A crying shame

Just had a twitter conversation with someone who viewed IFWG Publishing‘s website and came up with some wacky conclusions. And statements. This exchange is hardly worth repeating, or for that matter, thinking about for more than five minutes, but it does symbolically represent the state of the publishing industry. Wacky.

It seems to me that there is so much disruption and confusion, and misinformation (deliberate and unintentional), how does the average Joe Bloggs have a hope to have a decent idea of the state of play. And if Joe Bloggs wants to be a professional author, or even a small press publisher, then we have a serious set of obstacles in the way.

I don’t want to state the truth about publishing here – there are very good bloggists who can help you – Jay Lake, JAKonrath, Doctorow, Don Linn, etc, and following them you will get a much better idea of the state of play. However, with their help or not, for me the real issue is being able to tap into the correct intention, the morally correct.

While this person who twittered with me wanted to argue every point, this person also doesn’t know that my effort in my company is first and foremost to make the authors successful. Can’t easily prove that in a fledgling small press. Just have to watch this space.

Just to make sure the message has gelled with commentators, the following are facts:

1. IFWG Publishing is a traditional small press. Nothing more or less. Authors don’t pay a cent to submit, and we take 100% financial risk to publish. As per usual.
2. We  believe in epublishing and its growth, and its value for new writers. All our publications simultaneously publish in print and eprint.
3. We are generous with royalties for the author.
4. We publish speculative fiction, but are happy to publish almost any genre if its good.
5. We also publish magazines – a company has to make money, heh?
6. We run a biannual short story and illustration contest called Story Quest. This year, we offer a leg up with a novel publication.
7. We have a biannual magazine where it touches on our authors etc, but which also provides good short stories and articles in any genre.
8. We enjoy doing this!!!!

Just for the record, folks.