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Mary Rosenblum
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This is our Professional
Connection live interview with Patrick Swenson, Editor of Talebones
Magazine
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Good evening all, and welcome
to our Professional Connection interview!
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Tonight we'll be chatting with
Patrick Swenson, Editor of Talebones Magazine and editor for Fairwood Press
books.
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Patrick & Honna Swenson edit
and publish the quarterly semi-pro SF magazine Talebones. In early 2000,
the parent company, Fairwood Press, began publishing a book line. Their
books include The 10% Solution by Ken Rand, the 2003 ALA Best Book
Strangers and Beggars by James Van Pelt, and their newest title,
Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction.
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I'm really pleased to welcome
Patrick to our website chat tonight! Welcome, Patrick!
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Patrick Swenson
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Thanks, Mary! It's great to be
here
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Mary Rosenblum
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I have to tell you that I've
been pushing 10% Solution all over the website!
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I'm so glad you publish it!
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Patrick Swenson
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That's awesome. It's an
excellent little book for beginner, intermediate and pro alike.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It sure is...one of the best
nuts and bolts 'how to trim' books I’ve read! So to begin with let's start
at the beginning. Just how did you end up in the editing field?
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Patrick Swenson
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I came into it from a back
door really. I'm a writer too, and so I was peddling my stories to the SF
magazines
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and one of them was a small
press magazine you might remember called FIGMENT, edited by Barb & JC Hendee
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who now have a couple of books
out from ROC books. I got to start writing a music review column for them,
and at some point
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they decided to hang it up
because of graduate studies and I thought, "Man, that was fun (I got
to get in on some of the behind the scenes stuff)
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and I thought if only I had
the money, the time, and a good computer, I'd try doing my own magazine.
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I got two out of the three
(you never get enough time!) and I started Talebones. Barb & JC helped
with a lot of advice! That was in 1995. At Westercon that summer in Portland, we put out
a freebie "Issue Zero," and the first real issue came out that
fall
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Mary Rosenblum
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I met Barb a few times. But I
didn't know the whole story! What a lot of folk here
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probably don't realize is how
many small magazines start up and fold. You have succeeded. My hat is off
to you! What do you think is the reason that Talebones is still publishing?
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Patrick Swenson
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I think the biggest reason is
we began very modestly, and we decided early on that we were going to go
SLOW. We were not going to
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push too fast because we'd
seen magazines go under after only a few issues, and some go under even
before they started!
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We got a nice blurb from
Gordon Van Gelder once (editor of F&SF) when he said part of the reason
we are around
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is that we publish well, we
publish smart, and we publish fiction people want to read. That is us in a
nutshell I think!
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Mary Rosenblum
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And then again, you also put
out a good magazine. I hadn't read it regularly until this year. I'm
impressed Patrick. Nice stories! Good magazine.
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sweet_muse
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What's semi-pro? Is your
magazine Talebones available on Canadian newstands?
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Patrick Swenson
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Thanks, Mary! It helps having
two of us at the editing helm. Maybe folks don't know it, but my wife and I
co-edit
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Semi pro means we don't pay
professional rates and we have a smaller distribution. We pay 1-2 cents a
word and I think pro rates are...what? four cents now, five?
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Mary Rosenblum
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About five, mostly.
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Patrick Swenson
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We had some Canadian outlets
through one of our small regional
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distributors here in Seattle, but when
the distributor lost some stores due to the economy, they weren't getting
enough orders to keep stocking us. So at the moment we are available only
via subscription for Canadian subscribers. And we have quite a few who do!
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Mary Rosenblum
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How does Talebones dovetail
with Fairwood Press?
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Patrick Swenson
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When my wife Honna and I
started Talebones (actually we weren't married yet when we started this, so
I had to make her my co-editor for life!) we decided to also have Fairwood
Press as
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an overall umbrella name. It
wasn't until 2000 that we decided we'd try our hand at publishing some
trade paperbacks, and we turned Fairwood Press into a corporation. Talebones
is now a separat
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company, but of course we are
the same people!
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Some of the chapbooks (like
the 10% Solution) were published before Fairwood incorporated
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gskearney
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I've put together some tutorials
here on the site to help writers deal with current technology and
computers. Do you think there's a market for an inexpensive book along
those lines?
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Patrick Swenson
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This is a big reason why Talebones
had to go down to 2 issues a year from 4 issues. I basically run two
different companies, besides my full time teaaching job.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Whew, and I thought _I_ was
busy!
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Patrick Swenson
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Yeah, Mary, that's why I had
to stop playing in the band I was playing in too. No time! Hi, gs! Mary
told me about those. I was going to go take a look at some of those. I
imagine there is quite the need, depending on what is being talked about. I
know I can barely keep
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Patrick Swenson
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up with the new tech myself!
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Patrick Swenson
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Chapbooks are great for those kind
of things.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I'll send you the links after
the chat, Patrick.
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Patrick Swenson
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The tech you speak of, gs
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is even partially responsible
for the ability to PRINT books like that
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with the advent of POD
technology.
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sailor
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What exactly is a chapbook?
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Patrick Swenson
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Sailor, it's a broad term that
defines a small, inexpensive book, usually small press, limited press run
(like 200-500 copies, let's say) ...
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and often are saddle-stapled
with
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maybe a card stock cover, or a
2-color cover, rarely full color with a lot of production value.
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Ken Rand's 10% Solution
started off as a saddle-stapled chapbook, but now we perfect-bind it
because the printer we use has a binder in shop he let's us use.
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What we often do with chapbaooks
now
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is run the number of covers we
want, say 200 covers, and then print 50-100 insides, what we know will sell
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and bind those, and if we sell
those, we can print more insides.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And you'd better explain...
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saddle staple and perfect
bound, Patrick. I can hear the questions winging my way! :-)
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Patrick Swenson
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Ah...saddle staple: say 8 1/2
by 11 sheets, folded in half, with cover, and stapled twice in the middle
along the crease. You could do it cheaply if you had a long-reach stapler.
Most print shops will have a saddle staple machine to do it and
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perfect bound is a flat
binding, glued like most mass market paperbacks and trade paperbacks.
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paja
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Do chapbooks have to be
non-fiction?
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Patrick Swenson
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No, Paja. Of the chaps we've
done, two have been non fiction (10%, plus Tom Piccirilli's great writing
book aimed for the beginning writer called WELCOME TO HELL), and two have
been fiction collections, and one is poetry. A chap can be anything!
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senicynt
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ok... What exactly is Ken Rand's
10% solution? I haven't heard of it until tonight. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Why don't you tell people about
Tom' s book, too.
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It's also quite good!
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Patrick Swenson
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Senicynt, it's a book on
self-editing that we published in 1999 (I think)
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and it outlines how to trim
your fiction to make it tighter. Basically, Ken says take your finished
story
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and then cut it about 10%. The
book outlines how to do that using the search function on your word
processor, giving a great list
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of words to look for to cut,
or at least to look at and ask yourself , "Do I need that, or is there
a better, more succinct way to say the same thing?"
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Tom's book, Welcome to Hell,
is a working guide for the beginning writer.
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He covers all kinds of things
like overcoming rejection, discouragement,
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how to act at conventions, how
to get good ideas, technique, style,
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making time for yourself,
reading reading reading in the field,
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networking, writer's
block...all in a really FUNNY way too!
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pgn1101
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Does Welcome to Hell deal with
non-fiction also?
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Patrick Swenson
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Some about nonfiction I think,
pgn, but mostly fiction. A lot of the things he talks about
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certainly would cross over. At
the end he says there are no secrets. Tom writes because he needs to write
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and to stay true to your art
and yourself and never let anyone steal your faith. (I quoted there,
roughly)!!
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Writing and sending stuff out,
and getting rejected, and persevering and doing the whole thing over and
over again...it's hell out there. So you just gotta keep at it. Sounds
easy, eh?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Patrick, I'm getting a lot of
questions about where to get these books.
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Want to put your website here?
I'll make it a link in the transcript...
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Patrick Swenson
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Ah, insert marketing tool
here!
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Mary Rosenblum
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And do give the price here.
They are SO cheap!
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Patrick Swenson
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You bet. All our Fairwood
titles are at our website. We have two now. One for the magazine at www.talebones.com and
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the Fairwood site (chapbooks,
paperbacks, etc) at www.fairwoodpress.com
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And see ... I've got a feeling
that I'll have to get back to the print shop and print up some more copies
of these real soon! The 10% Solution is a rare chapbook in that
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it has sold nearly 1500
copies. Something almost unheard of for a little 60 page book.
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without major national
distribution
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yes, very cheap, very
affordable. to 5.99$ - 6.99$
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Mary Rosenblum
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No kidding.
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You don't GET books for that price...not
good ones, that is.
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Patrick Swenson
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And off the website, those
chapbooks (and single Talebones copies) get shipped without shipping costs.
Of course, these are also available on Amazon, but naturally we get a
better money cut if they're purchased directly through us.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You'd better start printing
after we're done here. :-)
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smeagol
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Are you still publishing poetry
chaps? What kind of poetry?
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Patrick Swenson
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Smeagol (Gollum!), we've only
published one poetry chap. It was a special deal, really, a collection of
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Michael Arnzen's horror poems
called GORELETS. Michael started a website (gorelets.com) with a challenge
to write a short horror poem a week, for
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52 weeks, and made them
available to subscribers. It did really well. It was all designed for the
PDA. He approached me about doing a print version. It came out
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just last November, and is now
about 3rd in the voting for the Bram Stoker Award for poetry. In reality,
poetry books are a tough sell. You know the old saying: poets starve.
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arfelin
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The 10% Solution is an awesome
writing tool. It's made a big difference in my writing. Ken Rand is a
genius!
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Mary Rosenblum
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The method really shows you
your own personal weaknesses with language.
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Patrick Swenson
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You're right, arfelin! Ken
Rand also does our interviews for us (in Talebones)
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I'll tell Ken you called him a
genius
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Mary Rosenblum
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We all think editors are gods
when we begin sending our stuff out. We know you sit at a huge desk,
slamming down a gavel on each quivering submission…REJECTED! SOLD! So
what's it really like? And can I try the gavel? :
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Patrick Swenson
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!!!
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Well, Mary, we ARE gods?
Didn't you know? !!
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Mary Rosenblum
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I THOUGHT so!
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Patrick Swenson
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The gavel is in the shop right
now, getting gold-plated
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I actually had a writer who
was sending us stories for about a year
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and at one point he took a
night writing class my wife and I were teaching
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and we got to be good friends,
and he actually told me he used to think we were these god-like people with
special editing powers, etc
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and then he said now he knew
we weren't really that special, just normal people!
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with day jobs
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and mortgages and children and
everything.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Laughing! Amazing, huh?
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Patrick Swenson
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We get about 200 submissions a
month for TALEBONES. We try and keep on top of the submission pile
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but it grows really fast! At
some point we hunker down and put in big reading sessions
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and we have to do this at home
in the evenings
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or weekends,
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and as a teacher, I often have
lots of papers I bring home to grade too, plus I not only edit, I also am
the publisher, so I do all the layout and I do all the marketing (what I
can) ,
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and part of the production,
the mailing, the renewal notices, etc.
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It’s crazy busy sometimes.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Want to talk a bit about the
response time issue? It ...of course...drives everyone nuts from the
writer's end of things. Let's hear the editor's side!
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Patrick Swenson
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We used to pride ourselves in
very short response times.
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It was rare for a manuscript
to stay in our office more than a week, unless we were considering it further
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Our way of keeping the time
down was also a way to keep the overall time from acceptance to print down.
We never buy for
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more than one issue at a time.
We don't stockpile stories. So at the end of a reading period, we go to our
hold pile, and we might have 15 stories on it, all decent in their own way,
and
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we have to say we're going to
buy these 6 or 7 stories, and pass on the others. We won't say we'll buy
your story for an issue a year and a half from now.
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So we didn't keep manuscripts
around, keeping the response time low. Now, publishing only 2 times a year,
we don't keep up as much as we used to, and we have
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twice the number of
manuscripts vying for the same 6-7 slots. We still try and get manuscripts
back in about a month, but we have had some times
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where we've been about two
months. It's just life getting in the way.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Actually, I wasn't speaking of
YOU, but in general, I think writers fail to realize just how much an
editor has to do. It's not just a matter of reading a few stories in a day!
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Patrick Swenson
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That's true, Mary. A lot goes
into it.
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pjwriter2
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What do you look for from a
writer as far as ms goes?
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Patrick Swenson
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As far as the look of the ms, pj,
or the story? (or both!)
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Mary Rosenblum
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You might as well talk about
both, Patrick!
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Patrick Swenson
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I'm actually quite impressed
with the writers out there in the spec fic market. They do their homework
about manuscript preparation, and I rarely
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get manuscripts that are
totally off the wall and / or unreadable. I'll often get single-spaced
manuscripts, and sometimes handwritten, but not that often.
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I won't read single-spaced. My
eyes can't take it. Heck, I don't read single-spaced work from my high
school students! They know they have to have a final paper
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double spaced and in the right
font or they'll have to redo it!
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But, generally
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I'm not a stickler for every
single little detail being right. There's no "It must be Courier 12
point or nothing!" law with me. Or
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what! Italics instead of
underlined words! Shame! Big deal. If we buy the story, it saves ME time
having to change 'em all myself!
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pjwriter2
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What type of stories /articles
do you do in Talebones?
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Patrick Swenson
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There are a lot of "red
flags" for the beginner that I often take notice of,...I don't know
how much about that you want me to go into, but ..
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Mary Rosenblum
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DO go into it. I know people
want to know.
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Patrick Swenson
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As for the stories themselves,
PJ, we're looking for entertaining well-written stories. We're not looking
for literary
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mainstream gloss
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although, a story should have
some literate sensibilities.
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We tend to gravitate toward
darker fiction, but we are pretty eclectic in our tastes, and publish
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straight SF, dark fantasy, contemp
fantasy, etc. Very little blood-n-guts horror, actually.
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We like a strong beginning,
and a story that keeps at you, pulling you through to the end.
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Mary Rosenblum
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What is your word limit,
Patrick?
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Patrick Swenson
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Red flags....hmmmm. Don't send
simultaneous submissions. If you do, TELL the editor you are. If you tell
me, I'll send it back
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and tell you we don't accept
them, and to try us with something EXCLUSIVE, and then we hope that's what
you'll do from then on.
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6000 words limit, Mary, with a
few exceptions (from queries)
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Don't put your social security
number on the manuscript. (We'll get it from you if we buy your story and
are going to pay you money!)
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Mary Rosenblum
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NEVER put your SS# on a
ms!!!!!!!
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Patrick Swenson
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Avoid weird pen names.
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Don't tell us in a cover
letter that you are a beginning writer and this is the very first story
you've ever sent out.
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Don't tell us to excuse the
grammatical and spelling errors, knowing that we'll just fix it on our end
if we buy the story.
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Don’t say your story is
approximately 4, 246 words long! Haha.
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That’s pretty exact.
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Don't insult the editor.
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Oh, the stories I could tell
you about cover letters....
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Mary Rosenblum
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Now there's a basic! oooh...tell,
tell! :-)
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Patrick Swenson
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Our first year of publication,
1995, we had a cover letter from a guy
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who had quite a few writing
credits (mostly small press)
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who said "I know this
story is longer than your guidelines say, but please read it up to 5K (that
was our limit when we started)
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and hopefully you'll care
enough to finish it, or spend
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the rest of your life
wondering how it ends. Then, after his credits, he said, he eagerly awaited
our
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reply, one toe on the edge of
a teetering chair. No rush, but the noose was beginning to itch."
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Mary Rosenblum
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oooh....lordy!
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My eyes are rolling!
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Patrick Swenson
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Funny, actually!
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My all time favorite one,
which I still have,
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came from a really bad
typewriter (you know, with all the strikeouts and smudge letters, etc)
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and was a page and a half
single spaced
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where he goes on and on about
his story, which was a Superman story, and he was worried about copyright,
and so he was telling us
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how he had changed names
(Louise Llane) and then got into this whole thing about Nieitsche's
superman, etc etc.
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And it was full of typos and
crazy wordings,
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and then on and on about how
he had been to Seattle....twice ....looking for a job once, and he skipped
out of a job interview
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for an ad agency looking for
motivated people! Ha! Then said he got the feeling he was writing to a
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nonlucrative zine entrepeneur,
and he said he knew we were going pro, but one musn't take onself seriously
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and that he planned to send this
story off to the more reputable publishers
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and quote:" after all, no
offense it's science fiction, what's the best rep you could have?"
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but he was giving us the first
crack at it going public of course.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Oooh...you got that one framed,
Patrick?
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Patrick Swenson
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And he said send him info on
getting the magazine, that I could even take the price of a copy out of his
commission!
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It's in my "best cover
letters" file, Mary!
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chatty lady
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These are priceless, what an
idea for a book: "Cover Letters Never to Write."
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Patrick Swenson
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Ha, Chatty! You're right.
Although, when I do the infamous "Tales from the Slush Pile"
panels, I'm always worried
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one of the writers is going to
be in the audience when I share stories....! That same writer asked if he
should include the single-spaced intro to his story because I’d have to pay
him more money.
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pjwriter2
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I am not sure what you mean by
dark fiction. Could you please tell me?
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Patrick Swenson
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Not cheery, no elves, not
fairy-dust coated, it's horrific, disturbing, supernatural,
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Psychological.
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I think of horror as blood n
guts, like a slasher movie, and I think of dark fantasy as horrific stories
with a fantastical element.
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so our dark SF stories have
horrific, disturbing, scary moments in an SF setting.
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There's a fine line, I guess.
Our subtitle for the magazine used to be: Fiction on the Dark Edge, which
meant that our
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stories straddled the edge
between dark and light, sometimes going over the edge into pure dark,
sometimes having no horrific elements at all. What happened was Gardner Doizois
kept reviewing us as a horror magazine.
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speckledorf
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You mentioned queries. Do you
prefer them or the complete manuscript?
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chatty lady
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I find 'dark fiction' more of
the mind and horror fiction more of the slasher, mindless blood & guts,
do you agree?
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Patrick Swenson
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Speckle, complete manuscripts.
Query only if you have something that might be a tad over the guidelines
limit, or something you're
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just not sure is appropriate.
Doesn't hurt to query, I guess...i don't MIND them (you can email us for
queries, but manuscripts have
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to be sent by mail. Query at info@talebones.com , by the way.
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that's it, Chatty!
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Mary Rosenblum
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A couple of people have asked
about the name 'Talebones' Patrick...where it came from?
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Patrick Swenson
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A good story, there, Mary.
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Once Honna and I had decided
to get a magazine rolling, we started brainstorming names
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and we kept coming up with
things like Dark Visions, and Black Planet and Doorways, and blah stuff
like that,
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which we knew wouldn't work. We
remembered how cool the name PULPHOUSE was when it came out, and we wanted
something
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that really stood out, and
stood for what we wanted to publish. As it happened, my roommate and his
girlfriend one day were coming back
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from a trip to a bicycle
store, and they had bought a bike for her, but the seat was not right for
her, so they had
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to buy a seat separately, and
the name of the bike seat company was TAILBONES. Honna and I looked at each
other in that very instant
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and said THAT'S IT! Only spell
it TALE-BONES.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Cool story! I hadn't heard that
one before!
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Patrick Swenson
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The idea being we got a little
idea of the "dark" slant we were looking for, but mostly that we
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were looking for good
entertaining stories (tales) that had great backbone, that writers would
flesh out the skeletons of their ideas into great work!
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|
Something like that.
|
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|
Anyway, we were typecast early
on, and have fought
|
|
|
the "horror" label
all this time.
|
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Mary Rosenblum
|
I have to admit that that is
the reason it took me so long to start reading the magazine --
|
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|
because of those references.
|
|
|
Glad I finally figured out it
wasn't a horror mag! :-)
|
|
roe
|
Is there anything special you
look for in stories for your magazine?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Yep! Well, even Gardner has changed
his tune now! (He was even considering a story for reprint this year).
|
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Mary Rosenblum
|
Cool!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
I think the "Bone"
font had something to do with it too. Actually, with the next issue, we'll
be doing something we've never done in 8 years. We are getting rid of the
bone font!
|
|
chatty lady
|
You know when something is
especially strong/good, you say it has GOOD BONES, I thought maybe Talebones
meant a magazine with good/strong stories.
|
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Mary Rosenblum
|
Ha, another definition for you,
Patrick!
|
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Patrick Swenson
|
Roe, we're looking for an
entertaining read, well-written stories
|
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|
And we're really wide open. We
have a few dislikes in our guidelines, but at
|
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any time, we're liable to say
the heck with GLs and buy something we wouldn't normally publish. That is,
if the story is good.
|
|
|
Yes, that's it chatty. That’s
what we've always been about.
|
|
umesh
|
What are the criteria for
accepting or rejecting manuscripts?
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Who has the last word?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
We don't take vampire fiction,
but we've published a vampire story. We don't take stories about writers,
but we've published a few. We don't do cat stories and
|
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|
well, okay, we don't publish
cat stories! (Unless you count Steve Rasnic Tem's story, which had Cats in
it, but it wasn't what it was about).
|
|
|
Honna and I are a team, umesh.
We both read from the slush pile when we get a chance,
|
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|
and when we find stories we
like, we set them aside for the other person to read later. Sometimes that
happens right away,
|
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|
sometimes it might be a while.
basically we both have to like a story to accept it. Otherwise, either one
of us will write rejections.
|
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Sometimes, if we're reading
together, I've come across a story I liked, and I've snuck it back onto the
slush pile for Honna to pick up, and she'll read it and say "hey, read
this one," and then
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|
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I grin and tell her ha! already
read it. It's amazing how we click that way. We're a good team because we
like a lot of the same
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stuff, and her background was
more in dark fiction/horror growing up, and I was more interested in
SF/straight Fantasy.
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Oh
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I'd say that the majority of manuscripts
that get rejected
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get rejected because they
haven't hooked us in the first few pages. It's true, kids! We rarely read
stories all the way through.
|
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babbles
|
Patrick would reincarnation fit
into your mag?
|
|
senicynt
|
Ghost stories?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Stories about reincarnation?
Sure, why not? If the idea was new, fresh, and the story engaging.
|
|
|
I love a good ghost story.
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pjwriter2
|
Could you give us the address
for ordering guidelines?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
"Holding Onto
Ghosts" in issue #26...great ghost story set in Africa, about Apartheid
and all that
|
|
|
pj, you can email me for
e-guidelines at info@talebones.com (or
patrick@talebones.com ), or you
can snail mail to:
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5203 Quincy Ave SE; Auburn, WA 98092 That's also the address for all submissions.
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|
senicynt
|
Have you ever had a situation
where one of you loves a piece and the other hates it? How do you resolve
that?
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
No email submissions, right?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Senicynt, the one who hates it
gets to write the rejection slip!!
|
|
|
Right, Mary. We used to accept
email submissions, but
|
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|
it just got to be too much of
a pain. It was like having TWO slush piles, and only I was reading the
e-slush, and you'd get all
|
|
|
manner of submissions, a
larger percentage of inappropriate stuff, things I couldn't even read, etc.
|
|
|
The best it gets, seni, is one
likes it, and one tolerates it, and that's if we don't have enough other
things on the pile that we both like.
|
|
smeagol
|
Why no cat stories? Poe's
"Black Cat" is a good one! :-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
But that's rare. We usually
have a hard time making decisions to cut down to the top 6 or 7.
|
|
|
Yes, it's a good one, and
there are good cat stories out there, and a whole bunch of cat anthologies.
And we figure
|
|
|
there are enough venues for
cat stories out there, and we don't need to add to the mix.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
smiling!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Because we used to get SO MANY
of them.
|
|
arfelin
|
Does a title ever make the
difference to you or Honna on whether to accept or reject a story?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
And it's hard to do a cat
story we haven't seen a dozen times before.
|
|
|
Not usually, arfelin. We won't
NOT read a story because of a bad title, because we want to see the STORY succeed...
|
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and if we like a story enough
to buy it, and we don't like a title, we'll tell the author so, and tell
them to come up with a half dozen to a dozen alternate
|
|
|
that we can look at and choose
from (and sometimes we'll suggest a title ourselves).
|
|
sailor
|
If a publisher wants more rights
than the writer wants to sell, when is the right time to mention that? At
time of submission? After acceptance?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Does anyone here know Paul Melko?
An excellent writer who has been selling tons lately
|
|
|
and who had some of his first
stories published in Talebones. He once sent us a story, a fantasy/fable,
that we just LOVED
|
|
|
and it was titled HONNA'S
ROSE. I think he did it more as a joke, but he did say he thought it was a
pretty name. He changed it, of course, at our request,
|
|
|
to IKARA's ROSE. He also said
he would've tried "Gardner's Rose" if he'd sent it to ASIMOV's!!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Generally, short fiction
markets will state what they buy in their guidelines. Most markets will buy
FNASR, and that's it. One-time rights, those rights reverting back to the
writer upon publication.
|
|
|
It's also in our contract, so
that would be where a writer would have a chance to object, I guess.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
First North American Serial
Rights, folks.
|
|
|
Do you ever consider reprints?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Ah, yes, sorry. There are
really no other rights to sell, other than electronic rights, and most mags
won't bother with those.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
That means he buys the right to
publish your story first in North America.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
We have never done a reprint
in Talebones, Mary. All original stuff for us!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
But YOU the author still own
the story.
|
|
bingocliff
|
Do you or your wife ever search
the net ( RoseDog.com) for a story?
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
I bet you get plenty in the
slush pile!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
The author owns the story,
yes. The moment you finish typing it, you own the copyright on it (and so
that's a good reason why
|
|
|
you don't send up another red
flag and put copyright symbols and such on it, as well as what rights
you're offering)
|
|
|
nice plugging, Bingo! :) No,
we don't go looking for stories on the net.
|
|
pjwriter2
|
Do you have to have an agent
(the writer)?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
We might ask a writer we've
met, or know, to SEND us a story.
|
|
|
We consider stories published
on the Net as published, and so we wouldn't do reprints.
|
|
|
You don't need an agent to
sell short fiction.
|
|
|
Most professional novelists,
when they sell short fiction, don't use their agents.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
What Patrick just said about
stories on the net is a very good reason to think twice about
|
|
|
publishing stories for free on
websites just to get them up there. They ARE published
|
|
|
and you can no longer sell
FNASR.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Yep, good point, Mary!
|
|
babbles
|
Mary is he saying we shouldn't
put the circled c on our ms? I swear I saw that on a ms format somewhere.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Want to explain, Patrick?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
You know, I don't know for
sure, Mary. What's your take on it? I mean it doesn't HURT anything to do
it, but it really isn't necessary, as far as I understand the copyright
laws, and it's just
|
|
|
become more of a red flag than
anything else.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
I just had a publishing lawyer
on the site for a visit
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
A circled C implies, I think,
that you've actually registered the manuscript through the copyright office
|
|
|
which is probably not likely.
|
|
|
Yes?
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
What he said is that no symbol
is necessary. You can register that story but it's not necessary unless you
are likely to be
|
|
|
involved in litigation about
publication or ownership of the story.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
right
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
It does mark you as an amateur.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
bows gracefully.
|
|
|
bows gracefully.
|
|
babbles
|
What age level does TaleBones
target?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Adult, babble. A very frequent
comment I'll write on a rejection slip is that
|
|
|
we're not known for publishing
fiction about or narrated by young adults or children.
|
|
.
|
20 something on up.
|
|
smeagol
|
and a follow-up, are Talebones'
readers mostly male?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
(Oh, no holiday stories for
us, either.)
|
|
.
|
I've never done an official
demographics check, but I'd say overall there are more male readers. But my
sub list is pretty even.
|
|
smeagol
|
The shorter and more succinct
the better in cover or query?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Absolutely, smeagol. Here's my
manuscript offered for publication. Here' are my credits if I have any. I look
forward to hearing from you. If you don't
|
|
|
have any credits, skip that
paragraph. Here's a big tip: If you have no credits, if you're a very
beginning writer
|
|
|
just say "Enclosed is my
story "This or That" for possible publication in Talebones magazine.
The manuscript is disposable (if it is), and
|
|
|
is not simultaneous... and
then I look forward to hearing from you." Too many beginning writers
take the time to
|
|
|
explain to me that they are
beginning writers, that they've never sold a story, or they're just
starting out, and / or they spend half
|
|
|
a cover letter summarizing
what the story is about. First, let the story do the work for you. Don't
give the editor a chance to reject you
|
|
|
before reading the story
itself. Many PRO writers I know send stories with cover letters that don't
mention credits, so how will I know if you're a beginner or not, unless you
tell me?
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
ooooh, bless you, Patrick! I
don't know how many times I have said this to students....
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Don't give the editor an
excuse to pass on your story before he reads it!! Editors are LOOKING for a
way to get through the
|
|
|
slush pile in a hurry, but
they're also looking for that new story by the great new writer!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
from now on I’ll just send them
to your transcript and they can read it direct from an editor's mouth...or
keyboard anyway!
|
|
babbles
|
I have a private editor who
helps me revise should I mention this in my query or cover letter to an
editor?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
That's why David Hartwell (at
TOR books) says he only wants to see complete novel manuscripts (or at
least he did a few years ago). Why send him
|
|
|
an outline? Gives him a chance
to reject the book without reading a word of it!!
|
|
|
I don't think it's necessary,
babbles. Probably more of a red flag than you want to put up.
|
|
|
lol, mary
|
|
smeagol
|
I've heard it might be bad to
say mss is disposable. True?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Nope, smeagol. But, you know,
if you send a 5000 word story, and you only include a business-sized
envelope with a 37cent stamp on it,
|
|
|
it's pretty obvious to us it's
disposable. What's worse, as far as I'm concerned, is
|
|
|
to send a self-addressed
stamped postcard, with a note that you want the editor to send it back to
show the manuscript arrived there okay.
|
|
|
For us it's silly, because we
don't even open the envelopes until we're actually reading them. We'll just
put the postcard in the other SASE with the rejection.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Patrick, you have been
wonderful, and have answered a lot of questions tonight! I really hope
you'll come do this again.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Oh absolutely, Mary! It's been
two hours already!??
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Any last words of advice for
those hungry writers out there? Time flies, doesn't it?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Read a lot. And then read a
lot more. In the genre you're trying to write, and read nonfiction about
WHAT you're writing. And then write. Write every day if you can,(famous
last words), but whatever
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
you do, make sure you are
professional as you can be, send your stuff out, keep it out there, revise
when necessary, and then write the next story. TELL A GOOD STORY!!
|
|
smeagol
|
Mary, time to ask him if he
attends the SF conventions??
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Which ones will you be at,
Patrick? The NW ones, right?
|
|
|
What else?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Yes, I do attend conventions.
As many as I can within our limited time and budget.
|
|
|
Norwescon, every year forEVER.
Although we might miss our first in a looooong time, since the World Horror
Convention is the same weekend in Phoneix. Honna loves the hot country.!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Worldcon in Boston this year?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
I try and go to World Fantasy
every year or every other year. An excellent pro convention.
|
|
|
Worldcon is always hard for me
because it's the weekend before the new school year starts
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
That's right!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
We went to LA in 1996, and Philadelphia in ____
whenever that one was.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Where's world fantasy this
year? I can't remember?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
We go to Orycon in Portland, we hit the
Westercons that are close. We're going to Radcon in the Tri-Cities area for
the first time in February.
|
|
|
World Horror, World Fantasy, Westercon
...all in Phoenix this year!!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Me, too. lol
|
|
bingocliff
|
Thank you Patrick for an
enlightening forum......
|
|
speckledorf
|
Wonderful forum tonight...thanks
ever so much!!!
|
|
smeagol
|
Thank you! Thank you! Very
helpful chat!
|
|
chatty lady
|
I have never seen 2 hours fly by
so quickly, you sir are fantastic, Thank You
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
The Sturgeon Law is that 90%
of everything is crud.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Crud wasn't the word, as I
recall. :-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
To tell you true, it's not
that hard to get into that other 10%. So get busy!
|
|
gskearney
|
Thanks, Patrick. This has been
great.
|
|
babbles
|
Thanks Patrick
|
|
roe
|
What a great forum. Thank you
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Thanks so much, bingo,
speckle, smeagol, chatty.
|
|
|
gs, babbles, roe. It's been
GREAT FUN!!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Patrick, you are a hit. I will
definitely get you back here!
|
|
|
Thanks so much for coming!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
I'm ready to come back. Whose
here next week? GRIN
|
|
|
Check out our sites. try a
sample copy of Talebones (or a subscription, of course!), check out our
books at Fairwoodpress.com.
|
|
|
Oh...we have public forums for
posting on our Talebones site. Would LOVE to see some of you post.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Do. Talebones is a good read.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Maybe see some of you at Radcon?
|
|
molly
|
My children ty, lol, i was too
involved to put them to bed.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
There you go...talk about being
a hit! :-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
LOL
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Radcon is in Tri Cities, up in Washington. I'll be
there, too.
|
|
smeagol
|
Mary, invite him to pop by our
weekly chats when he has time
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Yes, as a matter of fact, Mary
is one of the Guests of Honor!!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Yes, you certainly are invited
to drop by any time, Patrick.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
When are the weekly chats
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
They are m, w, f at 10 am while you're in class
|
|
|
but Sunday at 5 pm.
|
|
michelle 1
|
Would Radcon be useful for
someone outside the SF genre?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Time IS tough to find. I've
spent the last three nights SOLID doing design and layout for our new Fairwood
project, a collection of stories by James C. Glass, a NW SF author.
|
|
|
michelle, can't say for SURE,
because I've never been to this particular con, but all cons have great
panels on writing.
|
|
|
And Mary's going to be there,
and Mary knows Gardner Dozois, and Gardner is also going to be there!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
That's right. :-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
And he knows a heck more about
publishing/editing than I do!
|
|
|
She will introduce ALL OF
YOU!!
|
|
|
heh heh
|
|
senicynt
|
Tri-Cities - Is it snowing there?
when, what time date?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Don't bring your manuscripts
though...
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Hope not, sen. Weekend of Feb
13/14
|
|
|
13/14/15.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
I think the webpage is
radcon.org, isn't it?
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Yes, I think that's it.
|
|
|
It's not hard to get yourself
introduced to Gardner. :-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Gardner is FUNNY. Just going to a panel he is on will be worth
the price of admission.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
No kidding!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Gardner is INFLUENTIAL.
|
|
|
Gardner is GOD
|
|
|
-like
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
That's true. :-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
heh heh
|
|
|
I blab on and on here, but I'm
often the quiet type around the conventions.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Patrick you'd better start
printing those books. I have a feeling you're going to need them. :-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
I know...I can't even keep Ken
stocked these days, what with his own writing seminars. He just ordered 30
from me.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Great. Well, 1500 is an
impressive number of books sold!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
We used to say that book was
our cash cow, our bestseller, but now we can't! The trade paperback we did
a few summers ago
|
|
|
STRANGERS AND BEGGARS by James
Van Pelt, has sold 2500 copies to date, and is going strong. It got put on.
|
|
|
the American Library
Association's list of Best Books of 2003, and it's been going gangbusters.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Wow! Impressive!
|
|
|
I should have you back here to
talk about small press publishing next time.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Jim Van Pelt is a writer to
watch, a great storyteller you could learn a lot from just by reading his
stuff. I read some of his
|
|
|
stories in my science fiction
class
|
|
|
It's now also a finalist for
the Colorado Blue Spruce Award. On a list with people like JK Rowling,
Scott Card, Tamora Pierce. You know, the also-rans. haha
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
cool!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Well, I would LOVE to stay and
keep chatting, but Honna's called up and has a late dinner on the table.
Better get rolling.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Thanks for coming, patrick!
|
|
|
We'll do this again!
|
|
|
Soon!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Thanks again, Mary, for asking
me to come
|
|
|
Anytime, Mary!
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
See you at Radcon!
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
(well, almost any time!)
|
|
|
See you there. I'll be rooming
with Jay Lake
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Cool! Ha, I get a room to
myself for once! What a treat! :-)
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
(we're doing a chapbook of
Jay's this spring)
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Great!
|
|
|
Stories, I assume?
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Yes....his Rushes stories. The
twelve stories he had on Strange Horizons based on the English Folk song
Green Grow the Rushes,
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Oh, yes!
|
|
senicynt
|
Thanks Patrick and mary! good nite.
|
|
Patrick Swenson
|
Good night. Happy writing
everyone.
|
|
|
I am out.
|
|
Mary Rosenblum
|
Have a good evening all!
|
|
|
See you tomorrow!
|
