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The code and open-source tools I used to produce a science fiction anthology

compellingsciencefiction.com

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Re: The code and open-source tools I used to produce a science fiction anthology

#31

Post by ajkjk »

helterskelter wrote: post #16
ssivark wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought... would it make sense to maintain a govt/central registry of copyright owners, and have an "official" means of contacting them, on which they have an SLA to respond (say 3 months) which might be part of the ground rules for maintaining rights. From a macro societal perspective, would this evolve "copyright" into a more balanced (value generating) deal for all of society?

I have no idea how accurate this comment from last week is, or if it applies beyond games, but the model is interesting: > Japan has a scheme for orphaned games where if you can prove you did due diligence in searching for a rightsholder and couldn't find one, you can go ahead with rereleasing the game and the royalty payments get held in escrow by the government in case the rightsholder comes forward. I wish the US…

hearing about Japan doing things intelligently gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling.

(previous example that I remember: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/05/27/companies/j... )

Re: The code and open-source tools I used to produce a science fiction anthology

#33

Post by mojoe »

ajkjk wrote: post #32

aside, but the link to ralan.com on https://compellingsciencefiction.com/guidelines.html doesn't work since the site doesn't exist anymore.

Thanks for pointing that out, I need to remove that submissions page altogether, the magazine has been shut down for five years and you found your way to a vestigial part of the site that almost nobody visits anymore.

I wrote a post about the ralan closure in 2023: https://compellingsciencefiction.com/posts/ralan.com-closes-...

If you're looking for places to submit, https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ is now the place I recommend to check.

Re: The code and open-source tools I used to produce a science fiction anthology

#34

Post by ghaff »

helterskelter wrote: post #16
ssivark wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought... would it make sense to maintain a govt/central registry of copyright owners, and have an "official" means of contacting them, on which they have an SLA to respond (say 3 months) which might be part of the ground rules for maintaining rights. From a macro societal perspective, would this evolve "copyright" into a more balanced (value generating) deal for all of society?

I have no idea how accurate this comment from last week is, or if it applies beyond games, but the model is interesting: > Japan has a scheme for orphaned games where if you can prove you did due diligence in searching for a rightsholder and couldn't find one, you can go ahead with rereleasing the game and the royalty payments get held in escrow by the government in case the rightsholder comes forward. I wish the US…

At least with books, it's mostly individual authors who are most opposed to orphan works legislation. Disney isn't going to forget about whatever legal hoops are needed to maintain copyright. Individual authors (or their estates) may well do so.

Re: The code and open-source tools I used to produce a science fiction anthology

#37

Post by ajkjk »

mojoe wrote: post #33
ajkjk wrote: post #32

aside, but the link to ralan.com on https://compellingsciencefiction.com/guidelines.html doesn't work since the site doesn't exist anymore.

Thanks for pointing that out, I need to remove that submissions page altogether, the magazine has been shut down for five years and you found your way to a vestigial part of the site that almost nobody visits anymore. I wrote a post about the ralan closure in 2023: https://compellingsciencefiction.com/posts/ralan.com-closes-... If you're looking for places to submit, https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ is now the…

I don't know how I ended up there! seconds later: oh, I clicked "original short stories" on the top of the page. and I have been thinking about trying to write some short stories myself and was immediately thinking "I wonder how I would go about submitting one somewhere" and then I saw that link...

Re: The code and open-source tools I used to produce a science fiction anthology

#38

Post by jacquesm »

mojoe wrote: post #27
jacquesm wrote: post #24

If I could give you one tip it would be this one: make sure that your current production contains enough contact information and appeal to other authors to help you bootstrap the next iteration. That first one is the hardest, and any aspiring writers that have good stories sitting unpublished (of which there are very many) is always on the lookout for new places to get their stories published. This is how almost ever…

First I just want to say that it's an honor that you took a look, I've read and enjoyed many of your articles in the past. This anthology is actually a "Year's Best" -- they're reprints selected from a pool of 391 stories printed in the big science fiction magazines last year. So I'm not opening for submissions, or anything like that (I have done that before, back when I published a magazine). For this anthology I re…

Do you plan on making it a cycle?

I have been reading old ones (very old, in some cases), they can be quite hard to find and I am absolutely blown away by the quality and the depth of vision in some of those older collections. Stories whose writers never had a second piece in print anywhere.

Short story SF is a very interesting genre to me and I'm super happy to see you make this effort.

Re: The code and open-source tools I used to produce a science fiction anthology

#39

Post by tenacious_tuna »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

It's quite an achievement. I was once interested in publishing a SF anthology. Formatting and editing was nbd -- I was going to use Amazon's KDP software package for most of it, which can take a .docx and output an ebook in 5 minutes. I've done it before for non-anthology books I've published, and it couldn't be easier, though I understand why people might avoid Amazon in this day and age. The real trouble was gettin…

Can you name the works you'd collected? That's a killer lineup, I'm a huge fan of Walter Jon Willams and have enjoyed what Watts I've read.

Re: The code and open-source tools I used to produce a science fiction anthology

#40

Post by mojoe »

ajkjk wrote: post #37
mojoe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing that out, I need to remove that submissions page altogether, the magazine has been shut down for five years and you found your way to a vestigial part of the site that almost nobody visits anymore. I wrote a post about the ralan closure in 2023: https://compellingsciencefiction.com/posts/ralan.com-closes-... If you're looking for places to submit, https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ is now the…

I don't know how I ended up there! seconds later: oh, I clicked "original short stories" on the top of the page. and I have been thinking about trying to write some short stories myself and was immediately thinking "I wonder how I would go about submitting one somewhere" and then I saw that link...

Makes sense!

The entire section under "original short stories" is how the website used to look back when it was a science fiction magazine.

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