get periodicals published, but haven't yet heard back.
- nicois 11y agohey, why not allow people to supply a Kindle email address so you can push straight to them? they need to whitelist you as a sender of course..
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bencollier49 11y agoCan we get it in print?
- da4c30ff 11y agoMaybe they could add an option to order an on-demand print from a service like Lulu.com
- bencollier49 11y agoGood idea. I'd pay for that.
- mojoe 11y agoNot right now, but I'll be looking in to it down the road.
- cant_kant 11y agoInteresting stories. Better copy editing would make them easier to read. "Ed had shouted on them like this" "No real kidnapper hauls around a struggling, scream-seeking captive" "I see I need to show the adolescent asshole affecting to be me " Broken sentences like these make the stories a bit of a chore to read.
- mojoe 11y agoThanks for the feedback! We hired a professional copy editor, but we will work harder in this area going forward.
- JD557 11y agoQuick nitpick: Could you add a RSS feed? I think it would be a nice alternative to the mailing list.
- mojoe 11y agoI will certainly look in to this.
- paulvs 11y agoJust read Gaia's Children (~35min) - a great piece. I actually listened to it in the car on the way to work using iOS's text-to-speech, which was very good quality.
- mojoe 11y agoAwesome! We also have plans to record podcasts down the road. I'm glad text-to-speech worked well.
- paulvs 11y agoMy opinions so far: Gaia's Children - 5 stars Reflection - 4 stars Mean and Clean - 2 stars
- mojoe 11y agoThanks for the feedback! Mean and Clean was very controversial before publication -- two advisors disliked it and two really loved it.
- jacobush 11y agoThe PNG is pretty large. I compressed it with tinypng to a quarter the size.
- mojoe 11y agoThanks for pointing that out -- there are many optimizations that we need to do.
- kriro 11y agoThis is a very interesting project. Are you self financing the entire operation? The "about us" page has some info on your review process. It seems those are volunteers or are you also paying them? I love the free+payment optional model and not relying on ads. What's your bigger fear, lack of quality entries or lack of subscribers? 6c/words seems pretty solid so that's nice. SFWA rights is a good choice as well, seems like you are pretty author friendly :) How are you handling authors payments btw. (not an author but curious)? Sustaining >550 paying customers to break even seems like no small task. I have looked for similar online magazines with good rights in another domain (horror) before and your site seems to be ahead of the curve with regards to seeming professional and transparent, kudos.
- mojoe 11y agoYes, I'm currently self financing everything. All the individuals on the 'about' page are volunteers. You can see a little bit of a finance breakdown on the 'subscribe' tab (http://compellingsciencefiction.com/subscribe.html http://compellingsciencefiction.com/subscribe.html). I'm paying authors the old-fashioned way, with checks! Since it's only 5 checks/month, this doesn't seem like something I need to optimize right away. I appreciate your kind words -- it will be tough to get enough paying supporters, but hopefully people find the content worthwhile.
- kecks 11y agoI thought the default look of the site was a bit hard to read, so I made two themes for Stylebot. If you have Stylebot installed you can go to the site, click the Stylebot icon and load either of them from "Stylebot Social". Stylebot is only available for Chrome though; does anyone know an alternative to Stylebot which is as user-friendly as Stylebot but also available on a broad range of browsers?
- mojoe 11y agoNice! I appreciate the effort. Based on feedback here I'll be changing styles tonight.
- SolaceQuantum 11y agoCongratulations on your first issue! I'm curious if you have considered suggesting people put their experiences working with your magazine on the Submissions Grinder or Duotrope. I know at least the Submissions Grinder posts the latest updates on its homepage and it might attract you to more writers. Also how much have you considered social media in talking to both fans and authors to keep updates on your magazine, upcoming contests, perhaps a yearly anthology of 'best hits', etc?
- mojoe 11y agoThanks! I had not considered encouraging authors to post their experiences, I will look into it. We are also working on our social media presence. We have a Twitter account (@CompellingSF) but no Facebook presence yet. We're mostly relying on email currently, however, and that will continue to be our primary communication mechanism.
- SolaceQuantum 11y agoI will note that the Grinder and Duotrope are writer-contributed anyways so someone will eventually list your magazine there. I only suggest this because both those sites cater to writers looking for markets to submit work. The more writers contribute the stronger your magazine looks in terms of writer's perspective. Good luck and I hope to look forward to many future releases to come!
- unknownzero 11y agoGlad to see all the positive feedback here. I volunteered as a reader/advisor for this first edition and wanted to take this chance to say the experience was great. Joe is very respectful of volunteers time, even those of us who occasionally fall off the grid for a few days ( I still owe you a pic and bio Joe :) ). I'd encourage anyone on the fence to pick up this edition, there are some absolutely outstanding stories in there. And I'd also encourage anyone thinking about volunteering to jump in, it's a great project/maintainer to work on/with. Here's too many more issues Joe!
- mojoe 11y agoThanks for the kind words! I appreciate your help evaluating stories.
- sciguy77 11y agoThis looks awesome - I'm so excited to read this!
- _greim_ 11y agoThanks! I'll be bookmarking this and coming back periodically. FWIW, I used chrome dev tools to add some page styles, in order to make the stories easier for me to read. body { font-family: georgia; font-size: 17px; line-height: 2; background-color: #F8F9E4; } p { margin: .5em 0; text-indent: 1em; }
- mojoe 11y agoI appreciate the suggestion! I'll be changing the styles this evening.
- 6581 11y agoSomething I noticed when I bookmarked the site: none of the pages have a <title> tag.
- mojoe 11y agoThanks for pointing this out! There are a lot of small issues we need to address (favicons, title tags, better typography, etc).
- irremediable 11y agoAny chance I could buy an epub? I'm not sure whether I want to subscribe yet, but I can't read fiction on a computer screen. (I'll just download and convert if necessary, but it'd be nicer to pay you for it.)
- mojoe 11y agoI'll email you one this evening, no charge, just send me your email address (joe@compellingsciencefiction.com)