When Worlds Collide

The When Worlds Collide Festival in Calgary this past weekend was a magnificent success, the best SF convention since Context'91. I participated on seven panels/readings/workshops, to apparently positive reviews. I found three new Alberta small presses I hadn't been aware of before; got to meet half a dozen authors (most notably Krista Ball, Susan Forest and Michell Plested) with whom I have corresponded but not previously met in person; got to rave at Minister Faust who've I met before but haven't seen since he turned professional writer; made a couple of deals for SFeditor.ca freelance work; spent an evening with a Five River's author I am currently editing -- very productive working supper!; raised the possibility of Five River publishing their work with a couple of promising authors; had another half dozen authors pitch their work to Five Rivers, one of whom I actually said yes to her sending a submission. Got to hear dozens of readings by top authors-- again, highlights were Susan Forest's brilliant comedic short story, Bob Stallworthy's poetry and Susan MacGregor's novel excerpt. (I would love to get my hands on MacGregor's novel, but she is already in the process of signing elsewhere.) Was able to take in a couple of other panels on topics I was actually interested in -- in contrast to most other conventions where panels are either on topics that don't interest me, or topics I've been speaking on for last 30 years, so kind of bored with. Writer/editor/publisher- oriented topics here of actual relevance.

My only regret was that I didn't get a chance to really sit down with Robert Sawyer, our paths always crossing as one or other of us was on a way to do a talk; and some other authors I see in various facebook references were apparently there but I didn't run into or perhaps didn't recognize. But then there is always next year...

If this year's event was any indication, I highly recommend next year's WWC Festival to any writers (or serious minded readers) as a great venue to meet/do deals with editors and publishers, to find out what is happening in the field, and to take in some great workshops/panels etc.

When Words Collide

I'm planning on attending the When Words Collide convention in Calgary next weekend.(August 12-14) Still recovering from surgery last week, but pretty sure I'll be able to get around in another week. It's a new convention, but it is being mounted by a reputable team, and the concept -- a con for genre writers and editors -- is deeply appealing. If anyone else is going, hope to see you there.

Estate Planning

I have another guest editorial on Writer in Residence today, this time on estate planning for authors. My basic argument is that creators need to think about what will happen to their copyrighted materials after they're gone and put their wishes into a will. Check it out.

The 2011 winners of the Bulwer Lytton fiction contest (for worst opening line) have been announced


The SF winner:

Morgan ‘Bamboo’ Barnes, Star Pilot of the Galaxia (flagship of the Solar Brigade), accepted an hors d’oeuvre from the triangular-shaped platter offered to him from the Princess Qwillia—lavender-skinned she was and busty, with two of her four eyes what Barnes called ‘bedroom eyes’—and marveled at how on her planet, Chlamydia-5, these snacks were called ‘Hi-Dee-Hoes’ but on Earth they were simply called Ritz Crackers with Velveeta.

The fantasy winner:

Within the smoking ruins of Keister Castle, Princess Gwendolyn stared in horror at the limp form of the loyal Centaur who died defending her very honor; “You may force me to wed,” she cried at the leering and victorious Goblin King, “but you’ll never be half the man he was.”
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The contest has deteriorated a bit in recent years to short, self-contained jokes, but they do still illustrate several principles of bad writing. Things not to do.

On Publishing

Blog entry on publishingby Edmonton author Krista D. Ball reads as if it were written by me, so might as well include it here.

quote of the week

"There's a word for a writer who never gives up...published." Joe Konrath (Thriller writer)

Also good interview with M.J.Rose at A newbie's guide to Publishing on going independent....

Rate increase...

I've had to raise my rate for appraisals: I've found that many of the submission packages coming in were taking a lot longer to respond to than I had anticipated, so I've needed to adjust the rate accordingly. At $90, it's still no relation to my hourly rate, but I can't raise the initial appraisal much higher or it defeats the purpose. The new rate is also more in line with other reading services...given that I have a two to three months backlog as it is, I don't need to undercut the competition; and I'd rather people were choosing SFeditor.ca because they trust my judgement, not just because I turned out to be the cheapest editor on the block....

I'm not too worried about the rate increase cutting into business since anything under $100 is still just the price of an evening out. If an author doesn't believe in their work enough to invest $90, pretty sure they weren't going to be long term customers anyway.

My hourly rate remains the same though, since that was already set at industry standard.