Harkening back to my post about crazy unconvential zine ideas, and all this talk and thought about relaunching the Fortean Bureau, has led me to give some serious thought to trying something very very different.
Roundbottom is my core project right now, but I have a strong desire to launch a new ‘zine. At the very least, I am going to publish a few stories in the Fortean Bureau format, but what if… what if I created a meta publication like the Surreal Guide to Botany or the Disease Guide from a year or so back–but as a kind of naturalist’s research publication. Nothing stuffy and dry like real scientific magazines, but basically paying other people to write posts like Dr. Roundbottom. I’d accept submissions from both artists and writers. I’ll provide a forum for artists and writers to team up, if they want to make a joint production of an article/piece.
Art would be allowed in any format. Not everyone has to do the photography thing that I’m doing. But the basic idea behind all of this is that each article is written by another naturalist in their own world, similar or different to Dr. Roundbottom, but at least passably steampunk.
To start, I’d offer $50 a post (not longer than 2000 words) for the writing and $50 for the art. You’d be free to sell both anywhere, and we will provide a link to sell prints at your print store for artists. We’d have an option to pay more at the end of the year to publish a print edition of the research notes.
Finally, and I’d be doing the same, you have to allow–and I’m not sure how to legally formalize this–references to be made to your work and characters in other submissions/posts. For instance, Dr. Roundbottom himself might reference your paper and link to it while talking about something similar in his world. And you’ll be able to do the same with Roundbottom. This kind of sharing isn’t covered under any kind of Creative Commons license that I know of, so perhaps I would need some odd contract legalize. I should talk to the Creative Commons people and see if they have suggestions.
Would anyone submit to something like this? I’m basically thinking about the comments that happen already on Roundbottom and formalizing a way for writers and artists to participate in this fashion and get paid for it. I understand that it would be difficult to sell any writing written directly for htis project to anything else, so that’s one flaw that i have to consider. Please provide your thoughts and comments! Would you submit something to this kind of publication? What rules do you think would need to be made?
I think this is an awesome idea, and yes, I would love to submit stories to this type of publication. I also think it would still work with the Fortean Bureau name (it is a good name and has a long established reputation). It’s as simple as changing the guideline’s “what we are looking for.” It is definitely akin to the Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases (which is great, BTW).
In regards to the sharing of characters and concepts: just make this part of the “rights” section of the contract. If people do not like this kind of cross-pollinated publication environment, then it is not a ‘zine they should submit to. It’s true that selling this type of fiction to other markets would be more challenging, but that is why I think there should be a payment incentive. Let me explain: first, I think there should be two sections of the site; one that is the idea you are talking about here and another that is “other tales,” which is the same type of fiction you were publishing before. Pay the $50 rate for the unique fiction that will become the true highlight and signature feature of the magazine. Pay less (say $35) for the other type of fiction. Another incentive is to create “best of” anthologies each year that can be easily done through lulu.com
On another note, I just discovered your clockpunk.com site last night and I was going to Twitter you today and tell you how seriously cool the site is!
Sounds like fun!
Yeah, in many ways it’s a shared universe project where people are world building together. Controlling how the world building is shared between writers might need to be part of the editorial process, like it would be for a shared-world anthology’s editor. You may need to review articles before they are posted to make sure they don’t need approval from another writer before being used, but only if they impact on another person’s original invention.
I suspect a few things will help hook readers. One being the inventiveness, whimsy, and pure fun of the articles. Two being the coolness of the visual design and art. Three being any ongoing story lines that will make people want to read the next issue to see how they proceed. I could see this being a really fun fictional journal!
I love leaving comments on Round bottom and I can do a quick note or go out of my way to put together a octopus bush but at the moment I don’t think I’d create my own stuff because I’ve got so many other projects. In order to do so I’d have to consciously decide to do it, rather than with responding, where I just have to be inspired.
I would say perhaps there isn’t a market for this until such time that the comments on Roundbottom get so busy that they’re unwieldy. I hope that’s useful feedback.
Fortean phenomena are near and dear to my heart. I would write articles for this!
This could be an interesting project format. I doubt I’d contribute (because my writing isn’t good enough) but I’d be very interested to watch it working.