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International Podcast Day and Other Updates

by Richard Flores IV 0 Comments

I still really haven’t got back into the regular swing of writing since my nearly three year hiatus.  Even regular blogging still eludes me.  I don’t like to do several self promoting posts in a row, but at the same time I believe writing anything is better than nothing.  So I thought I’d touch on a few updates since I last blogged.

But first, today in International Podcast Day, so what better time to announce that I have sold another short story.  My story, “Compassionate Death” was sold to the Canadian Podcast, The Centropic Oracle.  This marks another first for me.  I’ve never sold a story to a podcast before.  I also had to explain to my Dad what a Podcast was.

No information on when this story will be published, but given that today was International Podcast day, I thought I’d share the news now.  Besides, the folks at The Centropic Oracle deserve a name drop.

You may also remember that I sold a short story to SciFan Magazine, which was my first print sale.  I also blogged a little bit about my thoughts on the publishing side and may have mentioned that I missed doing it.  This prompted SciFan Magazine Co-Producer, Dayne Edmondson, to contact me.  They asked if I’d join their review team and I accepted.

Now I will preface this with the fact that SciFan Magazine is doing amazing things and I am happy to be a part of their review team.  However, it has only made me miss publishing magazines that much more.  I will say that I am glad to see a magazine like SciFan.  This magazine has huge potential and could go somewhere big in the near future.  I am so glad to be a part of it.  Still, I hope someday to publish a magazine of my own again.  Someday.

But, on the topic of SciFan Magazine, I am giving away a signed copy of Issue 9 as well as some other great prizes.  Enter through Rafflecopter today!

There are several great prizes and you can earn more point each day by simply tweeting.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go send a few more short stories off to other great publications.  Wish me luck!

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Thoughts on Magazine Publishing

by Richard Flores IV 3 Comments

I recently had a story accepted by SciFan Magazine and though they have yet to release my story in one of their issues, I did start reading their magazine.  One of the things I came across this post of theirs.

It got me thinking about my time publishing Plasma Frequency and the struggle it was to come up with funding from time to time. Magazine publishing is a hard market to stand out in, and I’d like to think that Plasma Frequency stood out in a positive way.

I said it all the time, but I really did have a great team of volunteers behind the magazine and, though I funded it, I was only a small part of the process.

The point of all this:  I miss publishing.

I miss reading awesome stories from talented authors.  I miss losing sleep over whose story I’d have to reject.  I miss the awesome editors I worked with to put out the magazine.  I miss the way we tackled author feedback.  I miss post shares of the favorites and the author shares of their work.  And I miss collecting each issue.

It is hard to publish a magazine.  It is not easy.

First, there are a shitload of magazines out there.  And for each shitload there is a fuckton of good ones.  So many of them already have established reader bases and your only hope to find readers is to advertise to them.

Marketing a magazine isn’t easy at all.  First, most magazines don’t make a whole lot of money if any.  They rely on either the editor’s income, donations, or in magazine advertising.  Selling issues is hard enough as it is because so many good magazine publish their content 100% free online.   Then you have to find target an audience and get readers.

Now before anyone gets excited, I am not bringing back Plasma Frequency.  Even if I do return to publishing, it will be a different magazine all together.  Or maybe anthologies??  I’m not hinting at anything… honestly.

I think the point I am trying to make is to take time for your genre’s magazines too.  Read them, share them, donate if you want, but take the time to read magazines too.  We need new markets to join and we need them to mature.

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