
Show HN: I'm looking for science fiction writers - mojoe
http://compellingsciencefiction.com/submit.html
======
eamann
I like the idea, but it's a bit disheartening to submit stories to an unknown
organization whose website includes zero details about who the publisher will
be or how the stories will be published. I get that it's a "self-funded
hobby," but it could just as well be a scam by a nameless, faceless group of
con men.

Considering the domain is registered anonymously through Amazon, there is
absolutely no information available for prospective writers to vet the "we"
referenced on the only 2 pages of the site.

I'd love to be wrong, but I've been burned enough in the past that, for this
site, I'll be an observer only.

~~~
mojoe
I'm disheartened that my site seems scary to you -- the "we" referenced is
myself and some friends who have signed up as slush readers. I'd really
appreciate it if you could let me know what information I could publish that
would give you confidence in the site. It sounds like I should put up an
'about' page with some information about myself and my readers. For now,
here's my linkedin page, to put a face to the facelessness:
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/joestech](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joestech)

~~~
embwbam
Writers are _paranoid_. I played around with a self-publishing site last year
([http://webfiction.co](http://webfiction.co)) and was surprised more than
once by how worried writers were about getting ripped off, losing control of
their work, etc. I think there are so many shady characters in the space that
everyone has been burned.

Basically everyone wants someone else to take a chance on you to provide
social proof. Consider tracking down a well-regarded writer and commissioning
something?

~~~
mojoe
Getting some social proof is a great idea. I have some author friends in real
life, so maybe having endorsements from them on social media will help instill
confidence. I think the first few months will be the hardest, but eventually
we'll have a track record.

~~~
bozdar
No, don't do that. Writers do not need social media endorsements for
publishers. Show yourself and if you are new in the field then what's your
roadmap? Have you raised any funds? If yes, how and if no then how you'll pay.
Your website has only two pags mentioning nothing about you at all. If your
website is hosted on a shared-hosting then it'll be taken down by your "human
and bot" visitors collectively after publishing your first issue.

Precisely, tell writers your raodmap so a trust bond can be created between
you (as a publisher) and writer. Do you agree?

~~~
mojoe
You're right, I need more roadmap details on the site. I will add detail this
evening.

~~~
waterlesscloud
All you really need to do is publish good work and pay 6 cents a word for it
as promised.

Writers will beat your door down if you do that much.

~~~
striking
Chicken and egg. The majority of good writers are paranoid and would rather
publish with established platforms.

Providing proof that this is legitimate is pretty necessary.

------
mojoe
Compelling Science Fiction is a self-funded hobby -- I want to support the
creation of great science fiction. Ultimately I'd like it if the project
became self-sustaining, which would allow me to pay more authors more money
and promote more stories.

If you REALLY like this idea and would like to be a "slush pile" reader, my
email address is in my profile!

~~~
japhyr
I hope you repost this when you've got your first round of stories selected.
I'd love to see the quality of writing you receive.

How are submissions going?

~~~
mojoe
I will! We just launched, and have a handful of submissions so far.

------
6stringmerc
Interesting; I've always had a bit of an issue with the lines between Science
Fiction and Fantasy, in that the former is far more interesting to me than the
latter. For instance, I enjoyed the movie _Lucy_ as entertainment using a
science fiction anchor, and was utterly bored with _Guardians of the Galaxy_
which is a fine and dandy space/fantasy type of thing. I love _Hackers_ as
entertainment in spite of its drastic flaws that were obvious then and still
are in the 'scientific' context.

Asking for a buddy: Would a computer/technology driven crime and character
driven story be applicable in the 'science fiction' wide definition?

Hope you get what you're after and help break some new folks into the scene.
Nice that you're up front about the rights too. I know my buddy would love to
get paid and then take that money and register his story with WGA West in case
of screenplay potential.

~~~
mojoe
I definitely like near-future stories that are character driven -- If
computers/tech are crucial to the plot (and especially if the
software/technology doesn't quite yet exist in the real world) I'd definitely
be interested in reading his story. Thanks for your comments!

~~~
6stringmerc
Okay cool, just wanted to run that by real quick because there's so much
leeway in the perspective. Best of luck to you and the team for sure.

------
mkrfox
There are many excellent, paying science fiction/fantasy collections out
there. You need to set yourself apart in a way that convinces people to trust
their stories to you (who we know nothing about) instead of someone else.

Especially since the established collections prefer/require first publication.
Why should we risk that you'll publish and fail to pay?

~~~
dotsamuelswan
If you're writing a lot, it's not a risk. You've got something sitting in a
folder that you haven't touched in five years. Blow the dust off, polish the
edges, and maybe you make a couple bucks.

Lining up those SFWA ducks will be important. At that point, even as a new
publication, if they're easy to work with, they'll quickly become a great
second or third stop for fresh stories. They won't get first submissions for
awhile, because you can't compete with Terraform's (and others') 25c/word
rate. But that's okay. Gems fall through the cracks. Loads of great fiction
out there looking for a home.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
A pro-rate story (over 5 cents a word) worth of writing can take weeks or
months to polish to an acceptable level. If this person plans to be affiliated
with SWFA and get a reputation as having good taste in stories to publish,
it's not just a "sure, I can take your trunk story" deal. Trunk stories are
trunk stories for a reason.

~~~
dotsamuelswan
If you write every day, and you've been published at a pro-rate previously,
you most likely have something near-publishable in your trunk.

Obviously, the publisher needs to be discerning in what he actually buys. But
if you're a writer trying to build a relationship with a new publication, I
don't see any problem recycling work that didn't quite hit with some of the
established markets.

If you're unpublished, or you've only been paid lower rates, you probably
shouldn't be asking the question "Why should I submit here when I can submit
to XYZ?" You should just tack the new publisher onto the end of the list, and
when you've worked your story through the others, drop it here before it hits
the trunk.

------
joeax
I am a coder by day, but I'm nearing completion of a full length novel
(100,000 words) and ready to self-publish on Kindle and possibly Smashwords.
I'll have to take a look at this for some other works. I have some other short
stories I've been kicking around.

I particularly like the bias against dystopian fiction as I feel the same way.
I also eschew themes like moral decay in the future, since as humans I believe
we'll evolve emotionally and intellectually. To put it into perspective, if
you look at recent human history you will find slavery, concentration camps,
overt racism, all of which have been mostly wiped out.

~~~
mojoe
Coding (data science applications) is my day job as well! Please send me a
note when you self-publish your novel, I'll buy a copy. My email address is in
my profile.

~~~
joeax
Thanks I took a note of it. Once I publish I'll send you a link to a free
copy. I've been writing since I was a kid and just recently discovered how
enjoyable it is working on this novel.

------
kbenson
You may want to check out the HFY subreddit[1]. The skill level varies
greatly, but there are some fairly good writers there, and some are 100+ posts
into stories. It's often fairly trope-heavy (as is the point), but there are
some real gems in there. Looking at some of the curated lists, or the top all-
time posts will give you a good idea of the quality.

1: [https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY)

------
sandworm101
I smell hollywood. Is this a solicitation for science fiction stories, or is
something fishing for movie concepts/treatments?

I would be very hesitant to share anything without some sort of guarantee that
your ideas (ideas aren't subject to copyright) will not be taken and turned
into a film script. The descriptions of what the website is looking for seem
like the outcome of an LA focus group. Be careful. Read the contract before
committing anything.

~~~
mojoe
I've never been called hollywood before :) If you look at my HN profile, you
can see my submission history and my linkedin. I appreciate your feedback, I
clearly need to add detail to the submissions page.

------
personjerry
If I submit a series of short stories, would I still retain the right to
collect them into a book and have it published elsewhere, like Asimov's
Foundation?

------
lsc
If your primary incentive is the per-word fee, I imagine hacker news is not
your target market. I mean, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of programmers
who enjoy sci-fi, both in creation and consumption, but the differential
between market rate for programmer time and writer time is so great that until
you are huge, what you get paid as a writer is symbolic if your dayjob is at a
bay-area tech-company.

I am a wanna-be writer of fiction who works as a computer nerd. I have written
a technical book, so I have some experience, and I really want to write some
fiction. (I have a whole series of elaborate fantasies surrounding the idea of
rejection letters) - but I write for ego, for self-actualization, whatever you
want to call it. I write for emotional, non-financial reasons. Sure, sure, if
I do luck into a '50 shades of grey' I want a piece of the action, but in the
ordinary case, any payment is symbolic. If you want to compete for my work
(and I'm not saying you do; my fiction, so far, is so bad that I'm not willing
to admit to any of it,) then you have to compete on something other than
money.

Assuming you aren't going to assign me an editor who will ride my ass until I
finish the goddamn thing[1], the things I will look at are prestige and
distribution. The prestige you give me is largely dependent on how good the
other authors you publish are. Distribution is also an incentive; but you have
to convince me that more people will see my work if it goes through you than
if I just release it for free online.

I mean, I guess the plan is to release an issue #1 with either known-good
authors or really good unknowns... but between now and then, I'd suggest
talking up your distribution.

[1]If you are willing to do that, I'm sold. Sign me up.

------
dotsamuelswan
What's the plan for publishing? Number of pieces Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly?
Selling them, or posting them free, etc.

Threw your link in the "almost sfwa" submissions bucket for now, but certainly
interested in hearing more.

~~~
mojoe
4-5 pieces per month, posting them for free on the site but charging a
subscription for kindle and other e-reader versions. Since this is a hobby all
proceeds can go back to paying more authors and buying ads to promote. If that
model doesn't work I may have to change it down the road. I'd also like to
eventually have pieces read for a podcast, but not initially.

------
thomasctm
is it common to pay authors by wordcount? or is there a minimum number of
words for a book to be published? i often have the impression that the books i
read are longer than they should be.

~~~
exolymph
Paying by the word is very common for magazine fiction and print journalism.
Books aren't paid by the word, although usually the contract has a general
length requirement.

------
gboudrias
You know, 600$ for a 1000 word story actually sounds pretty good. If I was a
native English speaker I would submit some stuff.

Edit: Brain fart, it's 60$ for 1000 words. I'd still do it.

~~~
dotsamuelswan
Your math is a little off, but you should seriously consider brushing up a bit
and writing. SFF (and speculative fiction as a whole) has a diversity problem.

~~~
Wildgoose
Diversity problem? Nonsense! Just look how many succesful Speculative Fiction
authors are female: Andrea Norton, Susan Cooper, Connie Willis, Ursula Le
Guin, Julian May, Nancy Kress, Octavia Butler (black, as well as female) and
dare I say it, J.K. Rowling - all off the top of my head.

Then there are well known award-winnning gay authors such as David Gerrold.

And I've just finished reading last year's Hugo Award winning novel "The Three
Body Problem" written by Cixin Liu, a Chinese SF author.

If anything, SF is the field of fiction which has the least problems with
"diversity" \- its readers are open-minded almost by definition!

~~~
bryanlarsen
It's "Andre Norton", not "Andrea Norton". Her real name was Alice.

It'd be nice to think we'd advanced far enough that females wouldn't feel it
was necessary to use male pseudonyms, but it's "JK Rowling" not "Joanne
Rowling" to avoid scaring off the boys.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Yes, Joanne Rowling was asked by her publisher to publish Harry Potter under
two initials because they thought boys might not want to read a book written
by a woman. Not having a middle name she choose K as a nod to her paternal
grandmother, Kathleen.

------
bozdar
As soon as you publish your work online -no matter how promising the security
of the platform is, you just don't know how and who copied your work then
translated somewhere in taiwanese and started making the £££ which should be
in your account.

Writers, why you just don't stop writing for Internet? Self-publishing can be
more promising than online publishing, ain't?

~~~
DennisP
The author of _The Martian_ started out publishing it as a serial on his own
website. Seemed to work out pretty well.

~~~
riffraff
and not to forget: "fifty shades of gray started" out as a sexy internet
fanfiction.

~~~
6stringmerc
Easily one of the most lucrative IP infringement cases in recent memory as
well, but people walked away happy with pockets full of money so no hard
feelings.

------
gravypod
I wish there was a service like this for programmers. It would be really
convenient for college students, like me.

If I could go some place in my free time, look up a list of problems like
"implement X feature into a language" then I'd definitely have some nice
spending money.

------
gelisam
My best work of science fiction is much shorter than 1000 words, but here,
enjoy it anyway: [http://gelisam.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-first-two-
years.html](http://gelisam.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-first-two-years.html)

------
presidentender
This is very promising.

------
waterlesscloud
Don't let the ridiculous paranoia on this thread discourage you. Writers you
actually want to publish will look at your terms and submit. 99.99% of the
people with "concerns" don't have anything you'd publish anyway.

Looking forward to your launch!

~~~
aerovistae
Anecdotal at best. Can you link to a study?

~~~
jff
Poe's law strikes again with this post...

