The Last Click

After three years, we launched the farewell issue of The Big Click, a Libby Cudmore special in celebration of her debut novel The Big Rewind.

We talk about why we are closing down the magazine a bit here, but there are other reasons. The main one is that there simply weren't enough stories of interest out there. We never opened to the slush pile, and instead preferred pitches and letters of introduction. Most people who wanted to write short crime fiction simply had no idea what that meant, and instead would just write letters reading "How do I submit a story?" or would just send a story (which of course I'd instantly delete).

Sometimes, with prodding, we would could get a pitch out of them, and frankly, a good half the stories were about dead whores. Of the remaining half, most were just ripping off recent TV shows (literally about "the man who knocks" for example), or were about police bringing someone to justice (pitching this sort of story means you simply didn't read the magazine) or about the author's series character. To be honest, most series characters, despite their quirky names and weird little habit—birding! steepling his fingers as he thinks! whatever!—they are largely utterly generic recording devices pushed around by the author to collect testimony until someone just randomly admits to doing the crime.

Had we opened the slush pile, would better stories have emerged? Perhaps, but at what cost? Dozens and dozens of murdered prostitutes and Sopranos characters beating up black people (see, white guys are still tough!) and cops drinking coffee and then getting a "perp off the streets." Oh, sometimes the whores were kids who still clutched teddy bears and wore stained little pink panties. This was supposed to be shocking instead of the first thing anyone who watched television in the 1970s thinks of when they think of awful crimes.

The only reason to start a small online magazine is for fun, unless one is looking to rip people off by abusing non-profit status. Even if a magazine becomes self-sustaining and profitable, the time and energy one puts into it could be spent literally doing anything else. When reading stories is no fun, burnout is inevitable.

Want more markets for your fiction? Write better, and inspire editors to found new markets to highlight what they love. If your main goal in writing is to regurgitate what you saw on TV once, just quit. You're ruining it for everyone else, writers and readers both.