tchernabyelo said...
At least, I think so.
"At this time, however, I am not issuing full purchase contracts due to
cash flow restrictions pending our May premier release. What I can
offer is a $20 option purchase to hold the story for 28 days, the $20
counting against the eventual contract purchase price"
First time I've come across this approach - I'm used to payments coming after publication (in some cases, a while after).
But so far as I can see, it's a sale. Time to go edit that sig again...
Call it a committment.
There are some things in the "way business is done" in genre periodicals that give me the heebie jeebies. One of them would be to leave people hanging in slush much more than a month. The other would be asking people to "wait" for a contract until my cash flow catches up with my desire to acquire.
My goal with Evolutions is to treat people fairly and up front. If I've got a cash flow issue (which I do as a result of pre-buying 3 issues worth of fiction, and yes, Gustavo, that means you get paid first before I buy any of the stories I'm picking up options on), and I run across some new items in the slush that I really want to include, then it seems to me that the fair thing to do is tell the truth and then offer people an an easier to swallow (for me) "option" payment to hold their stories until my cash flow allows me to purchase the story.
What that "option" payment represents is a decision on my part to purchase the story publication rights as soon as the cash comes in to cover the marker. As a good faith point, I make it clear that if I fail to come up with the cash after 28 days, the author gets to take their ball and go play elsewhere if they so choose with no hard feelings on my part and a $20 "thank you for giving me a chance" payout in their pocket.
Frankly, in the world which I've cut my teeth on (which is Tekno anthologies), my contracts always came with a check no matter what lag occurred between purchase and publication. Because of the virtual nature of Evolutions, I can't really do that. However, my goal is to get money to the authors as soon after they've returned the contract as possible.
I'm not going to ask anyone to wait until publication to be paid. That simply conflicts with my internal "professionalism" gauge. The "options" payout is a direct reflection of that policy when viewed in the context of cash flow pending release of our first issue on May 30, 2008.
Sorry for the drawn out answer. I just want everyone to know what this "option" bit is all about relative to full contracts.
Regards,
Darwin A. Garrison
Editor
Darwin's Evolutions: A Journal of Speculative Fiction
Debuting May 30, 2008!
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