TODAY’S THE DAY! CG’s anthology Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy tales of challenging the norm is now available!

Wrapping up our series of the authors’ personal experiences with subversion is Camille Alexa, whose story “And All Its Truths” appears in Subversion. In the following video she talks about the very best purses for carrying… the necessities!

You can go here to pick up a copy of Subversion!

And here is a playlist with all the author book trailers for Subversion!

Just ONE WEEK FROM TODAY, Crossed Genres releases our anthology Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy tales of challenging the norm!

Continuing the series of the authors’ personal experiences with subversion is Timothy T. Murphy, whose story “Received Without Content” appears in Subversion. In the following video he talks about campus activism.

Subversion will be released on Monday, December 5! We’ll share one more video of an author’s subversive story that day!

Earlier Videos:
Jessica Reisman: Perspective
Kay T. Holt: The Pajama Revolution!
Barbara Krasnoff: Three Stories

It’s just two weeks until Crossed Genres releases our anthology Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy tales of challenging the norm!

Continuing the series of the authors’ personal experiences with subversion is Jessica Reisman, whose story “A Thousand Wings of Luck” appears in Subversion. In the following video she talks about a 5-year-old’s “Perspective”.

Subversion will be released on Monday, December 5! More videos of authors’ subversive stories will be released each week until then!

Earlier Videos:
Kay T. Holt: The Pajama Revolution!
Barbara Krasnoff: Three Stories

It’s just three weeks until Crossed Genres releases our anthology Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy tales of challenging the norm!

Continuing the series of the authors’ personal experiences with subversion is Kay T. Holt, whose story “Parent Hack” appears in Subversion. In the following video she tells about her office subversion in “The Pajama Revolution”.

Subversion will be released on Monday, December 5! More videos of authors’ subversive stories will be released each week until then!

Here’s a sneak peek at the cover!

Table of Contents:
“La Gorda and the City of Silver” by Sabrina Vourvoulias
“The Tradeoff” by Lauren Teffeau
“Cartography, and the Death of Shoes” by AJ Fitzwater
“Survivor” by Josh Roseman
“The Right Stuffed” by Brian Jungwiwattanaporn
“Tangwystl the Unwanted” by Katharine Elmer
“Flesh of My Flesh” by Bonnie Ferrante
“How Do You Want To Die?” by Rick Silva
“Nemesis” by Nicole Prestin
“Davy” by Anna Dickinson
“Sharks & Seals” by Jennifer Brozek
“Marilee and the SOB” by Barbara Krasnoff
“Blueprints” by Anna Caro
“Lift” by Pete ‘Patch’ Alberti

It’s less than a month until Crossed Genres releases our anthology Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy tales of challenging the norm!

We thought we’d share some of the authors’ personal experiences with subversion. First in the series is Barbara Krasnoff, whose story “The Red Dybbuk” appears in Subversion. In the following video she tells three stories from her own life: “:”Magazine Ethics”, “College Interview” and “School Days”.

Subversion Will be released on Monday, December 5! More videos of authors’ subversive stories will be released each week until then!

For the big, close-out issue (#36), CG wants work exploring what it means to be DIFFERENT – who and what decides or defines our differences, and why; what sets us apart and how can differences bring us together?

For this issue, we are open to all types of media. Previously we haven’t accepted poetry, or podcasts, or photography; now we are. We’ll even consider longer or shorter pieces of writing. (maximum 10,000 words though!) This will make the final issue – well, different from anything we’ve published before.

And we’re looking for as diverse a body of submissions as possible to choose from! We want submissions with characters of color, quiltbag characters, disabled characters, elderly or child M/C’s. We want underrepresented perspectives!

If you’re a writer, an artist, a photographer – if you have something you think will help us portray Different – please consider sending it in. Help us to make the final issue of Crossed Genres Magazine something truly special – help us close it out with a BANG!

Tomorrow is also the last day that we’re taking submissions for issue 35 of Crossed Genres Magazine: DARK COMEDY. Give your sense of humor teeth – and let them bite something in the ass. More on the Current Genre page.

The hair will be donated to Wigs For Kids. Go read the post & let him know if you’ll buy a copy of Broken Slate this Friday to turn him bald!

Go here to watch the video and ask a question!

Despite this, yesterday we received a short story submission. It was sent through the form, which means the author either completely missed the obvious message or ignored it. At any rate, this morning we sent back a short reply:

As it states clearly above the submission form, Crossed Genres Magazine is closed to submissions during the month of April.

And about one hour later, the author sent back this reply:

As my actions state in with far more clarity, I don’t give a fuck.

We were under the impression that when someone sends us a story, they hope to get it published. Clearly in this instance that’s not the case, since this author is obviously trying to guarantee that we’ll never publish them.

We received the following email in response to this post (reprinted with no changes):

Bart,

I looked at your page again to see how i missed such a clearly stated fact, that appears as you put it, “above the submission form”. Maybe the problem is that you don’t know the difference between ABOVE and BELOW.

You should have gotten snotty with whoever placed that notification BELOW the submission form, not me. In case you’re unaware, most website pages are read from the top down. Look at your submissions page, genius. First comes all the info you need, then there’s the submission form, and after you’ve pressed that button and you’re going through the trouble to submit something to a snotty fuck like yourself, the notice you claim sits above everything still waits on the bottom of the last page visited. It’s in the wrong place, dickface…

To be clearly stated, a statement must appear in the right place. A street-sign laying in the bushes might read perfectly well, bit it is not clearly marking any street, is it?

So eat a dick as punishment for that snotty letter. That’s your penance.

However, since we switched to the quarterly format for our print editions, things are a bit different. And after crunching some numbers we’ve found that, if there’s enough initial interest, we may finally be able to offer print subscriptions!

We would need a fair number of people to sign up at the beginning, so we’d like to hear if this is something you’d jump on:

1 year of Crossed Genres Magazine: 4 quarterly print editions, mailed to you. Each quarterly contains all the online content, plus exclusive content only available in the quarterly print & ebook releases. You would get a full year of CGM, and then some.

We’re looking at a price point around $30, shipping included. This is US-only – unfortunately we’ve yet to figure out a way to do international shipping for a reasonable price. We’ll keep working on international options!

So please tell us, in the comments, on Twitter or via email, if you’d buy a subscription like the one described above. If enough people express interest, we’ll make it happen!

UPDATE 10:30am, 3/25/11: There’s been some decent interest so far – we’d still like to hear from you! There’s also been some interest expressed in an ebook subscription, so let us know what you think of:

1 Year of Crossed Genres Magazine: 4 quarterly ebook editions. The exact same material as the print editions described above, but as ebooks. Each issue would come in 7 different ebook formats (EPUB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PDF and PRC) covering pretty much every ebook reader, tablet, mobile, and computer. Each quarter we would email you a Dropbox link that would let you download the new Quarterly. This would be at a price point of about $10 for the whole year.

Obviously the ebook subscription would be a good alternative for international readers. Interested? Let us know!

“These are excellent and entertaining stories. All are well-written and could even be a guide for aspiring authors who are wondering what sort of stories could help get them published in contemporary speculative magazines. The folks at Crossed Genres tend to focus on powerful writing. Often, the mood takes over the story itself and is driven home by the prose.”

Griffiths touches briefly on each story in the anthology. It’s a good review! Go here to read the entire review.

(And for those interested, the ebook of Crossed Genres Year Two is half its original price now: only $1.99!)

I met Patrick Rothfuss at Daisho Con last November. He was very approachable; while some of the other guests were happy to do their panels and return to their rooms, Pat lingered. When my friend Chris asked him to join our group for dinner at Perkin’s, he accepted. Later, he and I sat in the Ramada’s lobby and shot the breeze for a couple hours.

Mr. Rothfuss leads a busy life, especially so over the last few months – as his blog will attest. He has been very busy with writing, a charity project (all proceeds going to Heifer International), preparing for a signing tour, and caring for his family. In the midst of all this, he found a little time to let me impose on his schedule just to hang out and chat over tea.

In one of our early conversations, Pat mused on writing high fantasy. Without quoting directly, the effect of what he said was this: high fantasy is two or three generations down from Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings, which set a standard that has been imitated ever since. One of Rothfuss’s goals in writing The Kingkiller Chronicles was to deviate from that, and one of the key areas was how money is dealt with in the story. Tolkien never mentions money because, as a member of the upper class, discussing money was tacky. In The Name of The Wind, money is a huge factor in the story, and has critical effects on the plot.

With attention to detail like this, how could I not want to pick this man’s brain?

On my last visit, I mentioned my lovely CG editor had asked if he’d be willing to do a short interview.

Pat agreed.

Here are the results.

1) In any series, each book has a certain ‘feel’ to its story — either a shift in theme for each book, or a shift in focus for that arc of the story. How would you describe the difference in feel between The Name of The Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear?

The first book was the story of a young boy. The second book is the story of a young man. There’s a big difference between the two. In Name of the Wind, Kvothe was mostly trying to survive. In The Wise Man’s Fear, he’s more in control of his life, that means the story can focus more on exploration and discovery.

Another big difference is in the scope of the story. You see more of the world. You experience more of the culture. There’s more action. More sex. More violence.

2) In which ways have the events of your life shaped The Kingkiller Chronicles?

Care to narrow that down a bit? That’s sort of like saying, “So, you’re a man. How has that influenced your life?”

2a) Are there specific experiences in your life which are reflected in the story of The Kingkiller Chronicles?

Specific experiences? No. I’ve read books that do that sort of thing, and they’re usually awful. Stories where the author is obviously working out some of their personal issues rarely turn out well in my opinion.

Now the truth is, writing is a great way to deal with a lot of difficult emotional issues. It can be very therapeutic, but that’s best done in your journal, or on your blog if you’re an exhibitionist. Trying to put a bunch of *specific* stuff from your personal life into your story usually just isn’t appropriate unless you’re writing a memoir or a personal essay or something of the sort.

But do I use *general* experiences from my own life? Of course. That’s what being a writer is all about. It’s easier to write about heartbreak after you’ve had your heart broken. You have more material to draw from, you can extrapolate from your own experiences and make reasonable assumptions about how your characters would feel and act.

The key here is the extrapolation. If a girl named Jenny broke your heart and slept with your best friend, you shouldn’t try to map that experience directly into your story. You don’t want your main character to meet a girl named Genny who sleeps with his best friend. Odds are, you’re too emotionally tied up in that experience to do a good job integrating it into the story. Eight times of ten it will end up feeling maudlin and self-pitying. Or worse, the author will turn it into a revenge fantasy. Neither of those is good for the story.

Instead, you want to take what you know about the emotions involved, and use that to enrich your story. You want to incorporate the general experiences in your life, because those are appealing to a wide audience. Everyone knows about heartbreak. But the specific experiences you have are generally only appealing to you.

Again. I’m talking about fiction here. Not memoir.

3) When you sit down to write something new, do you have a method for dealing with a Blank Page?

I just had to come to grips with this two days ago when I sat down to write the introduction for the new Penny Arcade book. They wanted something between 1500-2000 words. That’s nothing to me. I can write that much before breakfast. I thought it would be easy…

But it wasn’t. I’m new to writing introductions, so I really didn’t know where to start. I put it off for a while. But that’s not a coping mechanism. That’s avoidance.

Eventually I went in and flailed around. I made a total mess of it. I wrote one beginning that didn’t work. Abandoned it. Then I wrote another beginning and it worked okay. It opened the door for me and I wrote a pretty good 1300 words.

The next day I went back in, deleted some stuff, fixed a few problems, and put a whole different beginning on the piece.

The secret is this. You don’t have to get it right the first time. Odds are you won’t get it right the first time. But that doesn’t matter. What you need to do is start writing so you can get your fuck-ups out of the way and get on to the good writing.

4) You have mentioned at con panels that writers block is a myth. Where does the myth stem from, and how does it surface in your own writing habits?

The myth stems from the belief that writing is some mystical process. That it’s magical. That it abides by its own set of rules different from all other forms of work, art, or play.

But that’s bullshit. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block. Teachers don’t get teacher’s block. Soccer players don’t get soccer block. What makes writing different?

Nothing. The only difference is that writers feel they have a free pass to give up when writing is hard.

As for the second part of your question, asking how it surfaces in my writing habits is like saying. “So, you’ve said that Bigfoot doesn’t exist…. When’s the last time you saw him?”

When writing is hard, I grit my teeth and I do it anyway. Because it’s my job.

Or sometimes I don’t. Sometimes its hard and I quit and go home and play video games.

But let’s be clear. When that happens, it’s not because I’ve lost some mystical connection with my muse. It’s because I’m being a slacker. There’s nothing magical about that.

5) What are some examples of things you’ve put into (or left out of) The Kingkiller Chronicles to set it apart from the rest of the high fantasy genre?

Before I started writing, I made a list of all the things that I was really tired of seeing in fantasy novels. I wish I still had that list.

Let me see if I can remember what was on it…

Long bouts of tedious description/narration.

An evil wizard who is trying to enslave everyone or destroy the world.

Gods who are obviously just versions of Greek/Egyptian gods with their names changed.

The hero who is chosen by destiny to fulfill the prophecy because he is the one with the destiny foretold by prophecy.

The revenge-driven hero.

The reluctant hero.

Any character endlessly agonizing over some event in their past.

A villain who is supposed to be threatening, but who just flails ineffectually at the hero.

A villain who just taunts the hero endlessly but never does anything.

Elf with a bow. Dwarf with an axe.

Goblin Army.

“Good” and “Evil”

The list goes on and on….

6) You begin a signing tour in March to promote The Wise Man’s Fear.  What are you most looking forward to about this adventure?

I always enjoy meeting my readers. For me, that’s one of the best parts of being a writer. So much of the writing process is solitary, it’s almost isolationist. I spend months, years even, alone in a quiet room trying to get everything in the book just perfect. Some days I might not speak more than a couple sentences to another human being. That’s hard if you’re a social person.

When I do readings and signings it’s a different experience entirely. I get to talk with people, answer their questions, and generally just hang out and have a good time. At that point, I’ve done all the hard work, and I’m doing the equivalent of showing off my baby to people.

That said, I know some authors who aren’t comfortable in that setting. But I have a strong social element in my personality, and I enjoy public speaking. I was a teacher for a long time. I did improv comedy back in the day. That makes these public appearances a lot of fun for me. I think they’re fun for the fans, too.

7) Do you have any writing advice for aspiring authors?

The best advice is the simplest: Write.

The more you write, the more you’ll develop your craft. Nothing teaches more than experience.

Everyone gives that advice though. I’d like to add something to it: Think.

Just writing, just putting words down one after another…. It isn’t enough. You need to actually think about what you’re doing. You need to analyze your process. You need to look hard at the books you love and figure out why they work. How they work.

If you think your stuff is always brilliant, that’s a big problem. If you think your stuff always sucks, that’s no good either. You need achieve critical objectivity when evaluating your work. You need to be able to point at a part of your story and say, “This isn’t working right” then you need to try and figure out why….

Oh, and if I were you, I’d pick up one of those uninterruptible power supplies for your computer. Nothing sucks more than having an amazing six-hour writing jag, then having the power in your neighborhood flicker and your computer crashes.

You can get one for 80 bucks at Best Buy. Totally worth it.

Patrick’s Books can be found at Powell’s Books or at Amazon

Our overall experience was a good one; while we didn’t make much money, we did okay, met and re-met some great people, and had fun.

There’s one thing in particular that we thought was worth noting about our experience, and that’s that CG had one thing in the dealer’s room no one else had: Ebooks.

Now, several of the other publishers at the con do sell ebook editions of their publications. But apparently, none of them thought to bring that format to a convention. Crossed Genres was the ONLY dealer in the entire Hucksters Room that was prepared to sell ebooks to customers, on the spot, so they could start reading immediately on their smartphone, tablet or laptop. It was easy to set up: we just pre-arranged some emails with attachments, emailed them to ourselves, and whenever someone bought one, we forwarded it to them. Simple, right? We were the only ones doing it.

We also were offering a deal at the convention: Every ebook we had available for $20. That’s 9 monthly issues, the new Quarterly #1, CG Year One, CG Year Two, and RJ Astruc’s novel A Festival of Skeletons – over 450,000 words bundled together. It’s a good deal, over 35% off the books’ regular ebook prices.

The quasi-prominent marketing of our ebooks, plus the special deal we were offering, resulted in something we hadn’t really expected: 45% of the total revenue we took in at Boskone was from ebooks.

That is, frankly, astounding to us – that’s a significantly higher percentage than our usual ebook sales (though the special probably accounts for that difference). But the fact that we were able to sell such a significant percentage of ebooks, in person at a convention, tells me that there’s a big opening for this – just as with non-direct book sales, there is room for ebook sales alongside the traditional print sales even at conventions. In fact, a few of the other dealers there commented that they’d noticed how well our ebooks had sold and gotten attention, and admitted that they were thinking about following our lead at future conventions. One or two even asked for details of how we’d arranged the sales, which we were happy to provide.

So if you’re an avid ebook fan, keep your eyes open for ebook deals at conventions. And if your favorite publishers don’t have ebooks ready-to-sell at their table… ask them why!

The first Quarterly issue of Crossed Genres released on Friday. Officially, it released at Boskone, under the tender care of its publishers, Kay Holt and Bart Leib. Sadly, I’m told that no rockets, ballistae, rubber bands or other implements of actual high-rate acceleration were employed. Worry not, I’ve already made some calls about next time.

While Natania Barron and I have actually released three issues (with a fourth just around the corner), this marks the transition to a new way of business.

As with any project, there have been challenges. Handing over something as complicated as a magazine without even a single break in the schedule is no easy task. Add to that format changes, new contracts and the usual knots and snarls of re-aligning the stars for more auspicious results, and yes, we’ve stumbled a few times. That just makes me all the more proud of what we’ve got here.

They say that China is cultured, but not civilized, and America is just the opposite. -Ken Liu and Shelly Li, Saving Face

I couldn’t be more proud of the stories in this issue. There’s a depth here that I never expected to find. That’s the joy of a magazine like this. We’re not limited to just horror or fantasy or elves riding unicorns to fight the Dark One ™. We get to play with all the cool toys. A dragon in London. A meeting of prejudice and pride between two cultures with similar goals, betrayal and sacrifice. Sword and Sorcery, modern horror, Bizarro, alternative pasts leading to terrible futures.

Besides the fiction that’s been posted online in the monthly issues, there are three new stories in here, exclusive to the Quarterly. There’s also an interview with Maurice Broaddus, and a short, brutal nonfiction piece from Gabrijel Savic Ra, about a very real tragedy. The quotes in this blog post are from stories found in the Quarterly.

 “Well…” Hethen shrugged. “How’s a messenger’s name going to last more than two generations, anyway? No one remembers messengers. Only the message.” -Therese Arkenberg, The Halcyon in Flight

I’m a firm believer in lines and edges and borders. As we’ve stated many a time, we want fiction that goes beyond that circle of light in the center of the room. Beyond the ring of shadows. Beyond the encroaching darkness. We want fiction that dangles its feet over the edge of the world and asks ‘but what’s down there?’

Hopefully we’ve succeeded.

-Jaym Gates
Crossed Genres Editor

The reviewer seems particularly impressed with Sabrina Vourvoulias’ “Flying With the Dead” from our Characters of Color issue:

I can’t begin to summarize in a way that does it justice, but it’s filled with the hope and bitterness and fear tied in the issue of illegal immigration, the common and not-so-common humanity of the people involved, and wrapped in a wonderful, winged ending. It doesn’t make the world any better, obviously, but it’s warmth in an otherwise cold place. It’s quite possibly the best place to end the anthology: with ghosts whispering promises.

The editors have clearly had a successful year.

Overall it’s an extremely positive review and we’re very, very pleased with it. So pleased, we spontaneously decided to offer Crossed Genres Year Two for 25% off as a “Thank you”!

• Purchase the print edition from Createspace & add the code ARAHAUJH for 25% off: just $7.50!
• The ebook bundle* is 25% off in our store right now: only $2.99!

The sale will last through Saturday, January 8. Thanks to all our supporters, and to The Portal for the review!

* Zipped bundle contains 7 DRM-free formats: EPUB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PDF and PRC.

- – - - – -

- A print ARC of RJ Astruc’s novel A Festival of Skeletons
- A print copy of our second anthology, Crossed Genres Year Two
- A print copy of our first anthology, Crossed Genres Year One
- 5 postcards with the cover art for A Festival of Skeletons

What a package! All can be yours free! All you have to do is post to your site or blog about my call for genre fiction reviewers, with a link to the original post. A tweet counts, too. Both is better! (but doesn’t double your chances of winning, sorry!)

When you’ve posted and/or tweeted, email a link to your post/tweet to reviews-at-crossedgenres-dot-com. That’s it! Noon tomorrow I’ll randomly select someone for the package.

Let’s see those posts and tweets! Open to U.S. and international – all welcome!

For more info please read the original post.

As of this issue, we’ve published 137 stories from 118 authors; 41 works of art from 30 artists; 19 articles; and 13 interviews.

Publishing a magazine is a marathon, especially the way we do it: Accept submissions one month, do all the work the following month, and release the issue on the 1st of the next month. Had we realized that Crossed Genres was by its very nature destined for such a fast-paced turnaround… well, we’d probably have done it anyway, because anything else wouldn’t be Crossed Genres.

When CG was first conceived, we never envisioned anything more. We didn’t think that we’d be publishing novels, or running a science blog, or hosting contests, or even putting out yearly anthologies. We thought the magazine would be more than enough – heck, we didn’t really even think past reaching the end of the first year. Lost of zines close after just an issue or two, and we were only focused on not being one of those.

CG has been far more than just the work that went into it, or the resulting publications. We’ve met some of our best friends through this work. Our wonderful Associate Editor Kelly Jennings, and the magazine’s new editors Jaym Gates and Natania Barron, were all published in our issues well before they became part of CG. Despite all the work and struggles, controversies, and loss of money (yes, still), This has been one of the most rewarding things we have ever done. The pleasure – the privilege – of finding out we’d selected a story to print from a previously unpublished author will stay with us forever, and we’re proud of how often that’s happened.

Handing over the reins of the magazine is difficult, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that we’re freeing ourselves up to make the whole of CG bigger, better, more badass. Rather than being sad, we’re immensely grateful to have the opportunity to create something and then send it out to endure beyond our governance.

To everyone who has supported Crossed Genres these first two years, thank you. Next year will be even better.

Best,

Bart & Kay
Crossed Genres Editors (12/2008 to 11/2010)

ARTWORK:
Cover: “Long Walk” by Wilson Williams Jr.
Inside: “Regal” by Grace D. Palmer

FICTION:
Flying With the Dead by Sabrina Vourvoulias
Protected Entity by Daniel José Older
Drag Queen Astronaut by Sandra McDonald
Presence by Barbara Ann Wright
Sy Nebula and the Dream Tosser by Angela Ambroz
Equatorial Snow by Faslishah Johanabas
Blood Oranges by Audrey Fine
Dangerous Terrain by Kelly Jennings
December by Teresa Jusino
In the Half Light, a Woman by Lavanya Karthik
Diaspora by Paul Lamb

INTERVIEWS:
Author Tobias Buckell Interview by Kay T. Holt
Writer/Director Alex Rivera Interview by Kay T. Holt

We’re immensely pleased to be able to deliver a special end-of-year issue of such quality. Characters of Color are underrepresented in speculative fiction. We knew a year ago, when we were releasing our LGBTQ issue, that this would be the theme for our second special issue.

Please enjoy the issue for free on the website, and let us – and the contributors – know what you think. Leave a comment or two telling the contributors you appreciate their work. Tell people about the issue: help us show that there’s plenty of room for more Characters of Color in SFF- not just in themed issues but all the time!

And help us to continue producing this work: please purchase this issue (print & ebook) to support Crossed Genres!

Having been on the wrong end of the hard sell far too often, we balk at pushing too hard when Crossed Genres comes out with a new publication, or has a sale. We don’t want to alienate readers, especially since the real point of CG is to get good work out there – we don’t want to discourage people from coming to read what we publish by making the reading experience unpleasant. We even keep ads completely out of our print and ebook publications, and have minimal ads on the website. We want people to buy our publications because they want to, not because they’re over-saturated with advertisements about it.

But the results of these attempts to be user-friendly is that we’ve got a good and growing reputation, and not even close to enough revenue to cover expenses. As I mentioned in another post, we’re over $1600 in the hole for 2010 alone. It’s not that we’re expecting to get rich doing this – we’re not delusional – but $1600 is a lot of money for two working stiffs to lose every year.

And when that other post went up, asking people to please consider supporting us by making a purchase, the results were… underwhelming. There were plenty of retweets on Twitter, and a few wonderful people did buy something, but it was mostly friends and family, and the total was pretty small.

So the question is: do we push harder? Like I said, we don’t want to alienate readers, but we do need some stronger sales if we’re going to keep doing this publishing thing. How would you, as readers, feel if there were more constant sales pitches? If there were more ads on the site, or even in the magazine? Would this cause a negative reaction? Or would you accept that it’s a necessity for us? (Would it encourage you to make a purchase?

Please let us know in the comments. As consumers and readers we know what we think, but as publishers, we want to know what you think.

Last year at this time, when we posted about the most unpleasant part of running an SFF magazine, we had a net loss for 2009 of over $1500. At that point, all we had to worry about were the issues of the magazine, and the upcoming Crossed Genres Year One. And believe me, that was plenty.

We’re still producing those monthly issues, and are about to release Crossed Genres Year Two. But in the last year we’ve also added A Festival of Skeletons, the Science in My Fiction contest, the fiction on the SiMF blog, a dealer’s table at Boskone, and more. Our financial output has increased by over $1700 compared to last year.

So we consider it something of a relief that for 2010, we’re no more than $1600 in the hole. It means the new projects we’ve added to expand CG have pretty well paid for themselves, which is something we’ve been focusing on. A lot of hard work went into that relative success, and our Assistant Editor, slush readers and social media coordinator deserve a lot of credit for their part in that.

Having said that – we’re looking at a net loss of $1600 or more for 2010. That’s a lot of money for working stiffs to pay out of their pockets. And the majority of expenses tend to fall during the final quarter of the year. In other words: we’re getting slammed hard.

Our projects are generally very well received. Reviews are good, there are plenty of complimentary blog posts and tweets. And we really, really appreciate it all! However… we could really use a bit of extra financial support too, now more than ever.

Please consider:

- Preordering A Festival of Skeletons and/or Crossed Genres Year Two. Ebooks start at just $4, print copies at just $11, shipping included. The books will be released on December 1 and December 7, respectively. Preorder ends Monday!

- Picking up a back issue. The special, double-sized LGBTQ issue won’t be available after Monday – it’s discounted to $6 in print, or $1 for ebook. There are 12 issues available to choose from!

- Buy a t-shirt! Designed by yours truly, it got countless double-takes and laughs while being worn at two 2 WorldCons.

- Donating! Anything is appreciated, even a dollar.

Many thanks to everyone who’s supported us over the past two years! We’d never have made it halfway here without your help!

The first pic is 80 copies of the Science in My Fiction contest winner books. This is the replacement shipment that Createspace sent after USPS lost/destroyed the first shipment. They arrived safely, in great shape and super-fast. Kudos to Createspace for their handling of the situation!

We’ll be packaging up the SiMF books this weekend and sending them out first thing next week. They’ll probably start arriving at the closer destinations by this time next week. Those of you who ordered signed copies, bear in mind that we still have to send some books around to all the authors before they get sent on to you, so it’ll take longer. But it’ll be worth it!

These 3 books are all final proof copies that were delivered together. On the left is the final of RJ Astruc’s A Festival of Skeletons; on the right, the final of our second annual anthology, Crossed Genres Year Two. (Remember, both are available via preorder for 8 more days!)

And in the background – intentionally obscured – is the soon-to-be-released Issue 24: Characters of Color. You can just see a hint of the gorgeous cover art by Wilson Williams, Jr.. Consider that your sneak peek – to see it in all its magnificence, as well as the rest of the art, fiction and interviews, you’ll have to wait until the First!

There’ll be a big-big announcement coming in the next day or two. In the meantime, read a back issue or some chapters of our latest serial; preorder a book or three; pick up our LGBTQ issue before it goes away forever; and stay tuned!

“If you have no interest at all in reading a fabulous, well thought-out, engaging story, stay away from RJ Astruc’s writing – you’ll get sucked in and read it anyway. The moment I started reading, she dragged me along for an extraordinary, outrageous ride through a perfectly ordinary universe filled with murder, madness, mystery, magic, merfolk, and morticians. Dark humor, light humor, macabre doings, cute little outfits, deluded cops, and afternoon tea with reformed alcoholics are all just the tip of the iceberg in this story. I’m not only reserving bookshelf space for the printed edition of A Festival of Skeletons, I’ll be reserving reading and re-reading time for it, too. Be careful of this one, readers; you won’t want to put it down, either!”

Jean Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of the Sons of Destiny series

And here are a few more reviews. Overall the critical response to Festival has been wonderful! Remember, there are only 9 days left to preorder the novel!

[A Festival of Skeletons] is populated by cross-dressing morticians, monomaniacal police, a cook with charisma and zombies, courtesy of a soupcon too much necromancy, delivered within a deftly told story populated by characters that I cared about. And more importantly, A Festival of Skeletons is a fun read – so much so I was most disappointed when I finished the book.

R. J. Astruc is fortunate that I don’t know where she lives otherwise I would be besieging her domicile and demanding, with money and menaces, a sequel…

– Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand

…perhaps this is the novels’ truth: no one is perfect, and heroes are more often than not unlikely. This is not just a moral tale, though; it unpeels layer after layer of geographical, social and character detail like a magical onion of narrative possibility, revealing plot layer after plot layer, and finally stands revealed as a raw, painful core of love and loss, and the lengths people will go to, to seek peace from emotional wounds and scarring.

– The Future Fire Reviews

A Festival of Skeletons (A) is a very entertaining and clever novel, fully living to its billing as a dark but funny fantasy, while the author’s obvious writing skill made me a big fan…

– Fantasy Book Critic

As of this past Friday (10/15) we still hadn’t received them. I sent an inquiry to Createspace, and the next day (10/16), they replied “The tracking number confirms that your order was delivered on October 4.”

Since I knew damn well that we hadn’t received the books, I checked the order number myself on usps.com. What it actually said was “Estimated Delivery Date 10/4″. The status updates had nothing since a Sort Facility in Greensboro, NC on 10/2.

I called USPS. They didn’t know what was wrong, so they started an investigation and informed me that they’d contact me “within 2 business days”.

On Monday 10/18 at 2:50 pm, I got a voicemail from the manager of the local post office, informing me that she’d gone to the trouble of looking at the tracking on their website, and “you should receive that item today”.

When we got home after work, what was waiting for us was not a package of 80 books. It was this:

The sticker says “Received without content”. The generic label says, in essence, “We damaged your box. Sorry. We’re not going to do anything about it.”

This morning, I sent this message to Createspace:

On Oct. 16 you replied to my problem (Case #[removed], about order #[removed]) claiming that USPS’ website said my order was delivered on October 4. This was not true; it said ESTIMATED DELIVERY DATE 10/4, but still not delivered as of the 16th.

I called USPS, they started an investigation. I then got a voicemail on Monday 19/18 saying my package would be delivered that day.

What I received was a 7-inch chunk of cardboard with your shipping label on it, which says “received without content”. And a generic printed apology which apparently expects me to just accept that I won’t be receiving my 80 books for which I paid $[removed]. Books which, I might add, my customers have paid for and have been waiting almost a month for at this point.

I will be contacting USPS but I expect you to do your part to make good on this order as well. As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t received the books which I paid you for in good faith and I expect the situation to be rectified.

Then I called the local USPS. I was informed that the person who’d called me was unavailable and I should call back later. I asked the person who answered what they would do about this and was informed that, because the package wasn’t insured (Note: Createspace does not give the option of purchasing insurance), they weren’t going to do anything. I asked if they seriously would not be held accountable for their mistake, and the woman said that they had no proof that they’d failed to deliver what had been sent. (This despite the fact that their own generic message says “We sincerely regret the damage to your mail during handling by the postal service.”

I said “I don’t think that this big company mailed me a chunk of cardboard when I paid for 80 books,” to which the woman actually replied “We don’t know that they didn’t.” I told her I would be calling back and talking the the manager because this was not acceptable. Her reply was to say “You do that. Have a nice day.” and hang up on me.

*****

I’d like to take a moment to contrast this experience to one I had recently with Staples. I ordered some bubble-wrap mailers in bulk (incidentally, to be used to reship the very books that are now gone). They were to be delivered to a nearby Staples where I could just pick them up. The date of expected delivery passed and I didn’t hear from them informing me that the box had arrived. When I called them, they discovered that the box had vanished en route.

Here’s the big difference. While I was on the phone with this guy he called my local store and had them search for the box. When they couldn’t find it, the guy apologized; then he found a similar (but more expensive) item, discounted it to match what I’d bought, redid the order and arranged a refund of the original order, and shipped the new item to my house, next-day express, at no extra charge. Not only did they accept responsibility for their mistake, they immediately did the best they possibly could to rectify the situation.

*****

So. Either Createspace shipped me a 7″ x 4″ chunk of cardboard, or USPS lost and/or destroyed our books. I will continue to fight this but USPS has a pretty wretched track record for actually accepting responsibility for their mistakes. Why is there no accountability for a huge, government-backed business? …actually I think I just answered my own question.

But those numbers have had me thinking about the nature of CG, themes for issues, and specifically underrepresented people in speculative fiction.

Crossed Genres receives, on average, less submissions than similar zines. It’s primarily due to the nature of our monthly themes; people have to write stories that specifically fit a theme, and it’s not always easy to do that, even with notice. Most other SFF zines have a more broad “anything speculative” policy, which means people can write what they want and send it, instead of writing to the theme. So just naturally we don’t see as many subs, and that’s fine. What we do get is usually tailored to us, and tends to be of a quality which impresses us.

We’ve always been open to the mixing of more than just the one theme. If our theme is Action/Adventure, and someone sends us an SFF A/A story that also has aspects of horror and is in a Western setting, we’ll happily consider it. This is pretty much universally true: so long as a submission has some aspect of SF and/or F, and represents the theme, anything else that’s added in is a welcome bonus.

So why is it that we receive almost no submissions with Characters of Color, or LGBTQ characters, until we specifically ask for them?

When we put out our call for LGBTQ submissions in September 2009, we received what at the time was by far the most submissions we’d ever seen (we later topped it). Admittedly, extra attention was drawn by some controversy, but we didn’t care – we were happy to have a nice pool of stories to choose from.

But in the months that followed, submissions with LGBTQ main characters dwindled again, even as our total number of submissions remained relatively stable; and now we receive maybe one or two a month. Something similar happened with our Eastern issue, and I can’t help but feel that it’s likely with the CoC issue as well.

Obviously these stories exist. At the least, people are willing to write them when they’re called for. But why don’t they come otherwise?

I know that this is partly because such stories have more difficulty finding homes in speculative fiction markets. This is a changing trend, especially in smaller zines, but it’s still a real problem. So there’s this idea that, when you write your story, make the main characters straight and Caucasian, unless specifically asked not to, or your story won’t get published.

Because of our monthly themes, Crossed Genres probably sees a higher percentage of submissions that were written specifically for us than most other markets. And yet, despite our open and repeated statements that we welcome LGBTQ characters and CoC, we see very few of them. Which means that the majority of people who are writing stories specifically for us are choosing to write straight Caucasian MC anyway.

Of course, some people write stories meant to appeal to more markets than just CG, even if those stories ultimately end up getting subbed to us. And that means writing what is more broadly accepted, which as I said above, usually means white and straight.

But it’s frustrating. What ends up happening is that we see very few of subs with CoC or LGBTQ characters, and as a result we don’t (can’t) publish many. This leads to the appearance that we’re not generally open to that type of sub – despite the special issues and our repeated statements that we are – and that leads to the continuation of low submissions.

Part of this is our own fault. It’s our responsibility as publishers to recognize these trends in our market and actively seek to correct them. Clearly we haven’t been doing enough of that, and that’s going to change. We can’t single-handedly alter the trend across the entire speculative fiction world, but we can damn well start with ourselves.

So here’s a challenge for all writers: if there’s one of our upcoming genres you’re thinking of writing a story specifically for, write it with a CoC protagonist, or a queer one. Or a Muslim, Jew, Buddhist or atheist. Set the story outside of the US. Even if the genre doesn’t call for it. It will be given the same fair and equal consideration as any other submission. Be inclusive in your writing, and we pledge that we will do the same on our end.

FICTION:
“Seven Little Words” BY Jennifer Brozek
“Saving Pandora” BY Jason S. Ridler
“Spring Migration” BY Wendy N. Wagner
“Trancendental” BY Lorna D. Keach
“Hands of Time” BY Shanna Germain

Cover art by Galen Dara

The Little Death of Crossed Genres will be available in digital ($1) and print ($8.95).

Following the release, Little Death will be on publishing hiatus due to time constraints of the editors.

RJ Astruc’s darkly comedic fantasy novel A Festival of Skeletons is being serialized in the Subscriber’s Area of Crossed Genres. On December 1, Crossed Genres will release A Festival of Skeletons in print and various digital formats.

Now, as we approach our preorder period for Festival (October), we decided it’s time for a giveaway! Want a FREE Advance Reader’s Copy (ARC) of Festival? Here’s your chance!

We’re going to give away two print ARC copies to people who Follow @crossedgenres on Twitter: one to a random person who’s already Following @crossedgenres as of this announcement, and one to a random person who Follows us before Friday, September 17.

All you have to do is Follow @crossedgenres, and tweet a link to this post. You can re-tweet this tweet, or create your own – just be sure that your tweet has “@crossedgenres” and the hashtag #FoSARC. That’s it! We’ll randomly select and announce the winners on Saturday, September 18.

ARTWORK:

“I’d like a word with you. In private.” by Lisa Grabenstetter

FICTION:
Yelloween by Sam Cash
Under a Wider Sky by Breanna R. Teintze
A Day in the Life by Ross Willard
Carefully Constructed by Shay Darrach
Immortal by Peter Friend
Knack by Sarah Goslee

Please read & enjoy! And make the contributors’ days by leaving a comment or two!

Other Last Chances of the Day:

• LAST CHANCE to vote on the Flash Fiction contest finalists! There are 10 stories totaling less than 4500 words (an average short story). And they’re good! Go read them and vote! (You have to register on the site to vote, but it’s quick and easy!)

• LAST CHANCE to submit a story to the inaugural issue of The Little Death of Crossed Genres! They’re looking for excellent erotic SFF. Check it out!

• LAST CHANCE to submit to the Crossed Genres Invasion issue! This issue (#21) will be released on August 1. We’re looking for anything SF/F that has an invasion of some type as a theme.

• LAST CHANCE to check out the Anthropomorphism issue! Issue #8 will be going away after midnight tonight. Go have a read/look, and if you like it, consider picking up a copy!

This Wednesday, June 30 is the final day to get your entries in to the Science in My Fiction contest!

Remember, there are $400 in cash prizes to be won, plus more! And the finalists will be read and voted on by an amazing panel of judges. Each of the top 3 stories will be published: the original cover art will be provided by Julie Dillon, and each of the 3 stories will be accompanied by original black-and-white artwork.

- 2,500-10,000 words
- 1 entry per person
- Only unpublished work
- Authors MUST cite the discovery/innovation which inspired their story, and provide relevant URL(s).

We’ve gotten some great entries already. Wow us with SCIENCE!

Submission guidelines
Judges
Entry form

The Social Media Coordinator will create accounts for Crossed Genres on various social media platforms (if they don’t exist already), keep all social media information up-to-date, and coordinate cross-media promotion.

The Promotion Coordinator will handle promotion for Crossed Genres and its various projects, in the form of press releases, reviews and flyers.

These are volunteer positions (None of us get paid, at the moment). However, there are perks: Freebies, access to pretty much everything that Crossed Genres produces, etc. Your name will be included in all staff listings, including the magazine itself.

For more information about both positions, or to apply, please visit this page. If you know someone who might be interested, please point them our way. Thanks!

* 100-500 words (FIRM)
* Anything Science Fiction and/or Fantasy
* Unpublished work only (including online)
* 1 entry per person

NOTE: Send your entries via the Flashfic contest entry form. DO NOT send entries via the Crossed Genres submission form!

The ten finalists will be posted on the website on June 23. Everyone will be able to read them and vote for their favorite. (People will have to register on the site to read the finalists and vote. Don’t worry, it’s free and easy!) Voting will close on June 30. The winner and Honorable Mentions will be announced on or before July 3.

The winner will receive $25 and a print copy of Crossed Genres Year One. 3 Honorable Mentions will each receive a print copy of Crossed Genres Year One.

The ten finalists will be posted on the website on or before June 23 for voting (they will only be visible to those who register on the site, therefore keeping their first printing rights). Get your entries in!

Also, there are only 17 days left to enter the Science in My Fiction contest! 2500-10000 words (FIRM), SF/F inspired by a recent scientific discovery or innovation (you must provide the URL for an article about the science). 1 entry per person, unpublished work only. $400 in prizes to the top 3 stories! Finalists will be voted on by an amazing panel of judges. Let’s see some SCIENCE!

This closure is due to our being overwhelmed with projects, and preparing to make some fairly significant changes to CG. We can’t say right now exactly when we’ll be open to these submissions again.

But fear not! The magazine will continue as usual; the Science in My Fiction contest and the Flash Fiction contest are moving along; and we have 2 novel projects already in the works – one already being serialized (read the first 3 chapters!), and one beginning soon! Plus some other things we haven’t announced yet. We’re not slowing down – only redirecting our focus.

The Flash Fiction contest is also approaching the cutoff date for entries: June 15 is the final day! Entries to the flashfic contest have been surprisingly robust – though perhaps not surprising when considering first place gets pro rates or better. 6 more days to go! Voting will begin on the 10 finalists on June 23.

Crossed Genres is currently accepting submissions to the Invasion issue. June 30 is the deadline.

Finally: June is the last month to read Crossed Genres Issue 8: ANTHROPOMORPHISM. This diverse and unusual issue will no longer be available! Please read it if you haven’t, and consider picking up a copy.

First: Crossed Genres issue 19: Gadgets & Artifacts is up!

A great issue with some incredibly strong fiction. Please read, enjoy! And comment – the writers & artists truly appreciate it!
______________________________________________________________________________________

Next: We’ve opened the 2nd Annual Crossed Genres Flash Fiction contest! We did one last year in June and it was so much fun we decided to do it again! The guidelines are behind the link, but short version: 100-500 words; anything SF/F; one entry per person; 1st place gets Pro rates (at least). Open for entries until June 15 only. Not much time, so better get cracking!
______________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to some terrific generosity, the Kickstarter to fund a print edition of the Science in My Fiction contest winners was a rousing success! Not only did we reach our goal, we surpassed it by 60%! Thank you, everyone who’s supported the pledge drive! There’s still one month left to enter the contest – stories must be submitted by the end of June 30. Get your stories in!
______________________________________________________________________________________

June is the FINAL month to read Issue 8: ANTHROPOMORPHISM! It will go away forever after June 30. Please give it a read, and if you like it consider picking up a copy while it’s still available.
______________________________________________________________________________________

Right now we’re reading submissions to the LIES issue, accepting submissions for INVASION, and managing the SiMF and Flashfic contests. Whew! Sometimes it’s hard to keep up, but somehow we manage!

Post title from “Today is gonna be a great day” from Phineas & Ferb

Both stories first appeared in Crossed Genres issue 12: LGBTQ.

The anthology will be out this summer, be sure to check it out. And congratulations to Megan and Tuulia!

1) LAST CHANCE to reserve a copy of the Science in My Fiction contest winners! A pledge of just $4 gets you a digital copy, or as low as $15 for a print copy (and then some). Copies will have original cover art by artist Julie Dillon (known to CG people for her incredible cover to our LGBTQ issue). Plus, if we reach $1000 in pledges (we’re very close!) we’re going to commission additional artwork to accompany each story! Pledges can also get you cheap discounted subscriptions to Crossed Genres, signed copies of the contest winners, and even a cartoon portrait of you (with SCIENCE!) included in the print edition!

2) LAST CHANCE to read Crossed Genres issue 7: URBAN! This is a terrific issue and goes away for good after the 31st! You can also pick up a print or digital copy.

3) LAST CHANCE to submit a story for the LIES issue! Submissions have been strong, and the cover will be done by Lisa Grabenstetter. It should be an excellent issue!

For those in the U.S., remember that May 29-31 is Memorial Day Weekend – which means it’ll be easy to forget that you meant to do one (or more) of the above until it’s too late! Don’t put it off until the last minute!

FICTION:
“Last Tango in Gamma Sector” by Michael R. Underwood
“Conflicts” by Timothy T. Murphy
“The Crate” by Daniel José Older
“Peace Signs” by Wendy N. Wagner
“Combat Stress Reaction” by Don Pizarro

ARTICLE:
“Science Fiction, Fantasy, Artifacts & Gadgets: Just the Basics” by Craig Allen

COVER ART:
“Artefacts” by Lisa Grabenstetter and Evan Jensen

Issue 19 comes out on June 1.
________________________________________________________

We’re gearing up for a BUSY summer for CG. There’s SiMF and the contest, new issues, we’re prepping for our oversized “Characters of Color” issue (Submissions: September. Release: November 1). AND! We’re doing our FLASH FICTION CONTEST again! We had so much fun with it last year that we’re doing it again in June! So prep your stories – submissions will be open the first 2 weeks of June ONLY!

We are SO CLOSE on the Science in My Fiction contest Kickstarter drive!

Just $25 shy of our goal – so close we can taste it! Please consider making a pledge and pushing us over the top. Remember, the more pledges we get, the better the print edition will be!

We also announced that artist Julie Dillon, who created the applauded cover to our LGBTQ issue, will be providing the cover art for the SiMF contest print edition! Yay!

SiMF has gotten some nice attention lately. Author Jay Lake recently linked to one of Kay’s posts, saying “I am really digging this new-to-me site”. Author Steven Gould said SiMF “is turning into a must-read site for SF writers”. SiMF also has 4 new bloggers whose first posts will be appearing soon.

Remember! This is the LAST MONTH to check out Issue 7: URBAN! This was a terrific issue, and featured the widely acknowledged (and unintentionally controversial) cover art from Jamaican artist Paul Davey:

Speaking of issue 7: Congratulations to Nathan Crowder, whose story Deacon Carter’s Last Dime from issue 7 was featured on BestScienceFictionStories.com! Please read the issue for free, and consider picking up a copy before it goes away forever!

Duotrope, one of the best resources for short story markets, has introduced an Editor Interview feature that they’re beta-testing right now. And I did one! Go read my 12-question interview.

Back to the grind, so to speak. Working on finishing up issue 19, and prepping for all the above awesomeness. As soon as the SiMF contest hits its goal I’ll start on the print edition in earnest.

We’re getting down to the wire for submissions to the Gadgets & Artifacts issue. Tomorrow (Friday) is the deadline! We’ve got a fair number of submissions but we always want more!

Saturday is the release of issue 18, the Eastern issue. We’re extremely pleased with how this issue turned out. We did encounter a problem, though: We got the proof copy back and the cover was FAR too dark, to the point you could hardly see what was going on. We had to lighten it up and order a new proof. I shelled out the $ for extra-fast delivery, but it’s unlikely to arrive before release day. That means the print edition won’t be available until probably around May 3rd or so. I apologize for this: it was the result of illness, first our son’s, and then mine, that caused us to fall behind. I’ve been taking steps to keep it from happening again, even in the case of illness.

A big part of those steps I’ve been taking has been getting ahead – FAR ahead – in my CG work. I had some time this past week free, and I’ve been using it to get advance work done on every CG and SiMF project I can think of. The result is that I’ve advanced some projects so far, I’m literally months ahead of where I thought I’d be at the end of this month. I actually feel very discombobulated, because I keep thinking “ONO I FORGOT SOMETHING!”, but I really didn’t.

Part of this advance work was improving our preparation for future issues. I’ve reached the point where every issue through the end of our second year (issue 24) is as done as they can possibly be without having the actual content. This means that the actual building of each issue when we’ve chosen the content will be less time-consuming, which means a far lower chance of any delays.

I’ve also been working ahead on some other projects, including the eventual publication of RJ Astruc’s A Festival of Skeletons. We’re talking to an artist about the cover, and the layout/formatting is mostly done. The expected publication date is December 1, but we’ve got to have it finished well in advance so we can get it into the hands of reviewers. Kay’s done a wonderful job working with Astruc to edit the novel. I’m also working ahead on Crossed Genres Year Two, our second anthology. That one’s really jumping the gun though, since we won’t even know what’s going in the last issue (#24) until the beginning of October.

Speaking of issue 24: I just want to remind everyone, we’re doing another double-sized special to end our second year. This year’s theme will be Characters of Color, where the main character must be a CoC. We’re expecting high submissions for that issue but we’re also accepting twice as many for publication, so be sure to get yours in for that! Submissions for issue #24 will be accepted in September.

The Science in My Fiction blog has been chugging along. Exciting news – we were contacted by io9, the giant science/SF site. They asked if they could reprint an occasional SiMF post! We made arrangements, and the first reprint went up yesterday. We’re flattered that io9 thought so highly of SiMF’s work!

As you can see, we’re over 80% of the way to our Kickstarter goal for the Science in My Fiction contest! The contest only runs until the end of May – this is your ONLY chance to get a copy of the contest winners! Please help us get that last bit of the way – if for no other reason than so we can stop worrying about whether we’ll get there!

Finally, I want to mention that M-Brane SF #16 just came out. There’s a story by Kay in it! Go check it out!

Post title from “Hotel California” by the Eagles

Earth Day is special for Crossed Genres, not only because we’re environmentalists. It was on Earth Day last year that we had a little sale and got our first-ever online subscribers! It was important to us, in terms of feeling we had a real connection and commitment to the community we were building.

We wanted to do something again this year, but we’ve been swamped and haven’t had time… plus e-subscriptions are already discounted if you get them by pledging to our Kickstarter drive.

However, we’re not letting today go by with nothing, so here’s the deal: Pledge at least $9 to our Kickstarter drive by midnight tonight, and if the Kickstarter is successful you’ll get something special. Something that people who pledge later don’t get. We don’t know what it will be, exactly, but we’ll think of something cool. In acknowledgment of Earth Day, it’ll probably be something digital.

So please spread the word! A “Special Something” if you pledge by tonight! Plus all the other cool rewards you get from pledging!

The Kickstarter drive to fund the Science in My Fiction contest surged over 50% today! We only need $324 more in the next 41 days! We’re very confident that we’ll get there. Remember, if you EVER want a print copy, you have to preorder with a pledge to Kickstarter – the contest winners will never be printed again! Only one shot!

The contest itself is moving right along; submissions are still slow, understandably… entries will be accepted through the end of June, so we expect to get 60% or more of the total entries in the last month.

And Science in My Fiction has been fun recently too! Check out some of the latest fascinating posts, including my post from yesterday about divergent evolution.

The latest chapter of A Festival of Skeletons has been released! A Festival of Skeletons is a remarkable novel by New Zealand author RJ Astruc, being serialized on our website exclusively for subscribers! If you’re not a subscriber, now’s the time – get a subscription for 10% off by pledging to the SiMF Kickstarter drive! Only $0.75 per month, plus you get an e-book of the SiMF contest winners!

Reminder: This is the last month to read and/or purchase Issue 6, our WESTERN issue! Terrific issue, with great stories and some AWESOME art:

Next month, exactly one year after the Western issue was published, we’ll be publishing issue 18: our EASTERN issue. It’s got an absolutely breathtaking cover by Thai artist Narm; an article by Singapore writer Joyce Chng (whose story A Matter of Possession appeared in our Alternate History issue); and 5 excellent and diverse stories:
“I Will Come Home” by Chris Fletcher
“The Only Motion is Returning” by Del Dryden
“Goddess” by Lavanya Karthik
“The Last Rickshaw” by Stephanie Lai
“When the Earth and Sea Swapped Places” by Kaolin Fire

We’re currently accepting submissions to # 19, our Gadgets & Artifacts issue. Submissions have been pretty steady, to our relief – we didn’t want a repeat of last month when we had terribly low submission number until the final 5 days of the month.

Two nights ago Kay and I sat down and hashed out a tentative schedule for monthly themes in Year 3 of Crossed Genres. It’s always exciting looking ahead to what we’ll be doing next! Even after setting the schedule we have over 90 genres/themes left, so we’re well set for many years to come. We have some classic genres in the immediate future, as well as some interesting surprises!

Speaking of surprises – hoo boy is our schedule full! I have a project I really want to do, but I can’t see any time in my schedule until Fall 2011! Working on freeing things up a bit to hopefully get to it this year.

Post title from “Wondering Where the Lions Are” by Bruce Cockburn

Those who aren’t already subscribers – Get a subscription for 10% off right now! For a limited time, a pledge of $9 to our Kickstarter drive gets you a one-year subscription PLUS digital copies of the Science in My Fiction contest winners! Please watch the silly video, and then pledge to get your subscription (plus more) for only $0.75 per month! (Pledging can also get you print copies of the contest winners!)

I decided a compilation of some of the most common, and the most outlandish/surprising, errors would serve two purposes: First, it would be an entertaining, with plenty of laugh and cringe-inducing examples. And second, it could be very useful for aspiring writers – cautionary tales of what not to do.

(Of course every market, and for that matter every editor, is different, so there will be some difference of opinion. No matter what, always read the guidelines thoroughly before submitting.)

So if there are any editors out there from small-market magazines or small presses who would like to share a few of their “favorite” examples of submission mistakes, please email me! cg-at-crossedgenres-dot-com. Include the following:

• A short list (up to 10) of what you consider the most common mistakes you see in submissions. If you’d like you can include short “Why you shouldn’t do that” explanations.
• A short list (up to 10) of the most jaw-dropping, “I-can’t-believe-they-DID-that!” things you’ve seen. If you’d like you can include short “Why you shouldn’t do that” explanations.

Please include your name and email address, and let me know if you want to be anonymous, or if you would like to be listed as a contributor. (NOTE: I’m looking specifically for mistakes in submissions – not queries!)

This compilation will be free. I’m putting it together as a resource, and don’t intend to make money off it. I’ll make it into various digital formats and make them all free to distribute under a Creative Commons license.

Thanks!

First, as I posted late last night, Issue 17: ANTIHERO has been released! This issue is amazing; please read, view and enjoy!

Today we are also officially accepting entries to the Science in My Fiction contest! You can now submit your entry via the simple online form. Entries will be accepted until June 30.

Also! Please preorder your copy of the contest winners! If you aren’t a subscriber, this is the only way you’ll get to read them, and the only time you’ll have the chance to get them in print! After the contest is over we won’t be selling any more copies! Preorders will only be open until May 31!

Remember how, for most of March, I was imploring people to spread the word about the Eastern issue, since submissions were incredibly thin? Well thank you to everyone who did, because it WORKED. To our utter delight, we were absolutely slammed with submissions right at the end of the month! We received 60% of the month’s submissions in the last three days! The boost was so enormous that it got us all the way up to our average! Our valiant slush readers have been working their butts off, but there’s still some unread stories. Amazing. One of these days I’ll actually accept that early numbers don’t mean anything. At any rate, we’ll be reading manically over the next few days.

We also got a look at the almost-completed cover art for the Eastern issue. It is beautiful! An incredible contrast to the Antihero cover art. The artist is from Thailand and has done a wonderful job of capturing both the Eastern theme and the essence of CG and SFF. Lovely.

Now we’re on to accepting submissions for our next issue! The Gadgets & Artifacts issue wants stories in which some SF or F object is integral to the story. Beyond that, be as creative as you want! Submissions open until April 30.

This month is your last chance to read and/or buy the Western issue! With some terrific stories, a great article about the first ever science fiction western, and the first cover of ours done by Nicc Balce! Nicc’s done a couple more covers for us since, including the cover of the Year One anthology. Check out Issue 6, and consider picking up a copy before it’s too late!

Finally, one last item I want to draw attention to: We have the Upcoming Genres for the next 5 issues posted every month, and right now that takes us through the end of our 2nd year (!). As with the end of our first year, we’ve decided to do an oversized special edition to mark the end of the 2nd year. For a theme, we’ve chosen Characters of Color. For this issue, the main character(s) of every story and every piece of artwork must be a character of color. We’ve chosen this theme to encourage more broad inclusion of CoC’s, which are distinctly underrepresented in SFF.

Post title from Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman

ARTWORK (Fair Warning: This artwork is more graphic than our usual covers!)

“Our Hell” by Tânia Sousa Ribeiro

FICTION

High School 3000 by Timothy Miller
Monsters by Ross Willard
The Third Cosmic Crisis, As I Recall it by Collin Blair Grabarek
Three Little Pigs by Jo Thomas
Fame & Blowing Bubbles by K.S. Riggin

ARTICLE

We Are Mighty by Jaym Gates

This issue is simply mindblowing. Go. Read. See. Enjoy!

Wednesday is also the LAST day to read the Humor issue! Some great stories and a terrific article by Piers Anthony on writing Humor! Go read it and/or buy it while you still can!

Issue 17 is pretty much wrapped up. I meant to finish the PDF today, but realized I didn’t properly size the cover art. D’oh. So I’ll do that tonight and finish it tomorrow. The new issue (ANTIHERO) goes live on Thursday!

Thursday is also the day we begin accepting entries to the Science in My Fiction contest! All over we’re seeing boisterous posts by excited writers – almost every one of which mentions the research they’re doing or the story they’ve started writing. Going to be a kicking contest!

Speaking of kicking: If you want to read the contest winners and aren’t a subscriber, go pledge at least $4 to the contest Kickstarter drive. We’re raising funds to put the contest winners in print; we’re already over one-third of the way there! Only subscribers or people who pledge to the kickstarter drive will get to read the contest winners! There are great rewards for pledging, like cheap CG subscriptions, signed print copies of the contest winners, and even a cartoon drawing of YOU, drawn by my co-editor Kay, printed in the print edition of the contest winners! The rewards which enable you to read the contest winners start as low as $4. The pledge drive only lasts until May 31, so go watch our silly video about the contest, and pledge today!

There’s some talk about the Outer Alliance possibly having a dealer table and/or group reading at Dragoncon in September! If so, Kay and I will do our damnedest to be there!

Post title from The Sneetches by Theodore “Dr. Seuss” Geisel

“From lovers whose needs suck away others’ life forces to the foibles of superheroes past their prime, Crossed Genres makes a tasty break from ordinary speculative fiction. This twisted group of stories both inflames and amuses. At ten bucks a pop, it is hard not to recommend its purchase.”

- Reviewer: KJ Hannah Greenberg

The Science in My Fiction contest has been very well received. It looks like there will be plenty of entries! The winning entries will be published in the Subscribers Area of the website – if you’re not a subscriber, you can get a discounted subscription, as well as preorder print copies of the winning stories (get them signed by the writers!) over at our Kickstarter fundraising drive. pledging to the drive is the ONLY way to get copies, digital or otherwise, of the winners! (Subscribers will be able to read them temporarily but not download them, and we’re only doing one print run!) Please support our efforts to get the winners in print! If we don’t make our fundraising goal then no print edition will be made – fundraising is off to a good start but there’s still a ways to go!

Issue 18: EASTERN STILL NEEDS SUBMISSIONS! I’m frankly stunned at how few we’ve received. We want to do justice to the Eastern theme, so please get your submissions in; better than average odds this month, apparently!

The issue 17 (Antihero) proof has been approved. Wow, it turned out even better than I’d hoped! I was a little worried that too much would be cropped from the bottom, but not at all. I’m most of the way done with the online stuff for the issue too.

Today Kay nailed down the last cover art she was looking for; now, we have cover artists set all the way through issue 23! Woo, go Kay! As a result, we’ll be closed to cover art submissions for a while.

Post title from the poem “Disobedience” by A.A. Milne

And now’s the part where we ask for your help. Obviously, we want people to enter stories in the contest (beginning on April 1). And with the prizes being offered, we’re confident there’ll be a good number of entries.

Well, we also really want to put the winning entries in print! But after taking the costs of the contest directly out of our pockets (in addition to regular CG expenses), the additional costs of producing a quality print edition is a bit too much for us.

So we’ve started a Kickstarter drive to fund the print edition! It’s simple: Go visit the Kickstarter page. Watch the funny video Kay made, with us and our son Baz being silly, and some absurd animations we made.

Then, check out the various rewards you can get by pledging to the drive, including copies of the print edition of the contest winners. We’re only aiming to do a single print run, which means pledging to the drive is the only way to get a copy of the stories! The stories will be published in the Subscribers Area of the Crossed Genres site, so if you’re not a subscriber and want to read the stories, pledge something!

There are several different levels of rewards, but you can pledge any amount you want. You can get the stories (in digital formats) with a pledge as low as $4.

There are also some awesome other rewards: cheap online subscriptions to CG, SIGNED copies of the contest winning stories, and more. One of the pledge levels is the first and only time we have ever offered a LIFETIME online subscription to CG! For those who love Kay’s art: Get a cartoon version of you drawn by her and printed right in the print edition of the contest winners!

If we don’t reach the pledge goal, there won’t be a print edition of the winners… it’s that simple. But here’s the thing: you only pay your pledge IF we reach the goal! So if we get there, you get your awesome reward(s), and if not, you’ve lost nothing! It’s win-win!

Please check out the Kickstarter drive, watch the video, check out the rewards, and consider making a pledge. Get your copy of the print edition the only way possible!

We still need EASTERN SUBMISSIONS! We’ve gotten some submissions that match the genre now, but we’re still looking at the lowest submission rate we’ve had in almost a year. Please send in your submissions!

I’ve got most of the digital editions of Issue 17 finished. I still need to do the PDF – it’s a bit different so it has to be done separately. And I spent some time today working on the online stuff… it’s not finished but I made some good progress.

This weekend Kay and I will be attending Vericon! It’s our third Vericon and we expect to have a blast. If you come to the con and mention you read about the con here in our blog, we just might dig out a free copy of Crossed Genres Year One for you!

Also, this Sunday we’ll be making our super-awesome announcement that I’ve been hinting at for months now. Yay! It almost seems unreal that something we’ve been planning for so long is finally coming to fruition. I will give another (useless) hint: today, I spent some time in downtown Boston hunting for test tubes. It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever had to hunt for, and was not made easy by the fact that I was in the legal district. However, I was successful.

Post title from “American Tune” by Paul Simon

So what do you think? Want the chance to ask me questions? (I suspect Kay will be willing to answer a few too).

I got the photos I’d been waiting on, and submitted issue 17 for approval. Just a few minutes ago ordered the proof copy. Woo! (I love how this issue looks. Love it!)

I also spent a good part of the weekend (and this morning) working on last-minute stuff before our big announcement this Sunday! So excited! Want to spill the beans now. Must… resist…!

Hey, this month is your last chance to enjoy our Humor issue! After March it goes away forever! Go have a read, or pick up a copy!

I got a very nice compliment about the design/layout work I did on the CG anthology! Not knowing I’d done the work myself, the person said it “looks very nice–seemingly economically printed but very nice cover production and good inside layout” and asked me of I could “recommend resources for putting out a paper book at that level?” It’s always nice to have the quality of your hard work validated. =)

Post title from “King of Spain” by Moxy Früvous

Now some happier news: Barbara Ann Wright’s short story Damaged On Every Level, which first appeared in Crossed Genres issue 11, was included in the Tangent Online 2009 Recommended Reading list! Congratulations to Barbara for the well-deserved recognition.

As I mentioned on Wednesday, Kay and I decided to turn over the operation of our erotic SFF zine The Little Death of Crossed Genres. With all the various projects we have, there just wasn’t any way we could give it the attention it needed and deserved. Fortunately, Jaym Gates and Chris Fletcher agreed to take over as co-editors! We’re very thrilled to have Jaym and Chris aboard, and we expect they’ll have Little Death chugging along in no time.

The print edition of Issue 17 is just about complete. I’m just waiting on a couple of print-ready photos that we’re including with the non-fiction article in the issue. After that I’ll be able to finalize it and submit it to the publisher immediately. The digital editions are in a similar place – I need the photos before I can get them any further along. Still, we’re in a good place with the issue.

And it’s a good thing, because the 2nd half of March is going to be mad – MAD I say! Why? Well I can’t tell you yet, but the big announcement is coming next Sunday the 21st. We’ll be at Vericon in Cambridge, MA that weekend – anyone who’s around should come, it’s a really fun convention! Any con that has Timothy Zahn and Randall Munroe as their two main speakers has gotta be good! (We’ve been the previous two years, so we know for a fact that it’s a fun con.) Find us at Vericon and mention that you saw this post, and we might just give you a free copy of the Crossed Genres anthology!

WE NEED SUBMISSIONS! The Eastern issue has received frighteningly few submissions… and for some reason a number of them have not been set in Eastern cultures like the guidelines say. Please send in your Eastern submissions, and spread the word that we’re in real need!

Meanwhile our latest endeavor, the Science in My Fiction blog, has been developing well. There are four posts up so far, which have spurred some great discussions – everything from dolphins-as-persons to quantum mechanics to the significance of water in spec-fic writing. Go take a read, and join the fun!

Post title is from “Leaving On A Jet Plane” by John Denver

The release of Issue 16: STEAMPUNK has been very well received. Go, read, enjoy!

But the new issue has been somewhat overshadowed by the very successful opening of Science in My Fiction! SiMF is our new blog intended to “get science fiction and fantasy writers and fans thinking ahead of science again. Playful bloggers will take a look at recent scientific developments and extrapolate potential futures from them.” The first couple posts are up and have already sparked some lively and fun speculation. Apparently SiMF has made a good impression, because it got a short write-up on io9! w00t! In fact, as of this writing it’s still on the front page of io9… awesome!

We’ve made our choices for acceptance to the Antihero issue! We’ll be sending out emails tonight. Also OMG the cover is incredible!

We’re now accepting submissions for our EASTERN issue. We’re looking for stories set in Eastern cultures. Submissions have been slow so far… please get your subs in! We really want this one to be impressive. (Anyone can submit, by the way – the setting and preferably the characters will be from Eastern cultures, but the writer doesn’t have to be.)

This month is your LAST CHANCE to read our Humor issue! Enjoy it before it’s gone! It includes an article about writing humor by Piers Anthony! And if you like, pick up a copy!

Most of the past couple of days have been spent troubleshooting some last details on the SiMF site, and prepping for another Surprise we have coming. Said surprise will be announced in just about two weeks! But it’s mostly ready. I also spent some time getting some of the early work done on Issue 17.

One last thing I want to mention: some very generous people have created 100 Stories For Haiti. It’s an anthology of 100 short stories, created to help raise funds for relief efforts in Haiti. All proceeds go to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal. It’s very similar to Post a Story For Haiti, except you get a wonderful printed book out of it! Please consider purchasing a copy to help with the ongoing Haiti relief.

Post title is from “American Pie” by Don McLean

Read issue 4: CRIME before it’s gone forever! It disappears tomorrow night! It was a damned good issue, too! (You can also buy it – only $5, free shipping from Amazon!)

Monday we’re releasing Issue 16: STEAMPUNK. I’m so very pleased with how this issue came out. It’s a very specific genre and some people find it limiting, but this is truly one of our most diverse issues yet.

Today I’ve mostly spent doing touch-up work to make sure everything is ready for the release, as well as for our super-seekrit announcement! Speaking of which, Kay posted an amusing piece of art which is half homage to our youths, half teaser for the upcoming announcement. Either way it’s damn funny.

I’m also doing some more research into the viability of a CG print subscription. We’ve considered it in the past but were never sure it it could be done without bankrupting us; that’s what I’m researching now. I’ll have more info soon. In the meantime, if you haven’t yet, please fill out our survey about print subscriptions to Crossed Genres. It’s only 5 questions, it’ll take barely any time.

I mentioned this on Twitter earlier today: We currently have a list of genres/themes for future issues that, even if never expanded, would take us halfway through our ninth year of existence. So worry not, we’ve got you covered!

Post title from “The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe

1) Sunday is the LAST DAY to submit to the ANTIHERO issue! Thus far subs have been pretty solid – we’re well over last month’s totals – but we need more! We always need more!

2) Also, this is your LAST CHANCE to read Issue 4 – CRIME! It was a terrific issue, and after Sunday it’s gone for good! Go read it while you can, and consider buying it – only $5!

3) Have a Crossed Genres story you particularly like? Nominate it for the 2010 Million Writers Award! Nominations close on Sunday!

4) We’ve seen the almost-completed cover for the Antihero issue. Wow, it is amazing, and definitely the most risque-slash-disturbing cover we’ve had yet! I think it may be the best we’ve had at really telling a fascinating story all on its own.

5) Those of you with iPhones can take advantage of a new development to our site that our brilliant web guru Matt clued me into – the site is now optimized for viewing on the iPhone thanks to an amazing WordPress plugin called WPTouch. Check out the site via iPhone, it’s incredible how sharp it looks and functions. Anyone who uses WP, I strongly recommend this plugin for your site!

6) We have so much fun stuff coming up soon, we’re itching to tell you now! We’ll be making one announcement on March 1 – brace yourselves!

Post title is from the theme music to the 1980′s animated tv show “Gummi Bears”

Over the last few days I’ve been communicating with several people who are testing out various new versions of the magazine. I’m working on making the magazine available in as many as seven digital formats, which will cover just about all of the various ebook readers and smartphones. (Formats I’m working on are EPUB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PDF & PRC.)

BUT, the many different formats will not be available for individual sale – starting with issue 16 on March 1, all seven different file types will be sold together as a digital bundle for no extra cost. That’s right, we will begin selling a zipped file that includes all the digital formats, for the same $1.59 we’ve been charging for PDFs and PRCs. All versions will be DRM-free.

Why are we doing this? Frankly, because we don’t think it’s fair that you’d have to buy the issue again if you wanted to switch to a new reader. This way, you get to keep the issue (or book; we’ll be doing this with our book releases too, although the prices may vary) even if you switch from PC to iPhone to Nook and back to PC.

And before any of our subscribers ask: YES, the bundles will be available for free download in the Subscribers Area as well.

Most likely we will not be going back and redoing previous issues in bundles, mainly because we don’t really have time. We may do the most recent few, though. If anyone would really like to have a particular issue offered this way, let us know and we’ll consider it.
_________________________________

I mentioned on Twitter last night that the % of submissions we receive from women has dropped rather sharply. During our first year (the first 12 issues), 47.94% of submissions were from women. So far in our second year (issues 13-16), that number is 39.34%. This month (Antihero) is even lower, at 28.57%. It does vary a bit from month to month, which could be small-sample-size random variation. But the overall trend is kind of surprising.

Although, this doesn’t have any effect on our acceptances. We do NOT accept stories based on the gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. of the writer (most of the time we don’t know these things anyway) – we accept the best stories we get each month, regardless of who wrote them. Interestingly, despite the trend in submissions, over issues 13-16 we’ve published 9 stories from men and 12 from women.
_________________________________

• Other than some adjustments I need to make to the digital editions for the bundle, Issue 16 is pretty much done. We’re still waiting on the proof copy to arrive, but it should get to us any time.
• We’re still accepting submissions for Issue 17: ANTIHERO! We’re only a couple submissions away from matching last month, so we should end up comfortably ahead in total submissions.
• Remember, this is the LAST MONTH that Issue 4: CRIME will be available! Go read it, and consider buying it as well – only $5!
• And lest we forget (Hah!), Issue 15: ANY PREVIOUS GENRE is brilliant. Please read, & if you like, buy it!

Post title from “I’m Gonna Be An Engineer” by Peggy Seeger; performed by Pete Seeger.

Yesterday I met Justine Graykin in person for the first time. Justine’s story Archimedes Nesselrode appeared in our Humor issue back in April. And today I met Scott Andrews, whose story Keeli’s Ordeal is in the current issue: Scott is Editor-In-Chief of the terrific ezine Beneath Ceaseless Skies. We also got to say hi again to Walter Hunt; Walter contributed to the Alternate History issue (and his daughter Aline had a review in issue 10).