Wednesday, February 19, 2014

To those who wait


The intended content hasn't shown up here yet, but it will. There is a difficulty. Posting short stories here vaporizes their first rights, and dilutes their value as reprints. Paper publishers, and e-book people too, are understandably not enthusiastic to try to sell stories that anyone can read on the Internet. Thus the question of whether to post any given story is a bit complicated. But, and it seems an inescapable question, how will I prove this site's concept without risking (win or lose) the royalties on what appears here?

Furthermore I have had only tepid responses lately when I have tried to drum up publicity for myself; too many people trying to do the same thing, I suppose. Still, I think my concept for this site is a good one. Check back in a while; I'll get it all worked out.

A positive development is getting this site excluded from archive engines, so that when a story is taken down from this site, it is (or should be) gone for good, so far as the Internet is concerned.  This is an important step toward preserving writers' stakes in the resale value of their work.

So we shall see what happens. The idea here is to offer high quality short fiction in a format that pays the writers and delights the readers, and ideally sparks a renaissance in short story fiction, a form now stifled by the shortage of good markets for good writers. Stay tuned.