The Book Magnet Project: Let’s Cover My Fridge
The other day I put two promotional magnets for two books I have received on my fridge. Why? Because I had them and I’ve always wanted to put stuff on a fridge, but I’ve never had one I could properly call “mine.” Now that I do, I want to cover the blasted thing with promotional magnets for books. That’s where this project comes in. If you have a book (traditionally published or self-published), are a publisher, or print a magazine/journal/webmag/etc. that either fits into the SF/F genres, is related to them, or at least has elements that might be considered a part of the SF/F genres, then I want your promotional magnets. I only need one, not dozens. What will I do in return? Well, every magnet I get will involve a free spotlight post on this blog. That means I’ll tell everyone I got your magnet, what the magnet is for, what the book/mag is about, and where to find it. It’s free advertising for having fun! So, to participate, all you have to do is email me at arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com using the subject line “Book Magnet Project” or something along those lines to tell me about your book and to find out where to send the magnet. I don’t care how you send the magnet, just as long as you send it to me (you can probably send it via standard letter in the U.S., for a measly 42 cents). And to those that can’t participate (because you don’t have a book or a magnet), then please help me spread the word about this. I want to see how quick we can cover my fridge in magnets!
Signal Lost; Sorry For the Inconvenience
I wanted to apologize to everyone for my silence the last few days. My computer decided to cease functioning on Friday. It’s currently being assessed by a technodoc and should be back to operational capacity by Tuesday or Wednesday (depending entirely upon my ability to retrieve it from the technospital). Unfortunately, this means my ability to make use of the Internet is limited. The injured computer is unfortunately the only connection I have to all of you and the rest of the net. Regular programming shall resume when all operations are restored. Thanks for your patience. Transmission closed.
9/11: Thoughts
Here we are again, on this day that has shaped our lives as Americans. Anyone living today that thinks 9/11 hasn’t changed the landscape has been living in a box, buried in the abyss of nonexistence. It would be safe to say that our world effectively ended when 9/11 entered the social landscape. We had to change, and some of those changes were bad. But, we’re still here. 9/11 didn’t destroy America. Instead, it gave us a reason to want to exist, and made us temporarily aware of how much we rely on the kindness and sacrifice of others to keep the gears going. Today, though, is not a day to think about how we’ve changed. It is a day to remember those that died and those that sacrificed their lives doing a job that we take for granted every single day. We should be ashamed of ourselves for ever forgetting how important firefighters, police officers, and even our soldiers really are in the grand scheme of things. They do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. So, today, we should remember them. We should give them some measure of thanks for their willingness to spill their blood and risk their lives on our behalf. And we should remember those innocent people who were ruthlessly murdered. To those of you who may be in the service, or a public servant of some form, I thank you for what you do for this country, regardless of your political position or personal belief. You do a service for all of us and deserve accommodation for it. Thank you.
Publication Against LGBT Content: Writers Be Aware
(LGBT = Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Notice I said “be aware” in the title. I am not saying you should avoid the publisher mentioned as unfriendly to LGBT in this post over at Crossed Genres. Rather, I’m telling you to be aware of it. What you choose to do with the information presented in the Crossed Genre post is entirely up to you. However, I will offer my personal perspective on this. Flash Fiction Online, while not a market I can recall submitting to, has made a decision to enact an editorial policy without making such information available to you. Why is this a problem? Well, when you go to a publisher and you look at their guidelines, you get a good sense of what they are looking for and what they are not looking for. Strange Horizons, for example, publishes science fiction and fantasy, not hard cut literary fiction about old people. Likewise, Analog is very specifically a science fiction market, while F&SF is both fantasy and science fiction. None of these magazines, as far as I know, have a policy against certain kinds of literature that is not stated, especially not in the form of a bigoted viewpoint. But Flash Fiction Online has such a policy that is not indicated to all of you. This is not a publication that says “we do not take stories about LGBT characters,” but one that says “submit anything that fits into this (a vague series of non-controversial categories), but secretly we’ll reject anything that doesn’t fit our narrow and biased view of the world, specifically because we have a religious, fundamentalist, and negative view of LGBT issues.” Now, this isn’t to say that everyone who works at FFO is necessarily anti-LGBT, but the fellow mentioned in Crossed Genres is. So, for me, this information tells me that I cannot, in good faith, support such a magazine, not even with a direct link, when its editor so clearly holds a negative, and ignorant, view of LGBT people and issues. Period. There is no negotiation for me. As I wrote in the Outer Alliance when this issue came up: I will not, under any circumstances, submit my work to or send money to, or read, any magazine or other publication which so obviously disapproves and holds biases against LGBT authors and subject matter. This is my personal bias, and a publication that is so willing to hide such information from the general public is, in my opinion, being disingenuous. They are, as I perceive it, hiding that information from people who might actually act upon such knowledge, precisely because they know, whether consciously or not, that to be forward with an anti-LGBT stance would constitute a loss of a share of their reading market. I encourage you to read the Crossed Genres post linked above to get a clear picture of what this is all about. This is where I stand. Now it’s time for you to decide where you stand. That is all.
Disney Buys Marvel For $4 Billion
Matt Staggs brought this to my attention, but apparently Disney has purchased Marvel Comics for $4 billion USD. That’s right, the massive corporation that brought you Peter Pan and Hanna Montana now owns the rights to over 5,000 Marvel characters, or something of that nature. Might not sound like a big deal to all you reading this, but it’s certainly something to be surprised about. I certainly am surprised.
A Note About Book Reviews
There his been some talk in the blogosphere about changes in review policy (not specific to books, but to product reviews and the like). It seems there is a push to make it law that blog reviewers who receive products must disclose that information so as to make it clear that they are essentially being paid to review something (i.e. paid in product). This may or may not change the way books are reviewed (I don’t think it will), so I wanted to offer some information regarding my reviews. From this point on, and certainly for most of what I have reviewed in the past, assume that a book I review has been sent to me by a publisher, publicity agent, or author. I do not write good reviews for either of those entities because I get a free book, and in fact I have ripped into some books in the past that failed epically. But, since it might be of interest to everyone, I want to make it clear that I do get books for review, and that most of the books I review have been sent to me, free of charge, by someone responsible for that book. This should also be a note to anyone wanting to send me books: I do not give nice reviews just because you buttered me up or gave me free bookmarks or whatever. Crappy books are crappy books, and my readers, I hope, expect me to be honest with them in regards to my reviews. Anyone who knows anything about book reviews, however, will also know that even a negative review can sell books. All publicity is good publicity, as they say. And that’s that!