And yes, it does seem like everyone is getting married lately. We were just at a wedding last weekend.

However, since what’s yours is hers and so forth, you can be gorgeous, too. If you like.

And congratulations to you both.

Have fun at that con and tell me how it was when you get back!

I got a rejection yesterday, as well, from Clarkesworld Magazine. Some nice feedback, though, which is always useful.

Speaking of mags, it looks like Apex Science Fiction and Horror may be on its way to small-press heaven. The editor says he needs 200 new subscribers in order to pay off a debt to the printer, and I had to admit I just don’t see that happening. It’s not that Apex is a bad mag (I once subscribed to it, and although I didn’t care for the stories, the production values were top-notch), but 200 is a big number in the small-press world, and he needs it in two weeks!

Fortunately, I don’t have any stories sitting with them, so I don’t have to worry about getting something accepted only to have the mag go belly-up. It happens, folks, quite often, and it’s never a pretty picture. It is, in fact, the ultimate tease. We love your story and we’d love to publish it… buuuut, we’re going out of business.

Apex does seem to be inching toward its goal, at least according to the editor’s blog. The part I don’t understand, though, are the visitors who are buying subscriptions although they have never seen the magazine before. I have never believed in the whole Support the small press! battle-cry. I prefer to support the good small press and let the bad stuff die its own death. This isn’t the United Way, and mags shouldn’t be blinded supported just because they need the support. If it’s a quality publication with a strong following, the rally should come without fanfare (of course, one could say that if it’s a quality mag with a strong following, it shouldn’t need the rally in the first place, but hey, shit happens).

Apex is a decent mag, even though I didn’t happen to dig the content, so if anyone here likes science fiction, or sf-horror, they might want to check out their website and buy a subscription.

(I figured I’d mention this in the comments section rather than devote a whole journal entry to it.)

The sale figures of the smaller mags is a fairly big unknown. It’s hard to know just how popular a mag really is. Even if they sell a lot of copies, it doesn’t necessarily mean the word is getting out. It’s like the anthologies where the contributors are paid only royalties, but they get a discount on copies for themselves. So they buy 20, 50, 100 copies, and then the royalty check comes in the mail, and wow! look at all the money I made! Welllll, not really. Some of it is your money, and the rest is mostly from the other writers in the antho who have done the same thing. In essence, they’re paying each other.

One of the things that irk me about this are the reviews that invariably come afterwards by the contributors or friends of the contributors. The reviews aren’t really reviews as much as they are advertisements for the book, talking about how great it is, how every story is fantastic, and how so-and-so is going to be the Next Big Thing. The only criticism is usually that the book/mag ever had to end! Part of the reason for this is the writers become so friendly with each other that they leave all of their critical, unbiased opinions at the door. No one wants to say anything bad about anyone, so every story ends up being "wonderful" and "strikingly original" and "ground-breaking", etc.

It’s so sickeningly sweet and rather unprofessional, and it certainly doesn’t make me want to buy a copy of the book/mag. And it somewhat skews the sales figures because you don’t really know if ordinary readers are buying the mag or if it’s just the contributors.