Late last night I spotted press release from Night Shade Books. I was vaguely aware that Jonathan Strahan’s excellent anthology series, Eclipse, would not be producing any new volumes. However, the announcement states that the anthology is going online. Instead of producing a book each year, Strahan will instead publish new short fiction, twice a month. So effectively Eclipse has become an online fiction magazine. It will be free to read. Presumably, in order to maintain the high standards set by the anthology (not to mention Jonathan’s reputation) it will be paying professional rates. As far as I can see it should qualify as a semiprozine. That looks like some serious competition for Clarkesworld, et al. That’s excellent news.
There’s no indication in the announcement of a business model, though I guess Jonathan may have something to say int he next Coode Street Podcast. My guess is that Night Shade will see it as a marketing vehicle, much as I did with Salon Futura. Hopefully it helps them sell books, because they do some very fine ones.
Talking of which, some of us are waiting eagerly for the new Kameron Hurley novel, Rapture. Get on with it, guys. 😉
Don’t the new rules prohibit Eclipse from being a semiprozine, as it’s being published by a corporation?
It’s complicated. The award would be going to Jonathan. He’s not an employee of Night Shade, and I’d be astonished if he got more than 25% of his income from them, given that he has a day job and his work for Locus.
I’m not too sure that’s right, with the rules designed to remove professional operations from the category. The publisher has to be eligible for that category, not the editor. Strahan can be considered for short form, but Eclipse can’t for semiprozine. That’s what I was told, in any case!
Not really complicated at all. Their association with Night Shade renders them ineligible for semiprozine by the new definition. This part of the definition of professional was intentionally crafted to deal with such situations:
(2) was owned or published by any entity which provided at least a
quarter the income of any of its staff and/or owner.
Ah, so the “it’s” in the sentence refers to the owning entity, not the magazine. Thank you, that’s clearer now.