Tuesday, March 31, 2009
M-BRANE # 3 RELEASED
I couldn't be prouder of #3. As I write this, I think that all writers, sponsors and subscribers should have received their PDFs via email. Be sure to check out and hopefully patronize this month's sponsors Zumaya and Apex, two fine, fine smallish-press book publishers. I'll...
Ah, memories
On the brink of the release of issue #3, I have been revisiting issue #1 this afternoon because I am trying to repair its files for the Lulu POD version which I put up there a long time ago but haven't been able to sell because it was thoroughly frakked. I'm so proud of the new third issue that everyone is about to see, that I had almost forgotten how great the first one was, and it seems weirdly long ago even though it's only been two months. Writers...
Blog post labels
I didn't really get in the habit of labeling my posts (or really see much use to it) for the first three months or so of running this blog. Now that there are getting to be a fair number of posts, I am starting to see some groupings that make sense and I have made a pass through the history and labeled some of those that lacked labels with an eye toward creating these logical groups. Now that I am more conscious of it as a thing to do on a...
Response time on submissions
In my writers' guidelines on "Page 2", I state that I try to answer submissions quickly, certainly in not more than two weeks. I made an amendment to that today asking writers to cut me some slack on that for the near term. I am concerned that I have issues booked too far ahead. Issue #3 releases tomorrow (or perhaps later today), but I am fully stocked for #4 and #5, probably for #6, probably for #7, and I have plugged a couple of things...
POD update
It appears that the print-on-demand version of M-Brane #3 will be able to release at Lulu at the same time as the PDF. I also have figured out to to fix the frakked up Lulu versions of #1 and #2, and will be doing that as well so I can let the "store" re-open. I have just spent some tedious time going back to both of those issues, and I think perhaps another hour of messing around with them will do the job. I discovered that I really didn't...
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Twitter, so far
Contributor on DoorQ
Ok, I am ready to move past the Recent Unpleasantness (the Duesberg/Pournelle Affair) and share some good news related to the gradual expansion of the brane. I have been invited to be a contributor on the DoorQ website, which will give me another forum in which to promote the zine and the reading of sf in general. I'll be posting news there related to the magazine, probably do some reading recommendations and probably put up teasers for the issues...
Friday, March 27, 2009
When SF writers fight the future and make me mad
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Afterwords
Cordwainer Smith
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Where to live?/ Taboo
Monday, March 23, 2009
Taboos
Sf Signal, in its Mind Melds section, recently posed a question to some writers about whether they have had difficulty getting something published or found themselves self-censoring due to some sort of taboo that they were violating. Are there still such taboos in science fiction, they were asked. Way back in the day, especially before the New Wave, sex and swear-words were rare in sf, but are there new things that arouse similar uneasiness...
Saturday, March 21, 2009
BSG finale: loved it
Friday, March 20, 2009
Science Friday: Gravitons and Buckyballs
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Hugo nominees announced
The list of nominees for the next Hugo awards is up on Locus. I'm still working on Anathem, nominated in the Best Novel category. Other novel nominees included Doctorow and Scalzi, whose nominated books I have not yet read, but have been hearing a lot about lately. I'll point out that Elizabeth Bear is nominated in the novelette category for "Shoggoths in Bloom," published in Asimov's. I haven't read a lot of her novel-length stuff yet, but...
Populist rage
I guess today's a good time to suspend for a day my usual resistance to having real-world-crap being the subject matter on this brane. I've always felt that the American public is rather docile, even when pushed really hard, as compared to some other publics, like the French, who have never hesitated to call a general strike over things that barely make the news when they happen here. Apparently the AIG bonus payment situation, however, has been...
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Book View Cafe
I meant to mention this a couple days ago: writer Sue Lange (whose fine story "Zara Gets Laid" will be a highlight of M-Brane #5 in June) wrote a blog post at Book View Cafe about M-Brane and also about Cynthia Ward's Market Maven Newsletter. Please go there and read it. Sue is right on in what she says (and not just because she agrees with my remarks in M-Brane #2's editorial). And while you're there, take a minute or two and browse...
Research and revision
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
M-Brane writers' links updated
I just added a few more new writers to the M-Brane writers' links list (in the right-hand column a few kilometers down under Twitter and the archive). If you have had a story published or are scheduled to have one published in M-Brane SF and have a site but don't see a link to you, let me know via email or Twitter or a comment to this post and I'll add it prompt...
Reminders: M-BRANE #2 still exists even though #3 is coming soon
Monday, March 16, 2009
Winter: Over with
Jeff and I have decreed the winter season, at least in this part of the country, to be ended for the year. The weather is nice enough today that we have gone ahead and gotten the patio furniture set back up and Jeff is starting to gear up for the spring gardening season. Though this past winter, now ended, was relatively mild with no serious ice storms or appreciable snow accumulation, it was characterized by what seemed to be endless stretches of...
Trek trailer
"SyFy": Stupid
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Ads
The other day I finally opened up M-Brane SF for advertising. Though I resisted it for a while, I thinks it's going to be a good thing for the future of the magazine, and will probably help us reach the ultimate goal of becoming a professionally-paying market for writers a bit faster. So far I have been confining my sales pitch on it to other genre-related book and mag publishers because I think that's what the readers would be most interested...
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Science "Friday": Quirks and Quarks/ Grand Vision continued
Thursday, March 12, 2009
A Grander Vision
The last few years have featured, for me, a lot of getting beaten down: shoved out of my career, then a stupid job, then another stupid job, then my dream of owning and operating my own restaurant to then see that slip away over two years, then a whole heap of financial ruin, another stupid job, then moving to OKC (largely an impulsive blunder) where I had a lot of failure at finding a decent job and then settled on yet another stupid one…for considerably...
FLURB #7 is up
In my web notes in M-Brane #1 and in my editorial in M-Brane #2, and now on the blog, I am recommending Rudy Rucker's webzine Flurb. Issue #7 is online, and it's full of good stuff. I really like this one because of its attractive readability and its fine content. One little thing that I don't like about it is that it does nothing toward what I increasingly see as the important agenda of finding good and fair ways to monetize short fiction....
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Some other mag updates
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
#3 Lulu test promising/ Subscription drive anemic
1. In my ongoing effort to make M-Brane available for POD via Lulu, I uploaded the issue #3 file and examined it for for failures. It looks fine, and I think I can say with renewed confidence that this edition can be made available simultaneously with the PDF release on 4/1 (see previous post for contents and cover image of #3). The Lulu versions of #1 and #2 are still too error-ridden, but I am considering fixing that now that I know how. I...
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Announcing ISSUE #3 Contents
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Kepler Mission
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Mellonta Tauta
Lulu Print Wars: Episode IV A NEW HOPE
I wish to publicly thank writer Dan (D.D.) Tannenbaum (whose excellent story "The Hole That Max Found" is scheduled for M-Brane #5) for assisting me via email and phone today with the confounding Lulu font problem that I have been documenting on this page, and which has threatened the possibility of me offering the print editions of M-Brane using Lulu's otherwise pretty user-friendly POD service.It's not all completely resolved yet, but...
Second Chance Books
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Philip Jose Farmer Dies/ slight page re-model
More on the Lulu glitch/ Print goes back to local
Those of you following the tedious twists and turns of M-Brane's print edition will have read the post below about how my Lulu plan for print-on-demand sales of it is not working out after all just when I thought all was well. The problem lies in the fact that for some reason their system is rendering the font called "Cambria" into gibberish. Cambria is the font for the body text of 100 percent of M-Brane. So, clearly, this is a problem....
LULU GLITCH--STAND BY
I have temporarily shut down the Lulu store. A problem with how one of the fonts actually shows up in print (as opposed to how to it looks in the supposedly "press-ready" version on-screen) has come to my attention. Of course this would happen the day after I gave the plan some good praise. I need to research it further and will update later.If you were about to order the print #1/#2 volume, I apologize for the delay.&nb...
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Lulu vs. CreateSpace
Monday, March 2, 2009
#2 "TEASER" up on ISSUU.COM/ SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE/ ADS/ ARTWORK
M-BRANE OMNIBUS ON LULU/ Print #2/ PDF #2
I have placed for sale on Lulu, the print-on-demand publisher, a double-issue edition compiling the contents of issues #1 and #2. It is available in both print and download options. The print edition is $9.65, which is about as cheap as I could get it. I think that's maybe a reasonable price for a printed, bound version of those 116 pages, but who knows what the shipping will be on that. That's been my whole hang-up with these print options...
Sunday, March 1, 2009
M-BRANE #2 RELEASED
FINISHING #2
I was hoping to commence the PDF release of M-Brane #2 by this morning, but I spent all day yesterday playing and still have a bit of work to do on it. It's close, but it will probably be later this evening or tomorrow morning before it starts showing up in the e-boxes of subscribers and writers. Unlike issue #1, I am not planning to put up its full contents for free on the web and will not be inviting the issue's writers to do so on their own...