No, not my precious plot! Curse you, Bruce Sterling!

Thanks,
-V.

Check it out, someone doesn't get the gimmick of your epic antho:

http://p082.ezboard.com/fshocklinesforumfrm2.showMessage?topicID=12083.topic

That's almost as funny as it is sad. Thanks!

And the one person at all defending us in the discussion group thinks that $100 for 5,000 words equals 5,000¢ for 100 words.

*sigh*

Disappointing. Makes me wonder if some of these people actually read, and I mean not only the guidelines, but magazines and anthologies apart from the contributor's copies they may receive. As in: trying to support some markets, instead of complaining about them.

Or, to stay on topic of your original post, they completely ditched the plot and turned up the characterization to full rant mode ;-)

It's such a weird series of comments! Since when does it take anybody 4-5 hours to write a 5K story?

Or am I just a really slow writer?

Nick, you apparently read Shocklines (at least enuf to notice this), so I ask you: are all those guys actually that stupid?

It's not stupidity so much as groupthink. Disagreements Are Not Allowed.

This is true even when two very different positions are being discussed. A week ago, Cyber-Pulp was brought up as a potentially unprofessional publisher -- they ONLY provide pdf copies to the contributors, don't pay, a dime, and charge their contributors "cost" (except that the numbers don't add up) for copies of their anthologies.

Because Shocklines sells C-P books, it was declared "The publisher is straightforward with what it wants and what it offers, so there is nothing wrong with it." This line, of course, went right out the window with TWENTY EPICS, which actually does pay, because Dave is an Outlander and thus Evil.

Here, for example, is the Cyber-Pulp thread:
http://p082.ezboard.com/fshocklinesforumfrm2.showMessageRange?topicID=11688.topic&start=1&stop=20

That "Anthology X" thread really is surreal. Also, I noticed that Ralan lists "Twenty Epics" as accepting audio and comic submissions (I assume it isn't so -- an epic audio comic would be cool, but hard to deliver in a paper book).

Nick: thanks for linking to the discussion on Cyber-Pulp. I've published with G.W. Thomas through them before and never realized there were any issues with the contributor copies.

Incidentally, I claim all rights to the title "Anthology X" for a To-be-announced project some time in the future. Pay scale? Heh...heh...heh...

We don't accept audio, but we do accept sheet music.

(Though since I don't actually read music myself, there'd probably have to be an accompanying audio submission.)