Unabashed

Someone should put together an anthology of humorous science fiction. Maybe even make it a tribute to Douglas Adams, the man who proved that humor and scific was possible. It’s been almost 30 years since the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first published, and Adams remains the only successful author of humorous SciFic that I know of. It’s a genre that needs some attention, I think. I say this, of course, because I sometimes write funny SciFic, and I need a market to sell my stories to. There are some markets that say they’d like to have it, but either they don’t really want it or the usual applies: “this story just wasn’t right for us.”

Whether humorous SciFic is being written now I don’t know, I only know that the only SciFic that seems to be enjoying any success in the market isn’t written with humor being the first intent. Some say that it’s been done, to which I would counter by saying hasn’t everything? I’ve heard it said before that there are no original stories left to write, that we only substitute new characters into stories that, to one degree or another, have already been done at one time before. Humorous science fiction is something I would like to read, so, I think it hasn’t been done enough.

I’ve even thought about doing an anthology myself, except for all the problems related to that, the two most pivotal being: I don’t have the time to do it, and I’m not an editor. The only thing I could really contribute is that I know what I like to read, and sometimes that jives with what other people like to read, too. But then I would still have the problem of placing my own stories, since, you know, it wouldn’t be a good idea to put my own story in the anthology I was “editing.” That would just be wrong and smack of amateurism, like when someone builds a website for fiction and when you visit it all the stories you see are written by the same person. That’s one of the best ways to ensure your work never gets read.

Would it be better to self-publish an anthology than a book you’ve written yourself? I don’t know. I know that indie writing doesn’t get much respect these days, primarily due to the fact that at least 90% of what’s ever been self-published in the history of indie writing has been manure. With an anthology you’d have to get submissions, but I don’t really think that would be a problem. You always hear editors bemoaning the sheer numbers of subs in their slush piles. The plus would be that you could use CreateSpace, and thereby sell your anthology on Amazon and to Kindle readers. The only publicity you’d get would be what you could put together yourself on the web. Very few reviews, very little marketing, all could add up to very few sales. And if your reason for doing an anthology is sales, well, you probably should have known in the first place that it wasn’t going to make you rich. If your reason for doing an anthology is because you want to see more of a certain type of story that’s not getting much attention, then maybe. Maybe.

This is no call for subs, by the way. This is just me pondering possibilities on my blog, public forum that it is. Feedback is welcome, as usual.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: amazon, Anthology, createspace, douglas adams, indie, kindle, science fiction, scifi, scific, short story, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Tribute, writer, writers

Whatever happened to the novella as a form of prose? Many of the greatest stories of all time were written in the 20k - 50k word range. Stories like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and A River Runs Through It. There are countless others, but it seems the publishing world in general is intent on not publishing any novelettes or novellas. And this is particularly frustrating to me because all of my best work seems to be in novella word-count range.

I know: there’s no money in novellas for the publishing houses. If they can’t get 90k words or more they don’t want it. And short fiction had best not be written any longer than 5k if you want any decent shot at getting it out there. But there’s something about a thin book that I can carry comfortably in my back pocket and read in a couple of days that’s immensely appealing to me. But then the whole publishing industry seems to have veered starkly away from the middle class: there are the haves, of course, and the have nots, but there are rarely any have a littles or comfortably just getting bys. And of course this goes right back to the root of the publishing problem today: fewer and fewer people read any more. More and more it seems the only folks who read are those who are also either writers or who want to be. It seems to me a grand idea to put a wire rack back in the quick stop and stock it with pulp novellas, but then, I guess those would just sit there until the one or two of us who actually like to read them would buy them. Same goes for comic books. More and more, if you want a book, you have to visit Amazon or one of the huge booksellers, because the little bookstores are out of business now, and the selection at the drugstores and grocers are simply awful if you’re into anything other than romance.

I wish the novella format would make a return; just put them out there in pulp paperbacks and see if people won’t give them a try. I would, and that’s not just because I write them. Some of the best reads I’ve ever had were in novella format.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Fiction, novella, novellette, stories, writers, writing