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Humorous Column by Dennis Latham: Ask The Smart Guy
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Our John K. Muir was recently honored by the New York Public
Library. His encyclopedia has been named one of their top ten
picks for excellence in a reference work. Congratulations,
John Muir! Check out John's
website
and his latest book (image below). Click on the image below for a special info page about John's achievement, along with link for Amazon.com (print/Kindle editions).
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Clocktower Books Museum Site Clocktower Books, a San Diego, CA small press imprint with unique ISBN Prefix 0-7433. See Wikipedia list, find 4 digit ISBN codes, 07433. The imprint Clocktower Books (John T. Cullen) continues publishing operations; currently not open to general submissions. Click the red logo to visit the CTB Museum, and read our voluminous publishing history since 1996, including the world's first professional, online-only SFFH magazine
. The Museum spells out the entire early history of our operation, starting with C&C Publishing (Brian Callahan and John T. Cullen) from April 1996. It includes the Deep Outside SFFH and Far Sector SFFH magazine decade 1998-2007.
Clocktower Books. Click for the separate website of
Clocktower Books, and also visit the author website of John T. Cullen (aka John Argo) at this link:
JTC.
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 Encyclopedia of Science Fiction See a listing for this magazine, along with a brief history as Deep Outside SFFH morphed into Far Sector SFFH (1998-2007). We made history, publishing both promising newbies and established names. Some had already won Nebulas and Sturgeons, or been nominated for Hugos, while others went on to win great awards. Among our many SFFH authors were (alfa order, partial list): Andrew Burt, Deborah Cannon, Joseph D'Lacey, Linda Dunn, Kameron Hurley, Jak Koke, Ted Kosmatka, Dennis Latham, Tim Pratt, A. L. Sirois, Justin Stanchfield, Paula R. Stiles, Melanie Tem, Andrew Vacchs, Pat York, and many more. The first story in 1998 and the last story in 2007 were both by A. L. Sirois. We were the first professional, SFWA rate paying, web-only online magazine of SFFH without print antecedents. We innovated, we dreamed, we had fun, and we closed shop when time was right.—John T. Cullen.
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Sorry, We Are Closed After a Wonderful Decade-Long Run. [Note: please pardon any broken links.] Until late 2012, when Barnes & Noble closed Fictionwise, you were able to read dozens of great sf/f/h speculative & dark fiction stories at our dedicated Fictionwise.com pages (defunct as of late 2012). Clocktower Books and Far Sector SFFH had their own dedicated page in addition to special hosted author pages and individual stories.
Payment: Historical Note. Deep Outside SFFH (1998-2001) began before Web commerce and is still online as such. We paid authors the professional SFWA wage up front, and published their stories free to read (since there was no e-commerce yet). With the switch to Far Sector SFFH (purely a continuation of the same magazine) we initiated a revolutionary (for magazines) new pay plan, with a small advance to the author, plus royalties ongoing for the duration of Fictionwise.
We published some of the most compelling web-original fiction from the Internet Platinum and Golden Ages when digital publishing was still embryonic, and anything seemed possible.
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About Our Fiction. While many of the original Deep Outside SFFH stories remain online to be read for free (since before e-commerce), our stories at Far Sector SFFH went offline with the closing of Fictionwise.com by Barnes & Noble in early 2012. Some have found their way to other publishers, including anthologies, printed or digital.
When we launched Far Sector SFFH in 2001 (as the continuation of Deep Outside SFFH, we innovated a dramatic new publishing model for short stories. All too often, we observed print magazines that launched with hooplah, lasted for one or two issues, and folded. It seemed that usually, these magazines were a collaborative effort of authors, who passed the hat around, and then the magazine pretended to pay them—a chronic dilemma we sought to avoid at all costs.
Forging these new trails, we paid authors regularly and faithfully 50% of the revenues we received from Fictionwise (which kept 50% of the list price). The money was peanuts for all of us (true of most category fiction) but the model worked. Proof of this was not only our long run, but the fact that many of our authors won any of the most famous prizes around the world in the SFFH category. That includes several Nebula/Hugo/Sturgeon nominees or awardees. Among their numbers: former SFWA Director Dr. Andrew Burt, Melanie Tem, Tim Pratt, SFWA Regional Director Linda Dunn, Dennis Latham, Deborah Cannon, Priscilla Y. O'Brien, the late Nebula-nominee Pat York, Ted Kosmatka, and many others. These fine authors signed up with us—the highest tribute possible, far more than acceptance by any establishment servomat whose Backwardians still subscribe to a 1930s print paradigm by which they were once Futurians, long ago. Today, the Far Sector SFFH stories are history since Fictionwise was, by design, our sole outlet. The authors too have moved on, but the glory remains. We were pioneers together.
(Continue Reading…)
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