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| Posted By : crystalwizard - 1/10/2008 12:54 PM | | when you receive a submission from an author, do you want them to include their bio, or would you prefer that they only sent it to you if you asked for it? |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 1/10/2008 1:38 PM | I know editors of both beliefs. Personally, I like to see some - not a mega list or paragraph - and not even particularly for the publications - but I am interested in the names of the editors who've previously accepted the author. I think there is much to be learned by this, and it holds much more import if I know the editor, or at least the work ethic/standards/reputation of that particular editor.
For examp - if you submit something to me and list that you've been accepted by Mr. Santa for one of his anthos, I can immediately credit you with being able to write a pretty decent tale - at least once. If I know nothing else about you, how can I do this? Simply because I know that Rob knows stories. He writes and recognizes quality tales. As he and I are pretty much in the same market and seem thus far to enjoy many of the same things, I can properly justify my being slightly more eager to read your tale than that of an author who submits a story that lists no credits or, even worse, lists credits at publications with editors I am less impressed with.
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| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 1/10/2008 1:48 PM | But, Jason, you're already reading their submission! So you're bound to soon find out for yourself if you'll like it or not.
I'm sometimes interested, because I'd like to know what kind of fan base they can draw on. If they've been published in prestigious markets I feel like they might have some name recognition that might translate to sales. If they're markets I've never heard of, then I pay it no mind.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 1/10/2008 1:49 PM | Yes, but anticipation baby! Sooner or later, all ya got is the twins of expectation and anticipation!
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| Posted By : erazmus - 1/10/2008 3:11 PM | I dislike including a bio, because they are a hassel to write. Do you realy want to know where I've lived or what I do for my money? Does anybody? A pub-list is fine, relevant and easy to produce. But does the fact that I've been married for twenty-four years and my adult age children still live at home with me really matter?
Most of my bios are so generic as to be pathetic, but occasionally I liven them up. Here's one I've been using lately:
Erazmus's bi said...
After helping to defeat the invasion of the Iguana-men in the Yucatan, narrowly escaping the wrath of an Aztec Mummy while vacationing in Mazitlan and surviving being shipwrecked on a dinosaur infested island in the south seas, Michael D. Turner settled down to a quieter life working and writing in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife of twenty-five years and three sons.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Slushpiles" in Between the Kisses
www.samsdotpublishing.com/betweenkisses/TurnerSlushPileS.htm |
| Posted By : Hermit - 1/10/2008 3:12 PM | This is one of the wonderful freedoms of having a 4tL markets: skip the bio until I ask for it. I'm more interested in the work as its own animal. Once I decide to have it over for a playdate with my journal, then I'll get to know the breeder and fostering person of the work. I've been beat over the head many times in emails castigating me for not including author bios, but it hasn't swayed me to use precious space for that.
I am flirting with the idea of having a feature each issue with a bio on the feature. But, in general, I still prefer to use page-space for verse and prose content. If I were to set up a hybrid (web-supported print journal), I would likely place the bios in the website and continue to omit it in the print version.
Read me soon in The Return of the Sword! |
| Posted By : Swashbuckler - 1/10/2008 3:29 PM | As an editor I'm only interested in the submitted work -- but as a reader and a writer, I find the bios helpful. They sometimes include markets I haven't heard of, and give me a chance to expand my reading and perhaps discover a new market to send stories to.
So, I don't mind if writers stick a bio on their subs.
Steve Goble
Visit my blog, Swords Against Boredom, for news on published fiction and upcoming stories. |
| Posted By : darkbow - 1/10/2008 3:48 PM | If I use any kind of bio, I try to make sure it is stuff relevant to my writing. I usually try to include a brief list of recent writing credits, but I'll even skip that if it's an editor I speak with or e-mail to on a regular basis (because I'll probably already have told them about any recent successes).
www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com
"Hot Off the Press" Ray Gun Revival #25, 2007.
"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" upcoming in the Flashing Swords anthology, "The Return of the Sword: A New Age of Heroic Adventure." |
| Posted By : HTKuehl - 1/10/2008 9:45 PM |
Erazmus's bi said...
After helping to defeat the invasion of the Iguana-men in the Yucatan, narrowly escaping the wrath of an Aztec Mummy while vacationing in Mazitlan and surviving being shipwrecked on a dinosaur infested island in the south seas, Michael D. Turner settled down to a quieter life working and writing in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife of twenty-five years and three sons.
Cute! I have a bio saved to my computer that's similar: Heather Kuehl is a writer of fantasy, horror, and the occasional science fiction. She is in cahoots with a library gnome and has to lock up her husband on the night of the full moon.
Then I add my website and that's that. If an editor says that they want a list of places I've been published, then I give them one. But other than that, this is what they get. 
"Learn to paint pictures with words." ~ Brian Jacques
"I never considered that I wouldn't make it. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. If I had known how hard it would be, I might have given up." ~ Kim Harrison
------------------------
Forthcoming:
"The Final Goodbye." Ruins Metropolis. Hadley Rille Books, 2008.
"Pluto: a Ghostly Planet With a Million Possibilities." The Drabbler Issue 10: Haunted Spaceports, 2008
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| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 1/10/2008 10:00 PM | Nice, Mike. We're trying to have a serious conversation here and you post that.
I like it.
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| Posted By : crystalwizard - 1/10/2008 11:27 PM | von Darkmoor said...
Nice, Mike. We're trying to have a serious conversation here and you post that.
I like it.
Why do you think he wasn't serious? |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 1/10/2008 11:46 PM | because everyone knows you can't settle down to a quiet life in Colorado Springs, CO!! Come on, CW! ;)
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| Posted By : tchernabyelo - 1/11/2008 6:51 AM | I dislike bio-writing intensely, and only produce on if expressly asked (which is usually on acceptance, not submission).
I use a brief cover letter which now mentions that I have sold stories to "a number of markets, including...", and the list is mainly the higher-end ones, though I sometimes tweak it to include markets with similar requirements to the one I'm submitting to.
In theory, I believe every story should be read "naked" (and I know of some magazines that do this), with no personal details or context whatsoever. However I can see that publicatoins want to attract readership, and a recognisable name can do that, so I would certainly expect most markets to jump on a "big name" story whether they liked it or not.
Brian Dolton
Yi Qin stories:
"The Box Of Beautiful Things" - IGMS#3
"The Man Who Was Never Afraid" - Abyss and Apex #20
"Where No Wind Blows" - Staffs & Starships #2 (forthcoming)
"At Blue Crane Falls" - Abyss and Apex (forthcoming) "What The Sea Refuses" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
"What The Heart Bears" - Black Gate (forthcoming)
Other Land Of Wind And Ghosts stories:
"The Dragon Path" - Fictitious Force (forthcoming)
"Three Out Of Four" - Sorcerous Signals (forthcoming)
Stories in other settings:
"The Unicorn Hunter" - OG's Speculative Fiction #8
"Call Centre" - Necrotic Tissue #1
"When Winter Came" - ASIM #32 (forthcoming)
"Cold Fire" - Flashing Swords #9 (forthcoming) |
| Posted By : Lyn - 1/11/2008 10:51 PM | LoL on the bio talk.
I prefer that a subber gives a 3 sentence bio with the story. And if I want more, I'll ask.
Lyn from ResAliens |
| Posted By : Rob Santa - 1/14/2008 10:14 PM | Truth be told, I couldn't care less about an author's bio or publishing history. It's the story that speaks for itself. So imagine my surprise when I asked for bios from authors whose work I accepted and found them to be rather well known (except by me of course, I must get out more often).
Rob Santa
Hopelessly Addicted Writer of Speculative Fiction
and CEO of Ricasso Press |
| Posted By : C.Cevasco - 1/16/2008 2:36 PM | I definitely don't need a "bio" per se (with all sorts of personal info), but I do like a short list of at least some of the author's prior publications, if any. If the author has attended a major writer's workshop, that's also something I'd be interested to know in the cover letter. The only time other personal info should be in the cover letter, in my opinion, is if the author has some unusual background or experience that gives the author some degree of expertise directly relevant to the story being submitted. But even that should be kept to a short sentence...
But, as Rob said above, the story must rise or fall on its own, regardless of what's in the cover letter or whether a cover letter is even included.
Chris
Christopher M. Cevasco, Editor/Publisher
Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction
http://www.paradoxmag.com |
| Posted By : crystalwizard - 1/17/2008 1:14 AM | My personal preference:
I don't want to see your credits. I don't want that to color my reaction to your submission and I don't pass that information on to my first readers.
I honestly don't care if you are someone that's never had anything published before, if your submission is the first thing you've ever written in your life, or you are actually Robert Silverberg trying on yet another pen name. All I care about is the submission you sent me. Is it written well? Does it hold my attention? Does it fit my target audience and will THEY enjoy reading it? Are you someone I can work with if it needs revisions? |
| Posted By : darkbow - 1/17/2008 4:50 AM | I'm with crystalwizard on this one. I feel the less I know about the writer, the better, because I'm then more likely to have an unbiased opinion about a given piece. Honestly, sometimes I'd prefer not to even know the name of an author when I'm reading slush, mainly because I might recognize the name. It's not that I'm more likely to let a known writer get away with a sub-par story, but just the opposite; I'm afraid I might be judging their piece too harshly. And, honestly, it sucks to get a story from someone you know and not like the story.
I'm sure it's no great shakes for the writer, either. Been there too.
www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com
"Hot Off the Press" Ray Gun Revival #25, 2007.
"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" upcoming in the Flashing Swords anthology, "The Return of the Sword: A New Age of Heroic Adventure." |
| Posted By : Lyn - 1/18/2008 2:06 PM | Ty, but now your talking anonymous subs. I'm not sure how that would work. I'll read slush from names I recognize whether or not they have a bio attached. Like CW, I'm not into credits in the bio, I just want a short blurb to know they are human. lol
Lyn from ResAliens |
| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 1/18/2008 2:10 PM | I'm not sure I agree entirely with this.
Purely from a business standpoint, big names attract readers. If you publish briliant stories by complete unknowns all the time, maybe you'll get noticed... maybe not. Surely, it will take your magazine much, much longer to grow.
Ignoring what kind of audience an author can attract is just bad business sense, in my opinion. That said, if the story is terrible, I reject it, but if two stories are identically good, I'll take the one from the more popular author every time.
SOMETIMES if I know that author A can deliver an audience of one (themselves) to the magazine, and author B can deliver thousands, I'll take author B's story even if it's slightly worse than author A's.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : MichaelEhart - 1/18/2008 4:14 PM | You know, Mike, I'm with you. But I do get tired of crutching those two slackers Hank and Rick. :)
Buy my book!
The Servant of the Manthycore available Nov. 17th from DEP
Illustrated by Rachel Marks, with an introduction by Michael Moorcock
Read me in 2007!
"The View From the Shotglass Floor" Ray Gun Revival, Feb 2007
"Voice of the Spoiler" The Sword Review, June 2007
"Servant of the Manthycore" The Sword Review, July 2007
"Darkling I Listen; and for Many a Time" Fear and Trembling, coming soon!
"Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" The Sword Review, August 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, Summer 2007
"Nothing But Our Tears" The Sword Review, September 2007
"Night of Shadows, Night of Knives" Magic and Mechanica, Fall 2007
"The Scarlet Colored Beast" The Sword Review, October 2007
"The Stars by Law, Forbidden" Unparalleled Journeys II, November 2007
"Who Comes for the Mother's Fruit" Every Day Fiction, November 2007
"Stand, Stand, Shall They Cry" Flashing Swords, November 2007
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| Posted By : darkbow - 1/18/2008 9:41 PM | Jordan,
I agree with you from an editor's pov, but as I'm just a slush reader, I don't have to worry so much about a big name author coming along. That's cw's job, in my opinion.
But still, even if a Stephen King short story dropped into my reading files, I'd try to judge it not based upon the author. If the story should stink, then it stinks. It might still be worth running if you consider the author's name, but will all those thousands of new readers you get stick with you if they know you've published garbage? Even if it were from King? I doubt it. Some of your old ones would probably stick around, but not too many of the ones who showed up just for the King story.
www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com
"Hot Off the Press" Ray Gun Revival #25, 2007.
"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" upcoming in the Flashing Swords anthology, "The Return of the Sword: A New Age of Heroic Adventure." |
| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 1/18/2008 9:59 PM | I'll just go on record here and say that I'll publish anything that Steven King cares to send me.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 1/18/2008 10:20 PM | LOL! Naturally, we'd need to pad that King bum with some real writers.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : Jordan Lapp - 1/19/2008 4:09 AM | Mr. King, if you're reading this, I will publish anything you write. Just, you know, prove you are who you say you are on the submission form.
Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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| Posted By : kaolin fire - 6/25/2008 11:15 PM | crystalwizard said...
when you receive a submission from an author, do you want them to include their bio, or would you prefer that they only sent it to you if you asked for it?
As far as a bio, GUD leaves that attached to the author as opposed to the work... but the author is always welcome to add a cover letter to the submissions because some folks are simply hard wired to do such. Typically a cover letter is less well put together than the submission itself (and rightly so), but that does at times color reading the submission.
Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine - literary + genre fiction, poetry, art, and articles
(see our submission guidelines) |
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