Foolscap 2010

[elfs]

It was a lovely Saturday at Foolscap. We could only go for one day, our finances being what they are. I spent most of it talking with publishers about the state of the publication, and a relatively strong rant on how self-publication is never going to match "the big houses." Especially not for genre because people will always trust editors over the guesswork of a cover art and back cover blurb, i.e., when you buy Baen or Tor, you know, more or less, what you're getting.

There was good dinner with Ed & Amy Thompson and their kid at an awesome Mexican place. Kouryou-chan got roped into being the voice of "Wesson" in a radio play edition of Buck Godot, Zap Gun For Hire, and she did an awesome job of playing a fast-talking, snark-filled laser pistol.

Sadly, what I did not find at Foolscap was my writing mojo. Several other writers confessed a similar feeling: the general mood of the country ate too many brain cells with neurotic concerns for our own personal futures, and writing about other futures had become that much harder. I wonder if a decline in the quantity of SF written can be an economic marker?

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I dunno. the '30's, hard economic times, were the Golden Age of SF. OTOH, the '50's and '60's, boomtimes for the US, were also good times for SF; the '70's, bust times, didn't produce a lot of notables other than Niven and Pournelle. The Star Wars and Star Trek arcs seemed to span economies.

I *am* currently seeing a lot less SF that I'm interested in, and a lot more urban fantasy... but I think that has a lot more to do with (a) the rise of urban fantasy itself, and (b) the rise of the Internet, and specifically social media, in promoting such things. Many of the old-school SF writers are just that - old-school, preferring more conventional methods of promotion, whereas the younger types - Cat Valente, Mary Robinette Kowal, John Scalzi, Seanan McGuire, Angela Korra'ti (and three of those five have livejournals, and they ALL have WordPress blogs) seem to be more focused on UF, Scalzi being the notable exception.

Fred Pohl is the notable exception from the old-school crowd; I'm not sure he's actually as up on the new tech as it would seem, but he's got good people keeping him jacked in, linked in, turned on... well enough to win a freakin' Hugo as a fan... admittedly, I think his blog *is* one of the more interesting out there, even if it is mostly memoirs... make that *precisely* because it is; Fred has Been There and Done That, and as a history wonk, this is interesting to me.

You're not the only one with writers' block these days. I'm not writing nearly as much as I used to; heck, I'm not even *reading* as much.... Angela is expressing frustration with her own creativity (though she's temporarily remedied that by taking a machete to her words rather than trying to make more)... Scalzi seems to be doing fine, but he just took a well-deserved sabbatical...

Did Mary say anything about it?

I disagree with the premise that folks will "always" buy based on house reputation... *especially* when, in the 21st century, when they see a book on the shelf they can whip out their iPrecioussss and google for a book's reputation. Shasta's idea of crowdsourcing the publicity is bang-on...

And Angela and Scalzi, among others, are feeding that appetite, reviewing others' works and allowing other authors space on their sites to talk about their work.

I think this whole small-publishing thing is about to reach critical mass...

Gripping hand? This may be where Bezos really gets his teeth into things, because he's made it so easy to outsource the actual printing and shipping...

Other gripping hand, it's too easy for a guy like you to put together a storefront, link it to PayPal or another merchant with an API, and for sweat equity and the cost of a couple of printers and a place to put them, be in the publishing business, if you don't expect your output to be too big.

Maybe it's the BOOK BEARS (http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/607255.html?view=16907031#t16907031) that have eaten your writer-fu. :)

Amy Thomson?

[ideaphile.livejournal.com]

Is that Amy Thomson the writer who lives up there?

There's no "p" in her last name. She reminded me of this personally when I misspelled her name in our high-school science-fiction club newsletter. :-)

Also, her husband is Edd (not Ed) Vick (not Thomson). Unless they're a completely different couple named Ed and Amy Thompson, in which case I read too much into the fact that you were at Foolscap. :-)

Personally I think you've lost interest in sf because you've reassigned too many brain cells to politics. :-)

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Re: Amy Thomson?

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Nope, he means Edd Vick and Amy Thomson.

As for his interest in sf, I think it has more to do with reassigning too many brain cells to fatherhood.

Re: Amy Thomson?

[ideaphile.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of the ones he uses to write with. At least I'm pretty sure he writes a whole lot more about politics today than he did, say, 20 years ago.

Which reminds me that it's been a damn long time since I discovered the Journal Entries and met you guys. :-)

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[(Anonymous)]

I've personally noticed a drop off in the amount of science fiction floating around in the media as well, both in TV and movies. I have to wonder if people just don't feel the future to be the shining beacon of hope it once was.

People expected a lot from the future and science, perhaps too much. We still have disasters like the tsunamis and hurricanes that caused so much damage, still have diseases like SARS and swine flu, still have poverty and famine, still have war and terrorism. Perhaps a lot of people simply feel the future isn't going to solve these problems without a lot of pain all around, which is quite realistic but not very hopeful. The future might seem like it isn't the magic solution it once was.

By contrast urban fantasy involves characters dealing with problems here and now, rather than hand waving the problems and saying "Oh in our setting that was all fixed many years ago."