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Dr. Mauser's avatar

One of the funniest reviews I saw of John Van Stry's new book was comparing it to a Heinlein Juvenile, if said Juvenile grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.

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Frank's avatar

Traditional publishing is a dead parrot. I ignore people who are into it. See my report on the WonderCon 2025 https://frank-hood.com/2025/04/03/wondercon-2025/.

As you point out, trad pub only seems to exist to launder money to politicians. I uncovered one of my wife's unpublished stories and thought, "That would actually be perfect for Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine," so, as a lark, I decided to send it to them. The first shock was the format they demanded, Title halfway down the first page, double spaced, story title and page number in upper right hand corner of each page. Are they honestly telling me that they're going to print my story out to read it? The 1970's are over, dudes! Word processing programs have comment features now! Duh! The only things different from half a centuryt ago were that they allowed me to email it to them and didn't demand a SASE (look it up kids). Just for kicks, I sent it in anyway, and they assured me that it usually took them 6-9 MONTHS to let me know whether they would accept it or not. It's been 11 months without a peep, and, even if they accepted it, it would probably be a year or more to publication and eventual payment.

They should get into antiquing. I heard Larry Correia say that he had been approached several times by trad publishers like they were offering him an opportunity and he had to laugh at their numbers, "Why would I take a pay cut to lose my rights?"

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