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?
