Jim Baen’s Universe

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Jim Baen’s Universe Page 72

by Edited by Eric Flint


  Baen has fre­qu­ently edi­ted an­t­ho­logy se­ri­es, trying to cre­ate a fe­eling of an an­t­ho­logy and a ma­ga­zi­ne. Among the­se ef­forts we­re Des­ti­ni­es (Ace), New Des­ti­ni­es (Ba­en), and Far Fu­tu­res (Ace). Ba­en is very ac­ti­ve on the ba­en.com web­si­te, “Ba­en’s Bar” whe­re his in­te­rests in evo­lu­ti­onary bi­ology, spa­ce tec­h­no­logy, po­li­tics, mi­li­tary his­tory, and bad puns are dis­cus­sed along with sci­en­ce fic­ti­on. Jim Ba­en has al­so star­ted an ex­pe­ri­men­tal web pub­lis­hing bu­si­ness cal­led web­s­c­rip­ti­on.net, which has re­cently re­ac­hed an ag­re­ement with Tor to dis­t­ri­bu­te elec­t­ro­nic bo­oks from the­ir li­ne­up of aut­hors. This in­no­va­ti­on, along with the Ba­en Free Lib­rary, has ear­ned him a cer­ta­in amo­unt of res­pect in the tec­h­no­lo­gi­cal com­mu­nity. Web­s­c­rip­ti­ons is ge­ne­ral­ly con­si­de­red to be the first ebo­oks-for-mo­ney ser­vi­ce who­se pro­duct com­p­le­tely lacks en­c­r­y­p­ti­on and, in fact, is ava­ilab­le in a wi­de ran­ge of for­mats. In la­te 2005 he an­no­un­ced a new on­li­ne ma­ga­zi­ne for sci­en­ce-fic­ti­on short sto­ri­es, to be edi­ted by Eric Flint. Ba­en’s Uni­ver­se will pub­lish its first is­sue in June 2006, with a num­ber of pres­ti­gi­o­us aut­hors (inclu­ding Da­vid Dra­ke and Alan De­an Fos­ter) sla­ted to wri­te sto­ri­es for it.

  The Editor's Page

  Eric Flint

  The cur­rent sta­te of the short fic­ti­on mar­ket for sci­en­ce fic­ti­on and fan­tasy

  In my edi­tor’s re­marks for this first is­sue of Jim Ba­en’s UNI­VER­SE, I want to dis­cuss the cur­rent sta­te of the short fic­ti­on mar­ket in sci­en­ce fic­ti­on and fan­tasy. I’m su­re most pe­op­le re­ading this al­re­ady know that short form fic­ti­on has be­en dec­li­ning ste­adily for de­ca­des, in our gen­re. All fo­ur of the ma­j­or pa­per ma­ga­zi­nes still in exis­ten­ce- Ana­log, Asi­mov’s, The Ma­ga­zi­ne of Fan­tasy and Sci­en­ce Fic­ti­on and Re­alms of Fan­tasy-ha­ve be­en strug­gling aga­inst dec­li­ning cir­cu­la­ti­on fi­gu­res for a long ti­me, with no end in sight. Many smal­ler ma­ga­zi­nes ha­ve fol­ded al­to­get­her. And the one ma­j­or on­li­ne FSF ma­ga­zi­ne that had be­en pa­ying the best ra­tes in the in­dustry, the Sci-Fi chan­nel’s Sci­Fic­ti­on, re­cently clo­sed down.

  The re­asons are com­p­lex, and I’m not go­ing to get in­to them he­re be­yond a few bri­ef re­marks. What I want to talk abo­ut in­s­te­ad is the im­pact that the dec­li­ne of short form fic­ti­on has on the fi­eld as a who­le. That’s true, re­gar­d­less of what ca­uses it.

  In a nut­s­hell, it’s ex­t­re­mely da­ma­ging, and for two re­asons-one which af­fects aut­hors di­rectly, the ot­her which af­fects the re­ader­s­hip ba­se of the gen­re and the­re­fo­re its fu­tu­re.

  The ab­sen­ce of a lar­ge and vi­go­ro­us mar­ket for short form fic­ti­on ham­mers aut­hors di­rectly. That’s be­ca­use it ma­kes FSF aut­hors al­most com­p­le­tely de­pen­dent on the no­vel mar­ket. And, whi­le the no­vel mar­ket is and al­ways will be in­t­rin­si­cal­ly mo­re luc­ra­ti­ve than the short form mar­ket, it is al­so an ex­t­re­mely harsh en­vi­ron­ment for aut­hors.

  Why? Well, sim­p­lif­ying a lot, it’s be­ca­use of the fun­da­men­tal eco­no­mics in­vol­ved. No­vels, un­li­ke was­hing mac­hi­nes and to­as­ters and auto­mo­bi­les, are uni­que, each and every one of them. Not “uni­que” in the sen­se that they don’t ha­ve ge­ne­ric si­mi­la­ri­ti­es, but “uni­que” simply in the ob­vi­o­us fact that each and every story has to be dif­fe­rent or no­body is go­ing to want to re­ad it.

  When you walk on­to the par­king lot of an auto de­aler, the last thing you want to he­ar the car de­aler tell you is that “this car is un­li­ke any ot­her.” Tran­s­la­ti­on: it’s a le­mon. But when you walk in­to a bo­ok­s­to­re, that’s exactly what you want. A story that, at le­ast in one way or anot­her, is dif­fe­rent from any ot­her.

  What that me­ans, ho­we­ver, is that the bo­ok mar­ket is in­c­re­dibly opa­que. Even in the lar­gest car de­aler­s­hip, the­re won’t be mo­re than a re­la­ti­ve han­d­ful of mo­dels ava­ilab­le to cho­ose from. A do­zen, let’s say. Two do­zen, at the most. Whe­re­as any Bar­nes and Nob­le or Bor­ders in the co­untry is li­kely to ha­ve 100,000 dif­fe­rent “mo­dels” in stock.

  How are you sup­po­sed to cho­ose bet­we­en them? Well, you can’t, that’s all. What hap­pens in the re­al world is that al­most all bo­ok-bu­yers, ex­cept a small per­cen­ta­ge of unu­su­al­ly ad­ven­tu­ro­us ones, will stick al­most all of the ti­me to bu­ying only tho­se aut­hors they are fa­mi­li­ar with.

  What this cre­ates, wil­ly-nil­ly, is a hi­erarchy among aut­hors in the mar­ket­p­la­ce that is…

  “Extreme,” is the only word I can think of.

  Everybody fa­mi­li­ar with the pub­lis­hing in­dustry knows the ba­sic facts of li­fe:

  All of a pub­lis­her’s pro­fits and abo­ut half of the ope­ra­ting ex­pen­ses are co­ve­red by the sa­les of a small num­ber of so-cal­led “le­ad” wri­ters. And it’s a very small num­ber of aut­hors. In the ca­se of Ba­en, not usu­al­ly mo­re than half a do­zen. And even a big pub­lis­her li­ke TOR won’t ha­ve mo­re than a do­zen or so le­ad wri­ters.

  Midlist wri­ters ge­ne­ral­ly do well to ma­ke a small pro­fit for the pub­lis­her, or at le­ast bre­ak even. Sa­les of the­ir bo­oks-all told-co­ver the ot­her half of ope­ra­ting ex­pen­ses.

  New wri­ters, and first no­vels, ge­ne­ral­ly lo­se mo­ney for a pub­lis­her.

  Those are the cold, hard facts. What it me­ans for aut­hors is that de­ve­lo­ping a ca­re­er is a very chancy bu­si­ness no­wa­days-and it was al­ways chancy to be­gin with. Be­ca­use what hap­pens is that even af­ter you get a first no­vel pub­lis­hed, you still ha­ve to over­co­me what Mi­ke Res­nick calls “the fo­urth bo­ok hur­d­le.”

  The hur­d­le is this: A pub­lis­her will ge­ne­ral­ly gi­ve a new aut­hor an ave­ra­ge of three bo­oks to de­mon­s­t­ra­te if they can be­co­me le­ad wri­ters. If they can’t, they’re out the do­or and the pub­lis­her will try a new wri­ter to see if they might be ab­le to do it.

  Yes, it’s he­ar­t­less. But the­re’s an un­der­l­ying eco­no­mic re­ality for that prac­ti­ce, it’s not be­ca­use pub­lis­hers are be­ing me­an for the hell of it. It’s simply a fact that, as a pu­rely mat­he­ma­ti­cal exer­ci­se in cal­cu­la­ting pro­fits, it ma­kes re­al sen­se to toss wri­ters over­bo­ard-even go­od ones, sel­ling fa­irly de­cen­t­ly-if do­ing so might im­p­ro­ve yo­ur chan­ces of grab­bing the le­ad wri­ter lot­tery tic­ket that ge­ne­ra­tes Ye Big Bucks in no­vel pub­lis­hing.

  Granted, not all pub­lis­hers are the sa­me, and they don’t all fol­low exactly the sa­me prac­ti­ces. A mid­list wri­ter will so­me­ti­mes find a smal­ler in­de­pen­dent pub­lis­her li­ke Ba­en or DAW a less un­for­gi­ving en­vi­ron­ment than most of the big cor­po­ra­te ho­uses. And the­re are so­me big ho­uses that ma­ke a ge­nu­ine ef­fort to cus­hi­on mid­list wri­ters aga­inst the cold re­ali­ti­es of the mar­ket­p­la­ce. Still, for any com­mer­ci­al pub­lis­her, the un­der­l­ying eco­no­mics of no­vel pub­lis­hing re­ma­in stark and un­for­gi­ving. “Ma­ke it big or die on the vi­ne” is still the ru­le, even if an aut­hor can lin­ger on the vi­ne lon­ger at one ho­use than they might be ab­le to at anot­her.

  Leaving asi­de is­su­es of un­fa­ir­ness-and, no, it ain’t fa­ir, not even clo­se-this re­ality has a ne­ga­ti­ve im­pact on the fi­eld as a who­le.

  First, be­ca­use it’s in­c­re­dibly was­te­ful. Not all wri­ters de­ve­lop the­ir ta­lents at a ra­pid pa­ce, even le­aving asi­de the fact that the­re’s al­ways a cer­ta­in amo­unt
of pu­re luck in­vol­ved. For every He­in­le­in, the­re’s a Frank Her­bert, who ne­eded ye­ars to ma­ke it big. In to­day’s en­vi­ron­ment, I’m not at all su­re Her­bert wo­uld ha­ve had that ti­me-and we’d be short Du­ne as a re­sult.

  But it’s al­so det­ri­men­tal the ot­her way aro­und, be­ca­use it pla­ces such pres­su­re on le­ad wri­ters that they very of­ten re­act by be­co­ming ex­t­re­mely con­ser­va­ti­ve in what they wri­te. Not all do, to be su­re. I don’t, and ne­it­her do a num­ber of ot­her le­ad wri­ters. But even re­la­ti­vely ad­ven­tu­ro­us le­ad wri­ters stick most of the ti­me to the tri­ed and true ap­pro­ac­hes-and the­re are a lot of le­ad wri­ters out the­re who are sca­red to de­ath to vary at all from the type of story that enab­led them to be­co­me le­ad wri­ters in the first pla­ce.

  In short, the si­tu­ati­on is lo­usy-and the ste­ady col­lap­se of the pa­per­back mar­ket is ma­king it even wor­se. I don’t ha­ve ti­me he­re to go in­to that, al­t­ho­ugh I will try to in a la­ter edi­to­ri­al. Just ta­ke my word for it, for the mo­ment. Mass mar­ket pa­per­back sa­les to­day are pro­bably half what they we­re a few ye­ars ago, and the­re’s no sign I can see that that’s go­ing to turn aro­und any ti­me in the fo­re­se­e­ab­le fu­tu­re.

  Midlist wri­ters wor­king at no­vel length usu­al­ly li­ve and die on the­ir abi­lity to show they can do well in pa­per­back, so a pub­lis­her will gi­ve them a shot at a har­d­co­ver. That was ne­ver easy at any ti­me, and to­day it’s got­ten a lot wor­se.

  In de­ca­des past, it was the si­ze and he­alth of the ma­ga­zi­nes that cus­hi­oned all of the­se prob­lems. They al­lo­wed mid­list wri­ters a pla­ce they co­uld ke­ep get­ting pub­lis­hed, ga­in per­haps slow but ste­ady pub­lic re­cog­ni­ti­on, and im­p­ro­ve the­ir skil­ls-wit­ho­ut be­ing un­der the “fo­urth bo­ok” gu­il­lo­ti­ne. And, whi­le it was al­ways very hard even in the sa­lad days of the ma­ga­zi­nes for an aut­hor to ma­ke a full-ti­me li­ving as a short fic­ti­on wri­ter (at le­ast, un­less you co­uld sell to The Sa­tur­day Eve­ning Post), they co­uld bring in eno­ugh of an in­co­me to ta­ke a day job that al­lo­wed them as much fre­edom to wri­te as pos­sib­le.

  And, on the flip si­de, the ma­ga­zi­nes pro­vi­ded le­ad wri­ters with a pla­ce they co­uld stretch the­ir skills if they wan­ted to, wit­ho­ut run­ning the risk of fal­ling off that pre­ci­o­us le­ad wri­ter sa­les pla­te­au.

  Okay, so much for the wri­ters. Now I want to ex­p­la­in how the dec­li­ne of short form fic­ti­on has be­en ham­me­ring the fi­eld as a who­le.

  It’s not com­p­li­ca­ted. It’s what’s of­ten cal­led the “gra­ying of sci­en­ce fic­ti­on.” Put cru­dely and bluntly, the ave­ra­ge age of sci­en­ce fic­ti­on and fan­tasy fans ke­eps ri­sing. On­ce the qu­in­tes­sen­ti­al gen­re of cho­ice of te­ena­gers, it’s now a gen­re that’s de­ve­lo­ped a gre­at big mid­dle-aged pot­bel­ly.

  What do you ex­pect-when the entry le­vel pur­c­ha­se, no­wa­days, is li­kely to be a $25 har­d­co­ver? And, to ma­ke things wor­se, you ha­ve to dri­ve an ave­ra­ge of se­ven mi­les to get to a su­per­s­to­re that’ll even carry a sci­en­ce fic­ti­on tit­le at all? (And that’s the na­ti­onal ave­ra­ge. In so­me are­as of the co­untry, you ha­ve to dri­ve a hun­d­red mi­les or mo­re.)

  That’s not how I got in­t­ro­du­ced to sci­en­ce fic­ti­on, as a twel­ve-ye­ar-old, I can tell you that. I got in­t­ro­du­ced thro­ugh ma­ga­zi­nes and che­ap Ace Do­ub­le bo­oks on the wi­re racks of my lo­cal drug­s­to­re, in a small town in ru­ral Ca­li­for­nia. Which…

  Don’t exist any mo­re. The bo­oks and ma­ga­zi­nes, I me­an. The small town is still the­re, and so is the drug sto­re-but it no lon­ger car­ri­es any SF tit­les.

  The prob­lem isn’t even the pri­ce of a pa­per­back, as such. That hasn’t ac­tu­al­ly ri­sen any, over the past half a cen­tury, me­asu­red by the only pri­ce cri­te­ri­on that mat­ters. To wit, to­day a pa­per­back no­vel costs just abo­ut the sa­me as a mo­vie tic­ket. And, fifty ye­ars ago… it cost just abo­ut the sa­me as a mo­vie tic­ket did then.

  No, the prob­lem is ava­ila­bi­lity. When I was a kid, SF ma­ga­zi­nes and pa­per­backs co­uld be fo­und all over the pla­ce. To­day, with a few ex­cep­ti­ons-and tho­se, al­most in­va­ri­ably, only a small num­ber of top-sel­ling aut­hors-you can only find FSF tit­les in bo­ok­s­to­res, es­pe­ci­al­ly the cha­in su­per­s­to­res.

  There’s no ma­gic in the re­al world, ho­we­ver much the­re may be in fan­tasy no­vels. The va­nis­hing of SF pa­per­backs and ma­ga­zi­nes is due to pro­fo­und chan­ges in the eco­no­mic and so­ci­al struc­tu­re of the Uni­tes Sta­tes. (And the rest of the world’s in­dus­t­ri­al co­un­t­ri­es, to one deg­ree or anot­her.) Put simply, it’s just the li­te­rary equ­iva­lent of the sa­me dyna­mic that has se­en McDo­nald’s and Bur­ger King sup­plan­ting tho­usands of in­de­pen­dent lit­tle di­ners and res­ta­urants, and has se­en Ho­me De­pot and Lo­we’s rep­la­cing tho­usands of lit­tle har­d­wa­re sto­res.

  You can think wha­te­ver you want abo­ut this fun­da­men­tal tran­s­for­ma­ti­on of mo­dern so­ci­ety. But facts are facts, and they are stub­born things. If you want to try to turn that si­tu­ati­on aro­und, with res­pect to our gen­re, you ha­ve to fi­gu­re out a new ap­pro­ach.

  Which, we think we ha­ve. En­ter:

  (roll of drums)

  Jim Ba­en’s UNI­VER­SE.

  We’re not su­re this is go­ing to work, mind you. A lot of what we’ll be do­ing is ta­king us in­to un­c­har­ted ter­ri­tory, and we ha­ve and will be do­ing a lot of ex­pe­ri­men­ting. But we think we’ve got a go­od crack at it, and the sta­kes are worth ma­king the ef­fort.

  In es­sen­ce, as a bu­si­ness mo­del, our stra­tegy is to use the free entry and ac­ces­si­bi­lity of the in­ter­net to sub­s­ti­tu­te for the re­ady ava­ila­bi­lity of pa­per edi­ti­ons of SF ma­ga­zi­nes in ti­mes past. This will be a big chal­len­ge, of co­ur­se, be­ca­use the elec­t­ro­nic fic­ti­on mar­ket is still small. But, by com­bi­ning a very ag­gres­si­ve pro­mo­ti­onal cam­pa­ign with Ba­en’s lon­g­s­tan­ding po­li­ci­es with re­gard to elec­t­ro­nic pub­lis­hing-which you can sum­ma­ri­ze as WE SELL CHE­AP AND UNEN­C­R­Y­P­TED STUFF, AND NOT­HING EL­SE-we think we’ve got a go­od shot at pul­ling it off.

  (Side no­te: I’ll be ha­ving a lot to say on the is­sue of elec­t­ro­nic pub­li­ca­ti­on in ge­ne­ral, but I’m han­d­ling that in a se­pa­ra­te co­lumn in the ma­ga­zi­ne. See “Sal­vos Aga­inst Big Brot­her.”)

  As an edi­to­ri­al mo­del, we’re do­ing two things, ne­it­her of which are new so much as re­tur­ning to the prac­ti­ces of the ma­ga­zi­nes in the­ir sa­lad days.

  First, we’re pa­ying top ra­tes for sto­ri­es. The best in the in­dustry, even co­ming out of the ga­te. The­se ra­tes are still not re­al­ly “pro” ra­tes, to be su­re. To start cros­sing that thres­hold, and bring pay ra­tes for short fic­ti­on back to whe­re they we­re half a cen­tury ago, we’d ne­ed to be pa­ying (my es­ti­ma­te, an­y­way) abo­ut twi­ce what we’re pa­ying now-which wo­uld be a top ra­te of fifty cents a word in­s­te­ad of the top ra­te of twen­ty-fi­ve cents that we’re star­ting with.

  That is our go­al, ho­we­ver, and if the ma­ga­zi­ne is suc­ces­sful we in­tend to roll as much in­co­me as we can in­to ra­ising the ra­tes. In the me­an­ti­me, by star­ting with the­se ra­tes we’re sig­na­ling to all FSF aut­hors that we’re de­ad se­ri­o­us abo­ut trying to turn the si­tu­ati­on aro­und-and many of them ha­ve al­re­ady res­pon­ded very en­t­hu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, as you can see by lo­oking at the Aut­hors Di­rec­tory.

  Secondly, we’re ori­en­ting the
ma­ga­zi­ne from the be­gin­ning to­ward a po­pu­lar audi­en­ce. That me­ans do­ing things li­ke so­li­ci­ting sto­ri­es from top-sel­ling aut­hors in­c­lu­ding wri­ters who usu­al­ly pro­du­ce no­vels, and wel­co­ming sto­ri­es that are set in exis­ting po­pu­lar uni­ver­ses of the­ir cre­ati­on-li­ke the Du­ne story by Bri­an Her­bert and Ke­vin An­der­son that will ap­pe­ar in the se­cond is­sue of the ma­ga­zi­ne, or Alan De­an Fos­ter’s Tran-ky-ky story “Chil­ling” in this is­sue. We will al­so be em­p­ha­si­zing sto­ri­es that cen­ter on ad­ven­tu­re and ge­ne­ral­ly ha­ve a po­si­ti­ve out­lo­ok on the fu­tu­re.

  I sho­uld add that we’re go­ing to be pub­lis­hing mo­re new aut­hors in each is­sue than any ma­ga­zi­ne has do­ne in a long ti­me, if ever. That’s al­so a way to ge­ne­ra­te in­te­rest and ex­ci­te­ment.

 

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