4 ms·
I pay by the word, so this author and I have complementary perspectives (I publish a small science fiction magazine, http://compellingsciencefiction.com http://
by mojoe 10y ago
I pay by the word, so this author and I have complementary perspectives (I publish a small science fiction magazine, http://compellingsciencefiction.com http://compellingsciencefiction.com).
First, I certainly don't think that paying for content decreases quality in any way. Every argument I've heard against paying authors is incredibly nebulous, and it's generally accepted that statistically you'll get better work (in any field of human endeavor) when you economically incentivize people.
Second, this quote was very interesting to me:
“So far online self-publishing has been the preserve of fan fiction and erotica but it can’t be long before high-quality fiction starts to emerge.”
After thinking about the entire ecosystem for a bit, my conclusion is that the above quote is probably completely wrong. The main issue is that there is SO MUCH bad writing produced compared to good writing. I receive 300-400 submissions a month for my magazine and most of them are not publishable (and my editor friends tell me that these numbers are low). Because of this hugely skewed ratio, it is very unlikely that "high-quality fiction" will "start to emerge", mainly because readers on the internet are unwilling to sift through all the chaff. For great writing to 'emerge', it requires both someone to read it, and for that someone to have enough influence over their friends for their friends to read it. I'm not sure that those two conditions will ever be satisfied well enough to be an effective screening system. It will be interesting to see how the ecosystem evolves, though.
- pryelluw 10y agoHave you thought of writing a guide to help people submit higher quality content? Might prove useful. :)
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoIf you believe Stephen King, you can't make a competent writer out of a bad one.
- ryandrake 10y agoAnd what's the answer if you DONT believe someone with a clear financial incentive to discourage competition? What an awful quote!
- maxerickson 10y agoActual quote is: ...while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one. Stephen King doesn't give a shit if anyone else writes a book or not, he is at this point incredibly wealthy and has certainly made his mark, even if you confine it to the "modern novel" or something. The quote actually comes from his rather popular book On Writing, where he discusses the craft (presumably to the benefit of competent writers).
- pryelluw 10y agoMy question is: Have you thought of writing a guide to help people submit higher quality content? It is not: Have you thought of writing a guide to help bad writers become competent? Im talking about the content quality and not the writer's skills. Competent writers can be taught to improve their content but not their writing skills. Different things.
- mojoe 10y agoI've certainly considered it -- I would like to write some blog posts on it at the very least. Many submitters ignore my existing guidelines (http://compellingsciencefiction.com/submit.html http://compellingsciencefiction.com/submit.html) already, though, so I question how much impact such a guide would have.
- davidgerard 10y agoPut a clause in, about 3/4 of the way down, requiring a brown M&M.
- pryelluw 10y agoId read those blog posts. Going to subscribe to avoid missing them.
- lappet 10y agoI really wanted to submit a story to you but I see that you are not accepting any right now. Can you please share when that would change?
- mojoe 10y agoWe won't be officially accepting stories until March 1, but if you send the story to my personal email (joe@compellingsciencefiction.com) I'll evaluate it.
- acbabis 10y agoWhile I agree that free content isn't inherently better (and usually worse), I disagree that good content will emerge in free venues. Social media has crowd-sourced the costs of discovery. You don't have all day to separate the good free content from the bad, but some teenager does.
- davidgerard 10y agoFan fiction is mostly terrible, but it appears frequently enough to be good enough to compete for the new rare commodity, reader's attention. (and also a Sherlock Holmes/Lovecraft crossover fanfic won the 2004 Hugo short story, but most fanfic writers don't write as well as Neil Gaiman) The main problem with writing for money these days is that there's no money anywhere in the chain.
- shams93 10y agoYeah I'm just getting back into fiction after sticking with only non-fiction for 18 years. The first step to writing quality fiction is to read the best stories available. Right now I'm studying Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.