Going Global

Thank God for technology. If it wasn't for computers and the Internet, I never would have seen the above tweet. And I never would have been able to translate the Russian into English without the help of Google:

in my To-Read list, there's a whole book of short stories in one sentence. Robert Swartwood "Hint Fiction".

So yeah, that's pretty cool.

Have a great rest of the weekend, and tune in Monday for a special follow up to this post.

Too Good To Be True

So there's this anthology looking for stories on a specific theme, and, if accepted, you'll be paid $500 for your story. Not bad, right? Except there is one little important detail worth mentioning (the bold is mine):

I am looking for 10-12 publishable stories by new and upcoming authors, and I will see that you are paid $500 for your story, though it may take some time for you to receive your payment as I have to get an agent and publisher on board with this project. I will also solicit 2-4 stories by better-known authors in order to make this volume a bestseller at Jewish book fairs.

So right now, basically, there is no money. There could be, somewhere down the line. But publishing being publishing, it's just as possible (and quite likely) that there will be a big load of nothing when it's all said and done.

Not that I'm trying to discourage anyone from submitting to this market. For all anyone knows, the editor could quite possibly secure an agent and publisher and the anthology could be a big success. But I've seen these types of guidelines before, a hopeful editor offering an incentive that he or she doesn't have and quite possibly never will have. (Also, let's not get too much into the math here, but 10-12 publishable stories x $500 = $6,000 at most, and that's leaving the editor with nothing. Is that kind of advance believable? If you have a new Stephen King story, sure, though he alone will probably require at least $5,000.)

This happened to me a couple years ago: I sold a story to a themed anthology and was supposed to be paid a nice amount for it. Only thing was, the editor was still searching for a publisher. But if and when the project did find a home, then I was promised to receive said amount. But the project never came together, and quite honestly, I wasn't too disappointed as the story was a reprint to begin with. It wasn't like I had written it specifically for the anthology in question and then waited and waited and waited for nothing to happen and then, when nothing did happen, I was stuck with an unsold themed story.

And then, sometimes, a project is all set to go, there's a publisher with money, and then it all falls apart in the end anyway. This, too, happened to me years ago. It wouldn't have been such a big deal (shit happens, right?) except I later learned that some of the contributors had been paid upfront, while others (like myself) were not paid a cent.

Anyway, I think a lot of editors and publishers start out with good intentions. But sometimes I think a lot of editors and publishers promise more than they can really deliver. So it's always important to stay alert and remember that if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

The Art Of Hint Fiction

From the Columbia (Missouri) Art League:

Hint Fiction August 23 – October 1, 2011 Opening Reception: Thursday, September 1, 2011 Artwork submission dates: Friday and Saturday, August 19 and 20, 2011

An anthology of 125 short stories, each told in 25 words or fewer, is the inspiration and muse for this juried show. Editor Robert Swartwood’s book Hint Fiction (published by W. W. Norton & Company, New York) is a compilation of stories, which each suggest a larger, more complex story.

Artists are invited to choose one of the works in the book, taking the story as the title and inspiration for their work. This is a juried show open to CAL members and non-members. Artists may submit two works for consideration. Entry fees (per person, not per work) are $15 for members and $25 for non-members.

Copies of the book are available to borrow from the Columbia Art League or for purchase from the University Bookstore.

Novel Workshops, Fonts, And Kindle Grit

Nick Mamatas has some good insight into this piece over at The Millions about "10 Thoughts on Academia’s Novel Crisis" and the one thing that really stuck out to me was this line: "The obvious solution is simply to understand that one cannot workshop a novel." And it got me thinking about a particular workshop I went to several years ago that workshopped novels. There were, I think, about 20 other writers. You submitted the first 40-50 pages of your novel and a 1 or 2 page synopsis of the rest, and those sections were copied and put in huge binders and sent to the 20 writers to critique weeks before the actual workshop. And then once the workshop came around, those 20 writers would sit in groups and discuss those particular sections with those particular writers (there were established authors there as mentors, as well as an editor at a large New York publishing house). And I remember thinking how, well, stupid it was that they we were just critiquing the first 50 pages and synopsis. Yes, there was some value to the experience, I guess, and it's true that you can judge a novel by the first few chapters just as you can judge a story by its first few pages (if not paragraphs), but I remember a few of the writers admitting they read those first 50 pages with interest and just glossed over the synopsis. I have to admit I think I did the same thing too. Because a novel, in my opinion, should be the length it is because it can't be described in only a couple pages. If that's the case, then it should just be a story. Sure, you have the basic summary (and that, I guess, was one of the reasons for doing it: to see if the writer was the on right track, had a good story arc, etc.), but you can't experience the novel that way. Especially if a novel is complex on a Peter Straub level; just how are you supposed to show the reader all these different complexities in only a page or two, and even if you can, how can the reader really tell whether or not it's effective? They can't, and that's why if you critique a novel, you should read the entire novel and not just the first couple chapters and synopsis. (The basic lesson from that workshop? Start your book off on a really great opening hook. Like that isn't already obvious.)

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Over at Salon.com, Laura Miller suggests that hideous fonts might actually be good for you:

A recent study out of Princeton, and brought to wider attention by Jonah Lehrer at Wired.com, suggests that ugly, irregular fonts can boost the amount of information readers retain from a text, while easy-to-read type is more likely to just sort of slide out of their minds. The study, titled "Fortune Favors the Bold (and the Italicized): Effects of Disfluency on Educational Outcomes," found that people remembered more from worksheets and PowerPoint presentations when they were composed in a hot mess of hated fonts like Monotype Corsiva, Haettenshweiler and the dreaded Comic Sans Italic.

The hypothesis is that the added difficulty in reading these texts forces more cognitive engagement, which leads to greater comprehension. While we naturally think that we learn better from texts that are pleasant and easy to read, the opposite may be the case. For Lehrer, who admits to loving his Kindle but also to worrying that it makes "the act of reading a little bit too easy," this is an ominous sign.

One thing I do love about e-books is the option of changing the font and the font size. Kindle (at least the app on my iPad) doesn't really let you change the font, but iBooks gives you six different kinds to choose from. Currently my preferred font in iBooks is Palatino, for whatever it's worth. What should you take away from the Salon article? Basically if you want high reading comprehension, read everything in Wingdings.

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Speaking of e-books, it was announced yesterday that True Grit will be available next week on Kindle. Sweet, I thought, it's about time. Only when I checked it out, I saw that it's priced at $12.99. Okay, I thought, that's not too strange. But Amazon has the trade paperback listed for only $8.08. So ... yeah. Not sure what the thinking currently is with the publisher on that one, but best of luck to them. I mean, it's not like Random House isn't doing really well pricing some of their e-books accordingly (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is currently #1 in the entire Kindle Store, and why? Hmm, maybe because it's priced at $5.00. Just a guess.)