R.B. Lemberg's Blog, page 13
May 5, 2015
Patreon and Publication rights
(my Wordpress crossposter is not working, so posting this manually).
This discussion started on Twitter, and I am moving it here because I feel this is a developing and gray area of publishing.
Question is: are locked works posted on Patreon for pay considered published?
Responses from SFWA-qualifying markets, from 2014, are collated here. (I just saw this link when Amal mentioned it on Twitter).
What I publish on my Birdverse Patreon are mostly: drawings (irrelevant), poems, and serialized novella drafts. I have not completed posting the novellas because I am still working on them, and both would undergo revising before they are ready for publication. I have recently found out that many, if not most markets would consider my Patreon-sponsored locked work published.
This is really perplexing to me. My feel of Patreon was, "A small number of Birdverse fans support me while I create more Birdverse stories and poems; in return, they get previews of work and glimpses into my process, as well as freebies, acknowledgments, and my undying gratitude."
My thinking went like this:
A patron of the arts is a person who supports the artist so the art can be created. When I am supported in the process of creating, I can create more art. When a venue buys a piece of writing, this venue buys the right to distribute it worldwide, and the author can get nominated for awards in the year it was purchased. I understand the hesitation if the number of patrons exceeds, say, 100 - but in case of under 20 patrons, I simply don't see how a work can be considered already distributed. Plus, I don't think a locked piece on Patreon can be nominated for awards, though I am not sure.
I have not expected what I basically felt was a small group of patrons supporting a creator while they create work for publication to turn into something that blocks this creator's ability to publish.
Complicating issues in my particular setup:
most poetry markets pay 5$-10$ per poem
no SFF market afaik pays per poem as much I get per poem on my Patreon
but I have no issue selling work traditionally, and my published work gets eyeballs
I have 19 backers, so only 19 people see the works; my nonpaying readership is bigger.
most poetry markets do not take reprints.
most prose venues do not take reprints.
novella markets are really scarce.
novella markets that do exist tend not to pay SFWA professional rates of 6c a word.
What's further complicates the issue is that most venues do not have a posted policy regarding where they stand on this issue.
I published all of my work traditionally so far. I have a long bibliography and I know that I can and very likely will sell traditionally again. But if Patreon will, basically, impede my ability to publish traditionally, I am not at all sure that I will abandon Patreon.
This is interesting. Mostly because, up until very recently, I regarded self-publishing as Something Cool, but Not for Me.
One last thought: in poetry, there is a long-standing custom of writing for fundraisers. I have created any number of poems for fundraisers, and so have many other speculative poets. Then, after some money for the piece has already changed hands, these pieces were sold as originals and traditionally published.
I would very much welcome a discussion of this!
April 13, 2015
“Long Shadow” podcast and mp3 file
M Sereno highlighted my poem “Long Shadow” in her heartfelt entry Out of Fracture. I am very grateful to see my poem included among so many of my favorite pieces.
I promised to let you know when the podcast of “Long Shadow” goes live. Here it is at Strange Horizons, together with poems by John W. Sexton, Liz Bourke, and Elizabeth R. McClellan.
I am very proud of this poem and separately, of this recording. I read “Long Shadow” in 5 voices (Journeymaker, Marsh Oracle, Biruté, Long Shadow, and Keddar); and though it is very much not perfect, I’ve put a lot into it and I would be thrilled to hear what you think about it. Since it is so long, I am also making the file available on my website separately, rather than as a part of a podcast:
(click for text).
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
Like two filmless film stars
Originally posted by
sovay
at Like two filmless film starsI have a Patreon.Because I talk a lot about film on this journal, and I think it's worth paying for. Incentives include cat pictures and poetry. And film writing, of course.
Please signal-boost! Feedback is welcome, too.
April 1, 2015
Stone Telling 12: JOKE!
rose_lemberg
at Stone Telling 12: JOKE!It's April 1st and, for the first time in the history of Stone Telling, we've published a JOKE issue:Just so you know,
we thought about it long and slow,
and decided, without further ado,
that, going forward, ST only rhymed poetry will do.
To that end, we've published our first rhymed offering,
an issue so full of awesome
it's somewhat troublesome.
Of course, it all could be a ploy
to bring you more hippopotamoi.
:D
Yes, artistic B&W pictures of a plush Mippopotamus accompany every poem! :D :D
As promised, this is our mermaidiest issue to date!
Special thanks to Stone Telling patrons and An Alphabet of Embers backers for making this silliness possible. Please consider supporting us on Patreon :)
March 30, 2015
Ten years
Ten years.
A decade. A life.
Alan Dundes was the first person – and the only mentor I’ve had – who saw me as a whole human being. In him, I had someone who accepted me as I was, who was interested in me as myself, not a construct in his mind. He made me feel that I mattered. He did this to many, many students. He was an incredibly generous person. He meant the world to me, and to very many others. You did not have to always agree with him to love him. We disagreed on many things.
I miss him, still, very much. I don’t think I will ever not miss him.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
March 27, 2015
Story sale to QDSF!
I am absolutely thrilled to report that I’ve sold a full-length story, “How to Remember to Forget to Remember the Old War,” to Seanan McGuire for Queers Destroy Science Fiction! special issue of Lightspeed. It will be my first appearance in Lightspeed. The fiction lineup for QDSF! has just been announced!
“How to Remember to Forget to Remember the Old War” is a story about two interstellar veterans in the Bay Area. It’s inspired by very real stories of “Greyhound therapy,” a custom of sending the homeless and/or mentally ill one-way to California on Greyhound buses. I first learned about this while living in Berkeley, CA. This practice is, unfortunately, still ongoing.
The story is dedicated to Bogi Takács. E’s not the first person to encourage me to write more science fiction, but usually these attempts are unsuccessful. Not in this case. I am also grateful to Lisa M. Bradley, whose words of encouragement carried me through the writing of this story.
Bogi emself will have a flash piece in QDSF! and I am very happy about that, too. This is a fabulous lineup.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
Announcing Stone Telling 12: Joke
Actually it kind of is... /runs away
Originally posted by
shweta_narayan
at Announcing Stone Telling 12: JokeWe are happy now to say
the next issue's on its way(1)
so please marvel at the cover
and how mermippo does hover
(1) Callooh! Callay!
Give a cheer for all the poets
who gave this joke a go - it's
thanks to them we have an issue
for which you won't need a tissue (2)
(2) Well, you may well need a tissue
for the contents of this issue
but for not-the-usual reason -
just the poems over-pleasin'!
Poetry:
mariness
)Anatoly Belilovsky, The Were-Cactus (
loldoc
)S. Brackett Robertson, Bathyscape (
aliseadae
)Susannah Mandel, To The Family In The Sycamore Across The Street
Emily Jiang, Ballerina Hippo Mippo (
emily_jiang
)Rachael K. Jones, Do Mermippos Dream of Electric Sharks?
Pear Nuallak, A Mermaid in The Mermaid
Alexandra Seidel, A Hippolimerick (
alexa_seidel
)David Sklar, Before I Kill You (An Arch-Villainelle)
Jaymee Goh, Yes, I Am A Were (
fantasyecho
)Kathy Figueroa, A Snippet of a Tale
Alexandra Erin, The Spoon-Drawer Gnome (
alexandraerin
)
March 9, 2015
Assorted News, with Long Shadow
I have assorted news to report today, including one of epic nature.
My curse poem “Beastwoman’s Snarled Rune,” aka the Monsterpoem (first published in Bull Spec 4, 2010), will be reprinted in Angels of the Meanwhile, an anthology to benefit PopeLizbet.
My essay “On the pitfalls of merit,” published on this blog last year, will be reprinted in SpecFic 2014: The Best Online Reviews, Essays, and Commentary edited by Renay and Shaun Duke.
My slightly edited essay “Encouraging Diversity: An Editor’s Perspective” has been reprinted in today’s issue of Strange Horizons.
Finally, “Long Shadow” has also gone live in today’s issue of Strange Horizons. “Long Shadow” is an epic poem in the Journeymaker Cycle, in which we return to the world of the Journeymaker and her lover, Keddar. Perhaps most well-known of my published Cycle poems is “In the Third Cycle” (also in Strange Horizons), which took first place in the Rannu Competition as well as in the SH Readers’ Poll, and was nominated for the Rhysling award in the long category. “Long Shadow” features some of the same characters, but you don’t need to know anything about the Cycle in order to read it.
This poem is set in the marsh, where the Journeymaker attempts to figure out what to do about Long Shadow, a ghostly child born of buried wars, and the children Long Shadow steals. There are no easy answers here. It is, however, my personal meditation to some of the pervasive tropes we see around, most immediately the narrative beautification of warfare. When prettily told wars are done, children – people – continue to suffer.
…How will you go
about this help? To keep it warm,
whose children will you choose, and spill their blood
to feed Long Shadow?
There must be another way.
What way do you envision
while battles suffocate below,
yet are still living? All those hatreds that have grown
like poison ivy through the hearts of city dwellers
and village folk—where do you think they come from?
This poem is one of my major poetic accomplishments. I hope you give it a read. There will be a podcast later in the month, in which I read this poem in five voices. I’ll let you know when it goes up.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
February 18, 2015
Perseverance and the editorial process
Charles Tan has kindly storified my tweets on perseverance, writing, and the editorial process. Today I saw a few people wanting to refer to this conversation in blog entries, so I have very slightly tweaked these tweets and am putting them in an entry format here. This conversation continues various conversational threads from #dontselfreject (also kindly storified by Charles), which I should also make into an entry here.
——
My life as a writer changed radically in 2010, when I decided to start my own poetry market, Stone Telling. I saw first hand how hard many of the submitters worked, and how many were rejected for reasons other than “this sucks.” I had to reject for many reasons, chief among them, the work did not fit my vision. I had, and continue to have in all my editorial projects, a very strong vision – and there are many, many pieces in every slush. Even as a beginning editor, unknown, editing poetry, which is perhaps less densely populated than fiction, I received a lot of work to consider for the first issue of the magazine. Some of it I wouldn’t publish for love or money, e.g. there were fatphobic and homophobic pieces sent to this fat, queer editor. Such work was in a minority. On the other hand, there was a lot of competent work that either did not wow me, or wowed me but did not fit my vision. Some work was good, but I felt the poet was not done growing yet. I sent personal rejections a lot. Some I would not send now. Let’s face it, rejection – even the kindest, most personal – sucks. It perhaps especially sucks when you’re starting out. Personal rejections, even sensitively worded, can devastate a beginning writer.
After reading for a few issues, I noticed a curious thing: some of those “good but not exactly there” poets submitted work again. Others did not.
What I saw in those submitters who tried again and again was courage. It was the courage I lacked myself as a writer. because, writing from my own gut and all too often about my own marginalizations, from a place of pain and struggle, rejections hurt me and taught me to self-reject. But my submitters, my Stone Telling submitters whose work I did not even buy, taught me courage to keep trying, keep working, keep improving.
Not everybody can do that. Mental health issues surrounding writing can be overwhelming, and all too often impossible to overcome. Rejection hurts. Having one’s most heart-wrenching, gutful work rejected hurts like little else. To say, “Everyone can do it!” – is ableist as well as unrealistic. Not everybody can, and if one cannot, it should not be a value judgment.
But – I want to tell you a story. We’d just accepted a poem which was pretty much perfect. I am not going to name the poet. This poet’s work was in the slush from Issue 1. Over & over this poet sent work to us and was rejected. Between 2010 and 2015, this poet sent in 17 submissions. Over these years, I saw them grow and grow. The work went from good to excellent. Some of the work we rejected sold elsewhere, and was nominated for awards. It was STILL not right for us, but it got closer and closer; and then it was perfect.
As an editor, I am so, so proud of this poet. As a person, I am so, so grateful for the lessons of courage and good cheer they taught me (in case you wonder, yes, this is a marginalized person.)
I couldn’t have done what they did. 17 times! I would self-reject.
Stone Telling submitters – and then, An Alphabet of Embers submitters – gave me courage and helped me understand how sending work out looks from the other side. Since 2010, I completed and sent out many more poems. While poetry became easier for me to submit after 2010, prose was still often a struggle. Reading for An Alphabet of Embers gave me a window into prose. I completed and sent many more fiction pieces after AoE, and I was at peace with the process. It became easier, even though rejection is still difficult.
I have been here since 2008. I have noticed a pattern. Some writers seem to emerge perfect and polished, and they sell and sell (though some of those people later burn out). Others – more often, I think – have a great story and sell it. Then, other successes don’t come. or don’t come as easily. For others, even that first sale proves elusive; they write and submit consistently, but do not sell. Very often, there is a long, hard slog between that first acceptance and the next one (or at all) – a long, hard slog of writing/learning, sending out and being rejected while watching other people sell and sell. That’s where many people self-reject, and even leave.
Frankly, yes, this long, hard slog is discouraging and demoralizing. “What’s the point?” I have certainly thought many times. I started in 2008. It is 2015 now and I sell a lot more than when I started. (My bibliography is broken down by years, if this is interesting). I sold no prose in 2009, and not for the lack of trying.
I have talked earlier about the myth of “rapid, youthful rise” which works for some, but is hurtful and demoralizing for many. Not everyone can keep slogging, not for everyone it’s meaningful even to try. But, as an editor, I have seen so many people grow. in the 5 years I’ve been editing, I’ve seen my repeat submitters improve – because writing/submitting usually teaches you something. Often improvement is slow, so that the writers themselves may not even notice it. Often you not only need to improve your writing, but to hit that exact right note with the exact right editor.
Personally, I prefer the slow method of growth because it taught me so much about the process; it also taught me so much about people, and it is people, always people, who are at the core of my endeavor as a writer and editor.
I want to address two frequent concerns. First, It seems that many people worry about annoying editors by submitting again and again. I do not think it is a danger, unless your work is offensive to that editor (e.g. you sent a homophobic piece out to a queer editor), or unless you disregard guidelines. So yes, please follow guidelines, and if you feature diverse characters, please do try to get things right. However, repeatedly sending work that does not offend but does not make the cut is NOT A PROBLEM. Editors want to buy excellent work, and not hitting bulls-eye from the get-go does not disqualify you. If an editor is telling you to submit again (including via a form), that means “please submit again.” There’s no trick in this.
I also want to briefly address the concern of falling behind. Yes, there are a few prodigies who probably have never felt behind – but many, if not most writers I talk to feel they are “behind.” I find this troubling. First, we cannot all be behind. Second and more importantly, there is something damaging and painful about the idea of ahead and behind. It’s as if there is this huge herd of writers all running in the same direction towards a judge with a little red flag, and maybe a rope. But we’re not a herd, there’s more than one road to run, not everyone is able to run, and there’s no ultimate judge either. We move at a different pace, towards different goals. Some of us must take breaks before we can move again.
I personally find comparisons to other writers, as well as envy, unhelpful, but I am not a jealous person, it is not an emotion I have. I am speaking as a person who walked a long, hard, frustrating and painful and demoralizing road between my first sale and today. I did not run my road. I walked it (stopping), and I am nowhere near done. I’m simply somewhere different from where I’d started. I like this place I’ve reached. Would I have liked to have an agent and/or a book contract by now? Yes, of course! But I am not “behind.”
There is a Russian proverb, dorogu osilit idushij, “the one who walks will manage the road.” If this road is for you, keep moving – keep moving when it is easy and when it is tough, take rest breaks when you need them, remeber that self-care is #1, but don’t self-reject. If the road is not for you, that’s completely legit. That’s not a statement about your worth, either. As always, please remember that I am only a single person and everything I say gets filtered through the lens of my own thoughts and experiences, so if what I am saying does not work for you, that’s absolutely legit as well.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
February 17, 2015
Sale: “The Book of How to Live”
The new version of the anthology features my novelette, “The Book of How to Live.” I originally wrote it for this call, but at over 11k, it ended up being too long for the market, as Michael was only able to accept a limited amount of material from non-Canadians. When Michael went indie, he asked for the story back. It will be in very good company; I am especialy glad to see Amal El-Mohtar’s “To Follow the Waves” and Bogi Takács’s “This Shall Serve as a Demarcation” in this lineup. I love both stories fiercely.
“The Book of How to Live” is a Birdverse novelette set in northeastern country of Laina, and it is told by two queer women: Efronia Lukano, a peasant inventor who traveled on foot from the northern edges of Laina to study at the university, and Atarah-nai-Rinah, a Khana inventor who lives in the city. It is a story of academic and societal exclusion, finding one’s own community, nascent revolutions. It is the first story I’ve sold which is an explicit critique of Western-style academic establishments, but it is most certainly not the last.
I am happy with this for sale for multiple reasons, not least of them is the fact that I’ve sold three Birdverse novelettes in the span of two months, to appear in 2015. All of those pieces are queer (Birdverse is very queer), and all three of them feature autistic protagonists. “The Book of How to Live” has Efronia, an Aspie; “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” has Kimi, a minimally verbal autistic child; and finally, “Geometries of Belonging” features Dedéi, a nonbinary teen with speech and motor difficulties.
I am very happy that my Birdverse work is gaining traction. I hope you too will love these stories and these people and their world. I am most certainly working on more; there’s no end to these stories.
Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.
