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Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
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Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#1Placeholder thread arising from what Axle suggested as 'homework' for the writer's group -
Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#2The debate that Scras has put to us is that an inclusive braod spectrum speculative fiction ezine format would be bad, and that a focused anthology format wold be good.
I just bought Sword and Mythos. This is a focused anthology available in ebook format.
http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/books/swordmythos/
I also just picked up the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine. This is a broad umbrella publication I am sure most of you are familiar, I certainly have lots of back issues laying around my house. But the sept/oct issue is out now in ebook format. If you haven't read this magazine (I know some of you live outside the USA and thus might not be familiar with it...Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine might be more the aussie standard) it includes poetry, nonfiction, cartoons, science fiction, high and low fantasy fiction. This might be another way to go with the format of the ebook.
https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/ -
Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#3Been reading these
the sword and mythos anthology, all deals with Chuthulu and elder god stuff, but the settings are all very different. You have Mongol spirit warrior adventure and a modern archeology dig setting. Lovecraft always straddled the line between sci-fi and fantasy anyway (though he was more often in the Sci-fi side with some religious trappings). Anyway I think we can do something like this with the epub. One theme many variations in settings and style. -
Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#4I clicked onto that link you posted and that was my guess as well. That swords and mythos seriously sounds just like a short story collection sold offline from the product desc or abstract thingy that was put up there (prob. is too simultaneously thou I wouldn't know). That's why I thought even that shapeshifter theme that I came up with was redundant when Scras posted up the list of Amazon tabs.
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Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#5Okay, I just browsed through Bourbon Penn issue 5 and in terms of formatting, very simple. I can see nothing to comment upon. The first story is very much what I would expect of a flash fiction- very short and snappy scenes, first person tense, altogether written for the market for flash fiction I think. It kinda brings into focus for me a bit on how different our stories are from that kind of conventional-ness but that's okay, I think. We are who we are, we can always go for a different segment.
The other thing is that I think Bourbon Penn is a typical mag but our epub, I feel like it's more of a short story collection so it might be closer in nature to that Swords & Mythos anthology I feel. Then again, I haven't actually read that one, just browsed through it. Looking at the reviews, I won't be buying it for personal pleasure. I just bought two more short story collections from Amazon Kindle (one's going for free at the moment and it's multiple genre and the other one is called Legends with 13 completes novels and novellas)
Legends: http://www.amazon.com.au/Legends-Fantasy-Box-Set-Vol-1-ebook/dp/B017QJCZCI/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1453162787&sr=8-9&keywords=Kindle+fantasy+short+story+collections
Seasons: http://www.amazon.com.au/Seasons-Multi-Genre-Story-Collection-I-ebook/dp/B0190O0IX0/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1453163101&sr=8-14&keywords=Kindle+fantasy+short+story+collections
Will report back once done with them. -
Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#6The first story in that issue was
"Everything you were looking for"
By Samantha Henderson
It is about 4000 words long.
I liked the story.
*SPOILERS FOLLOW*
It had a modern setting.
But it is worth noting how it didn't follow grammar laws tightly as it stayed connected to the voices and how the dialog was broken up with Hyphens and not quotations.
Also the fantasy element of the story was very subtle. It would be possible for a reader to chalk all the events up to mental illness or hallucinations following injury.
Note also how the story mixes show and tell devices.
In the second section, the narrator just tells us that innkeeper "doesn't want him here" and thinks his continual returns to the are is "Morbid".
Then during the climax, when the wife falls into the cave, the characters' emotional states are communicated through their word choice and actions. This is a good story from a fairly established author (she has couple of novels I believe and books of poetry). We could seek to employ some of her techniques in our own writing.
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Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#7Axle, even without your spoiler, I kinda skim-read ahead and in the sections I read, I already know it's modern setting, that's why I stopped reading. I can tell she's an established writer and the opening does kinda draw me but then I'm like "nah, modern story, I want my fantasy".
I was thinking I need to learn from her somewhat cos I tend to write a slower paced story. But why were you telling me that Maxx and you are peruse this Bourbon Penn 5 for formatting (and I thought I was asked to peruse it for that purpose as well)? There's zero formatting in this Bourbon Penn as far as I'm concerned. All that I took away from it was that "right, separators b/w scenes are supposed to be 3 astericks/dots" and that you need a cover and a table of contents besides the stories. -
Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#8I think you got the right message about the limiting nature of Kindle Formatting, but I did get some stuff reviewing the magazines particularly about the use of open space in poems (avoid it if possible) -
Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#9Reading the Seasons collection that spans across romance, mystery, fantasy and steampunk sci-fi now. They have the following disclaimer after the cover:
"Authors from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia have contributed. For this reason, you may notice a slight variation between each story’s dialect."
Thinking that will save us some line editing needs. We can change the last word "dialect" to "language use". -
Re: Amazon ezines: what we learnt from them
#10Okay, more from Seasons that I thought we could 'steal'. On their content page, they put in brackets the genre for each story (cos they doing multi-genre). We could do so too eg. Empress would be "poetic fantasy", Grey would be "poetic (wistful) urban fantasy", Thread would be "archaic Chinese fantasy" etc etc etc. Just a thought.
And I can immediately conjure exactly one pro and con against it. Pro: give readers a little more indication/forewarning of our stories being a bit unconventional; Con: subject to reader prejudices. I for one don't really dip into unconventional fantasy as the majority of the stories here are.