Yesterday, I lit into a certain policy posted on the submission page of Digital Science Fiction magazine. Michael Wills of Digital Science Fiction posted a lengthy response to yesterday’s post that I think started a very good dialogue.
I can tell that he put a great deal of thought into his response, and that was very encouraging. It started a good dialogue where I offered to review what DSF calls “Schedule A.”
I know for certain that I am not the only writer who took exception to these terms, yet it is pretty clear from Wills’ response that the letter of the word does not completely match the intention. He thought my going through the document and commenting was a good idea, and I intend to do so with the goal of closing the rift that some writers have with this market.
DSF does produce a very nice-looking product. I was very close to submitting a story to them when I ran across the terms that I discussed yesterday, namely certain phrases in Schedule A.
Sometimes it takes a squeaky wheel to be noticed, and I can, at times, be a very squeaky wheel. I don’t call this blog “Frothing at the Mouth” for nothing. And I did at one time drink from the same water bottle as one Harlan Ellison, and thus may I have ingested just a little bit of that DNA. (I still have that water bottle.)
Regardless, the point of this blog post is to state that I am very optimistic that the issues I share with other writers about the submission policies of Digital Science Fiction can be resolved.
They want to improve and I want to do what I can to help them. It doesn’t matter whether they ever publish any of my work. A short fiction magazine in healthy condition is good for everyone in the genre: writers, readers, and even competing markets.
It’s likely that yesterday’s blog post and the parallel Twitter broadside has done some damage to Daily Science Fiction. In that the letter of their Schedule A seems to differ from the intent of Schedule A, I do feel something of an obligation to see this through and help fix the problem.
The good news is that I believe the fix is something very achievable, requiring a handful of changes for clarification. I offered to go through their Schedule A document and comment on what rankles me. Wills said he thinks that is a good idea.
I think we both want the outcome of this to be a good market that everyone who writes SF will want to send material. I think this is very a achievable goal.
