BREAKING: F&SF’s Gordon Van Gelder Does Not Want to Drink The Blood of Your Children
Filed Under: SF Business, Speculative Fiction
Last week, we had a lovely mini-controversy over the poorly announced intentions of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to launch a workshop for newer writers run by Gardner Dozois.
The details that we were able to gather were:
- The workshop will be online.
- The workshop will be limited at first to around 100 writers.
- Gardner will be able to choose up to 3 stories a year from the workshop submissions to appear in F&SF.
The details that we do not know:
- When will the workshop launch?
- How much will it cost?
- How much face-time will you get with the workshop admin with 99 other students?
The issues that weren’t clear to some:
- Whether or not Gordon would pay for the stories that come from the workshop like any other story
- Whether the cost of joining the workshop would in fact include the price of the soul of your first-born child?
- Whether this is a violation of Yog’s Law, in which money flows from the writer to the publisher? (“money flows to the writer”)
The controversy to me was exactly the same as Amazon’s screw-up a few weeks back regarding the database and adult/gay content being removed from listings. It boiled down to this: poor information control and release. It was a PR fubar.
Perhaps I assumed the bes in that workshoppers selected for the publication would be paid just like any new writer, that Gordon was not planning to sell my unborn children into slavery to the Mi Go and that Yog’s Law was perhaps simply bent, but not in a way that was unprecedented. Ultimately, I shouldn’t have to assume, nor should anyone else. Once again, the issue is that, in the absence of real information, the internet will invent a controversy. WhateverFails are spontaneously generating everywhere on the web because a rumor has gotten out of hand and real information has not stepped into to fill the void.
What could F&SF Done Differently?
Gordon and his staff probably should have acted quickly to correct any misinformation being spread (and to their credit, they did so, but I don’t think they did it comprehensively enough). He should have issued a full press release in the first place, outlining every detail of the project, from cost, to duration to “here’s the websites, go sign up.” The first anyone should have heard of this project should have been when every detail was sorted out and ready to go. If you are vague on any aspect, it just gives people an opportunity to see boggarts where there probably aren’t any.
Information about this seemed to leak via hearsay on one blog, and the controversy built rapidly in this infovoid. Damage control would have been to immediately release all information. Unfortunately, I think not every aspect of the project as nailed down, so it seemed that they were rushed to release what they knew so far, which wasn’t and as far as I know, still isn’t everything. I put my name on the list of interested parties and I look forward to learning more.
In general, I think F&SF needs to control its online public relations better (I imagine Gordon might think ‘great, yet another new job I don’t need and didn’t sign up for.’ Sorry, man. ). The problem is, and justifiably so, they see relating with the public online to be an antagonistic thing. n this posts, I am careful not to say ‘Gordon should do…” which is way too easy with F&SF. I’m trying to say “the organization should do…” Because I know F&SF has a team of people, primarily driven by Gordon. Being the only editor-owned magazine of the Big Three in the field, its easy to place the blame or put a face to any perceived problem with the ‘zine. Gordon, for better and for worse, is F&SF in the public eye. You can’t necessarily do that with the Dell Magazines. Their editors generally aren’t making the business decisions. So the criticisms of F&SF often come across as too personal.
That’s unfortunate. F&SF is a good magazine and Gordon is a great editor. The organization needs to reset their interactions with the online world entirely, and designing a good PR plan would be a nice place to start, in my opinion. I have some ideas of how to go about that which I will go into in more detail at a later date.
What Could We the Public Done Differently?
We should be better at realizing when we have partial information and we should be less eager to jump to conclusions based on that partial information. Perhaps our first instinct should not be to write a blog post or to start a comment thread on a forum. Perhaps, when we have suspicions or are considering casting aspersions, we should contact the parties involved over email or phone and ask our questions. If we don’t get satisfying answers, then maybe that is the time to scream from the rooftops. Also, apply some common sense. What in Gordon or Gardner’s long career would ever make you think they weren’t going to pay writers? Yes, it’s important to make sure you get paid as a writer–but these guys are NOT the enemy. I have disagreed with Gordon on matters electronic in the past, but I know that he is a consummate professional.
This latest controversy is made up of mistakes on both sides. The burden of providing clear, accurate, and complete information rests with the publisher/project runners. The burden of the rest of us is to not jump to assumptions without asking questions first when we receive only partial information.
Comments
07-13-2009
Whether intentional or not, Gordon got more attention for F&SF than has been generated for a long time.
07-13-2009
I agree with what you say here. I participated in this discussion on John Scalzi’s blog, and while I “think” I was fair to both sides of the argument, I had a few lines of criticism toward Gordon, just about the same stuff you said under “What Should F&SF should have done different”. I was pretty much trying to keep a balance between what “the annoucement could be seen as” and what “it probably wasn’t”. One question I kept forgetting to ask on Scalzi’s blog is why would anyone think Gordon and Gardner would do something to damage their reputations. But you know, there is a group of respective writers who do think Gordon and Gardner are the enemy. Well, you probably know as much about them as I do.
That said, I like Gordon. I don’t know him personally, but from comments I’ve seen of his, he seems to be a likeable guy, and I like his attitude, he doesn’t seem at all bothered by criticism.
Which brings me to the one thing I disagree with you on. Where you say Gordon might think, “Great, yet another new job I don’t need and didn’t sign up for.” I think his response would be more along the lines of, “I’m not going to worry about it.”
07-13-2009
You present no proof that Gordon isn’t a vampire.
I’ll have to reserve judgement on that, but the whole ‘controversy’ was a tad bit overblown.
I’m going to say Gordon SHOULDN’T drink the blood of my child, even if Gordon is a vampire. I mean, it’s OK if he is a vampire, I think.
07-13-2009
I think this sums it all up rather nicely.
Accurate observations across the board.
Leave a Reply