2010 - 03/2010 Meeting
Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/29/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 08/02/10.
NEIL CLARKE
Neil Clarke is the Editor/Publisher of Clarkesworld Magazine.
Link:
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: March 13, 2010.
Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center/
Official Attendance: 20.
Meeting Program: Talk by On Line Magazine Editor / Publisher.
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2010 Philip J De Parto:
It was a dark on stormy night on Saturday, March 13, 2010. Shortly before setting out, I received a call from Chuck Garofalo notifying me that the waters of Wayne were rising again and that he and the refreshments would not be making the meeting. I quickly gathered up any unopened goodies and drinks in the house. They joined the animation (in case Rich and Linda didn't make it) and an assortment of videos (in case Neil Clarke didn't make it).
To my surprise, all of the above (except Chuck) made it in on schedule. We had to put out some pans to catch water dripping from the roof, and we canceled Ice Nine because everyone wanted to watch the JUSTICE LEAGUE pre meeting video, but the bad weather turnout floored me.
Editor / publisher Neil Clarke of the online publication, CLARKESWORLD MAGAZINE, was our guest. Mr Clarke talked about his magazine and the state of paper and electronic magazines in general.
Neil Clarke first discovered science fiction through a collection of books donated to him as a child by a cousin. One of the books was the classic science fiction anthology, ADVENTURES IN TIME AND SPACE. Once he read it he was hooked.
Mr Clarke's day job is developing educational technology for schools and universities. This includes integrating on line learning into the classroom. Before the advent of the world wide web, our speaker was doing electronic bulletin boards.
The first incarnation of CLARKESWORLD was as an on line bookstore. The business was a success, but not enough of a success to hire someone else to do the grunt work. Our guest burned out from the little things like packing and shipping boxes of books. Several rooms in his house are still filled with store inventory.
As the bookstore began to wind down, he launched a new venture as a book publisher. Neil Clarke had devised an audacious business plan. The Clarkesworld bookseller website became CLARKESWORLD MAGAZINE. The magazine would pay top dollar (.10 per word) for world, electronic, podcast and first reprint rights. The business would actually make its money from book sales of stories from CLARKESWORLD. The magazine essentially functions as advertising for the reprint books.
It is no easy task to make it into CLARKESWORLD. Between 700 and 800 stories vie for the two magazine slots each month. Our guest recently began accepting longer (8000 word) stories, but feels that too many (continued in June newsletter).
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2010 Philip J De Parto:
In addition to the Realms series of reprint anthologies of stories from CLARKESWORLD, the company also makes money through donations. Depending upon the amount of the gift, one can become a minion. noble or overlord of the realm. Donations fund the equivalent of two issues per year.
Neil Clarke said that the best way to make it into the magazine is to write strong paragraphs. He stated that many authors got sloppy when he doubled the maximum word count for submissions fro 4000 to 8000 words. They no longer honed and polished their work to the same degree as they had in the past,.
Another mistake writers make is that they ignore the magazine's guidelines. The list is not presented as a challenge to be surmounted, but as a filter to weed out stories he does not want to see. If the guidelines say no steampunk zombie pirate stories, do not send him a steampunk zombie pirate story. He will probably remember the name of the author and be prejudiced against future stories by him.