So you want to become a publisher, uh?
May. 10th, 2003 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slashbluegreenAm I still working on the zine? What zine?! OH you mean that zine...
MAS-Zine issue #3 Strappado de luxe.
Otherwise known as Pure Torture!!
1. Whhaaaaaaggggg!!!!
2. Don't give bonus point to authors who finish on time - at least don't automatically accept the story. Give them chocolate but be firm on having them do the rewrite.
3. If you as foreigner with an adequate education in the English Language can't understand the senctence it is probably grammatically wrong even if the writer is a native english speaker.
4. If you read something that makes you flash back to your Sesame Street lessons, ask the author if this was intended. If she doesn't know what you're talking about or if this happens more than once in a text then it is not supposed to be a stylistic element. Your author simply missed some essential Sesame Street Lessons in life.
5. Get an editor.
6. No, get two. Be grateful - they're the only ones standing between you and MADNESS.
Ask them their opinion before you accept a story.
7. Don't call your editions/issues something like Spring or Autumn. Call them #3 or #4.
By now you know why.
8. Learn to say "No, thank you. Please try again after a rewrite."
That's only nine words.
9. Don't lie about the reasons for rejection.
Although the page count is always a good excuse.
10. Don't get paranoid and start surfing to peoples' livejournals - you'll
find them bitching that it took you over a month to choose between 40 odd
stories for a 200 pages printed mag with illustrations. While you were doing the layout for a 500 pages mag on the side. And work full hours.
11. Don't bother with coordination mailing-lists. The only one coordinating something on them is yourself - everyone else has already gone to the No Email status.
12. Don't do two mags at the same time and work full hours. Get suspicious if you babble about the nice weather as if it's something special. Can it be you don't go outside anymore??
13. Realize how beneficial ignorance can be.
14. Get a thicker hide.
MAS-Zine issue #3 Strappado de luxe.
Otherwise known as Pure Torture!!
1. Whhaaaaaaggggg!!!!
2. Don't give bonus point to authors who finish on time - at least don't automatically accept the story. Give them chocolate but be firm on having them do the rewrite.
3. If you as foreigner with an adequate education in the English Language can't understand the senctence it is probably grammatically wrong even if the writer is a native english speaker.
4. If you read something that makes you flash back to your Sesame Street lessons, ask the author if this was intended. If she doesn't know what you're talking about or if this happens more than once in a text then it is not supposed to be a stylistic element. Your author simply missed some essential Sesame Street Lessons in life.
5. Get an editor.
6. No, get two. Be grateful - they're the only ones standing between you and MADNESS.
Ask them their opinion before you accept a story.
7. Don't call your editions/issues something like Spring or Autumn. Call them #3 or #4.
By now you know why.
8. Learn to say "No, thank you. Please try again after a rewrite."
That's only nine words.
9. Don't lie about the reasons for rejection.
Although the page count is always a good excuse.
10. Don't get paranoid and start surfing to peoples' livejournals - you'll
find them bitching that it took you over a month to choose between 40 odd
stories for a 200 pages printed mag with illustrations. While you were doing the layout for a 500 pages mag on the side. And work full hours.
11. Don't bother with coordination mailing-lists. The only one coordinating something on them is yourself - everyone else has already gone to the No Email status.
12. Don't do two mags at the same time and work full hours. Get suspicious if you babble about the nice weather as if it's something special. Can it be you don't go outside anymore??
13. Realize how beneficial ignorance can be.
14. Get a thicker hide.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-09 08:36 pm (UTC)About the Pirates...
Are you overloaded with space pirates yet?
I had inspiration. In the shower, natch.
Space Pirates
Date: 2003-07-10 05:08 am (UTC)But I had fun. OK looking back now I can say I had fun -- when I didn't have the daily hysterical hairpulling spell.
Space Pirates under the shower, that sounds yummy.
:-)
Gimmy!
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-10 10:20 am (UTC)When does the Pure Torture zine come out, btw, and what fandom(s) is it?
Hint taken on the chocolate, Angel. Just tell us where to send it. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-10 10:25 am (UTC)As I understand (correct me) this zine is purely OC.
OC space pirates here I come!
(And don't worry about the chocolate, just send the transfer for my shirt...)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-11 08:06 am (UTC)as long as you don't *all* claim that Pirates of the C. has inspirated you... Haven't seen it but it can't be the world's best movie.
I ordered myself a pagelimit for this issue to have a life left worth living so you a) will have lots of competition and b)originality wins with me every time.
Just a few tips:
Give me some twists! I like biting in my printout copy and I adore stories that make me call in sick at work.
Make it a believable world and I'm purring at your feet.
Leave out anything even remotely smacking of History à la Disney unless you write humor.
That means no inbuild jacuzzi and panorama window in the captain's cabin unless it's a contemporay/futuristic story (or humor).
No fake accents. Agghh. Make that no accents. Unless you're famed for your accent writing skills. Same with Olde English.
Still with me?
MAS-Zine goes Pirates! (http://www.mas-zine.com/en/submission.htm)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-11 08:37 am (UTC)So far no jacuzzi or panoramic view. Just pornographic holosolitaire, flux capacitors and hand-held lasers bouncing off belt-mounted personal shields.
And the closest thing I have to an accent is the "Big Dumb Brute" act one of the crew does to intimidate the passengers. (He comes off dumb enough that victims are never sure if he realizes they aren't food)
Hwaet! Nict fama and Glitenode and gladode godlice geld? Nolden Koening thu!
I know, I know, nobody likes a smart-ass (What! No fame and glittering shining goodly gold? What a lousy king you are!) I do understand that you don't want "Ye Oldde Fysshe and Chippes Shoppe." It'd be more of a problem if I were writing in a historical milieu.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-11 09:02 am (UTC)I think even writing in a historical milieu one can do without letting characters speak with an oldde fysshe accent.
"He had an atrocious backwater accent, one could hardly understand him for his lisp!"
That ususally give the reader a much better idea (and they still can read the text upside down in the bathtub without mouthing it out loud.
Then there is the discussion if we can even *know* what kind of accent they spoke in historical times... I mean we don't have any means of getting a phonetic record and who says that they spoke as the letters and texts that survived?
I think english without obvious modernisms works best.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-13 06:00 pm (UTC)I have a couple of het couples on the crew.
(It's just mentioned they're paired and that they share quarters.) Since these are bit players, there will be no onscreen snogging, let alone more.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-14 01:08 am (UTC)Just please don't write a long and detail het sex scene.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-30 03:03 pm (UTC)*itches*
But there is no way I could pull it off this summer with my schedule. =( Ah well! It's a cool idea tho! Two brothers, the elder is in the Royal Navy the other is a successful pirate, with a Voodoo queen for a wife, who wants his brother under his thumb...
muahahahhahahha
*adds you to friends list*
Strappado de luxe
Date: 2003-07-11 08:10 am (UTC)Available via www.mas-zine.com (http://www.mas-zine.com) or Agent with Style or Secret Pleasures (links on www.mas-zine.com)and on several conventions.