Is there a market for a new furry publication?

[jaystoat]

(Admin note: This topic was split from the “Furry fiction - then vs now?” thread here.)

Now I’ve not been reading furry fiction for all that long, so there’s not much I can really add to the debate either way, but I would just like to add something regarding this:

Furry fiction - then vs now?

Anyway, when the furry magazines except the erotic ones disappeared in the early 2000s, it seemed like a furry literary tragedy. A few years later, the furry small-press publishers and cheap self-publishers like Lulu.com and CreateSpace replaced them, but their format has pretty much limited furry writing to novels. The only furry short-story venues left have been dominated by erotic magazines and anthologies. There are a few non-erotic others, like the online non-furry s-f/fantasy magazine “Strange Horizons”, but most furry would-be writers don’t know where to find them.

Do you think that the market is potentially there for a new zine/magazine type publication to come out? This has been something I’ve been contemplating for a while now, ever since I submitted stuff to the now defunct South Fur Lands (though that never really had a big writing side to it).
If the writers are keen, and there’s people who would buy such a thing, Jaffa Books would be interested in looking in to it.

[Poetigress]

I’ll come back and read the rest of this thread in-depth after work today, but just wanted to touch on this quickly:

Do you think that the market is potentially there for a new zine/magazine type publication to come out? This has been something I’ve been contemplating for a while now, ever since I submitted stuff to the now defunct South Fur Lands (though that never really had a big writing side to it).
If the writers are keen, and there’s people who would buy such a thing, Jaffa Books would be interested in looking in to it.

In a word – yes.

Right now, as a writer, if you’ve got a general-audience furry story and it doesn’t happen to suit New Fables or a conbook length/theme (which isn’t really great publishing anyway since there’s no pay and limited readership), there’s nothing to do with it except put it up on FA/wherever, because at the moment, as far as I know, all the open furry anthologies are adult. Now, I’m assuming this is just kind of a lull, because of course there have been a few general anthos recently closed or published – but overall, as far as I’m aware there’s no general furry fiction periodical in the fandom currently. (I don’t really count APAs because that’s not open submission.) We had Allasso recently, which was great, but now that issue 3 is out, I don’t know if that’s ever coming back. It’d be fantastic if it did, but frankly I’m not going to hold my breath for it. So that’s where we are.

Whether the market is there sales-wise, I don’t know enough about furry buying habits to say – but it would certainly fill a niche for writers.

[Fred_Patten]

I echo Poetigress; yes, there is a market for a new, non-erotic furry magazine. I have edited a half-dozen non-erotic furry anthologies since 2003: “Best in Show” for Sofawolf Press (2003), “Already Among Us” for Legion Publishing (2012), “The Ursa Major Awards Anthology” for FurPlanet Publishing (2012), “What Happens Next” for FurPlanet (2013), and “Five Fortunes” and “Anthropomorphic Aliens” for FurPlanet (2014). Thanks to my arrangements with the publishers, I have not been getting any feedback, but FurPlanet has been paying the authors of the original fiction books 1/2¢ a word for their stories (and each of the stories in “What Happens Next” had an original illustration that FurPlanet paid for), and an average of $35 to $50 each for the reprints in “Anthropomorphic Aliens”. Plus commissioning the books’ covers. FurPlanet would not be spending that much money, and the authors would not be writing or selling their stories to FurPlanet, if the non-erotic anthologies were not selling. FuzzWolf, FurPlanet’s co-publisher, is in the FWG; ask him. I assume that the market would not be large enough to support more than one or two issues per year, but it should be viable.

If I understand correctly, FurPlanet’s greatest sales come from impulse purchases at the furry conventions’ dealers’ den tables, not from mail-orders through FurPlanet’s online catalogue. FurPlanet goes to a lot of furry conventions around the U.S. I don’t know if it is practical to sell at Canadian conventions due to Customs and import laws, and I assume that FurPlanet’s books are not available at EuroFurences or Australian conventions. Where is Jaffa Books located; Australia? Unless America’s furry fans become more willing to order books through online catalogs, I can’t guess whether a furry publisher in Australia would be viable.

[Poetigress]

Unless America’s furry fans become more willing to order books through online catalogs, I can’t guess whether a furry publisher in Australia would be viable.

Do it as an ebook, through Amazon and wherever else for other formats, and then you don’t have those kinds of international sales/shipping concerns. Yeah, you lose convention sales not having a print version, but if that’s not going to be viable anyway because of geographic/distribution hassles, then… shrug Just a thought.

[Huskyteer]

I assume that FurPlanet’s books are not available at EuroFurences or Australian conventions.

Fuesselschwarm, based in Germany (subsidiary of a gay bookshop called Maennerschwarm) sell Furplanet and Rabbit Valley stock at Eurofurence and online. (Sofawolf gets the Black Paw Store, who also come to ConFuzzled in the UK.)

[Rabbit]

Even in the larger world of SF the short-story based mags-- including standbys like Analog and Asimov’s-- are struggling for survival. (I’ve heard rumors Analog only still exists due to a wealthy donor, but don’t know it for fact.) Even Reader’s Digest filed for bankruptcy a few years ago. In my own case, my Amazon short story collections underperform my novels by large margins. I happen to think, for example, that my military SF short story collection “Wine of Battle” isn’t half bad, but if it’s sold as many as ten copies online I’d be amazed.It’s sales ranking is abysmal, and it’s doing better than most other short story collections I’m in.

Personally I love reading short story collections and short-fiction mags like F&SF. But they disappeared/are disappearing from bookstore shelves for a reason, I fear. The market is apparently just no longer there. I have no clue to offer as to why.

[SeanRivercritic]

Personally I love reading short story collections and short-fiction mags like F&SF. But they disappeared/are disappearing from bookstore shelves for a reason, I fear. The market is apparently just no longer there. I have no clue to offer as to why.

From what I’ve gathered from customer interaction, the majority view seems to be that short story collections are just not something that can engage a reader. It’s the same reason as why you don’t see a ton of anthologies in bookstores anymore. The average reader today wants to become engaged with the story and the characters; they don’t want to have to get reaquainted with a new story or characters after 40 or less pages unless they know (or feel like) the second story or character is going to become a significance to the first (found in stories that do the third person omniscient POV that switch between two or three different characters after each chapter break).

From my experience working with publishers, both as an editor and as a bookstore manager, publishers are iffy to touch short story collections, sometimes even from bigger-named authors. They tend to slide by if they are part of a large selection (like Card did one for the Ender’s Game series and Butcher did one for the Dresden Files series), but other than that, they don’t see much success.

Reader tastes change, so maybe they’ll come back in sometime in the near future. Would be nice, because especially if there are multiple authors in these collections, they are great as a tool to discover a new author that you will like.

[eduardosoliz]

Do it as an ebook, through Amazon and wherever else for other formats, and then you don’t have those kinds of international sales/shipping concerns. Yeah, you lose convention sales not having a print version, but if that’s not going to be viable anyway because of geographic/distribution hassles, then… shrug Just a thought.

If I remember correctly, Amazon/Kindle re- posts things in all their online stores worldwide (a sale from Japan? Cool!) and publishing internationally on iBooks is a matter of specifying which countries you want to also sell your stuff in.

[Poetigress]

Agreed that a lot of readers want longer works, at least novellas if not novels, because when you have limited reading time (as most people do), it’s a lot easier to read a novel bit by bit – and even skim somewhat – instead of having to have the level of focus that reading a short story requires, where if you miss one key paragraph (or even sentence), the story might not make any sense. And yeah, you do have to work harder because of being presented with a new cast and setup with each story.

What it boils down to is, short stories are more work to read, and with most people reading purely for entertainment, they’ll take whatever asks less effort of them as a reader.

Though, really, I think this is one of those places where furry does better than the mainstream. I could be wrong, since it’s not like I have sales numbers or anything, but I do feel like furry anthologies and collections tend to sell better than the average anthology outside the fandom, compared to novels in the same genres. That’s why, whatever’s happening to mainstream/genre publications, I still think there’s a niche in the fandom for more short fiction, especially publications that focus on non-erotic work.

[Poetigress]

If I remember correctly, Amazon/Kindle re- posts things in all their online stores worldwide (a sale from Japan? Cool!)

They do. As long as you check all the boxes when you submit it to Kindle Direct, they’ll publish it to Amazon in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, India, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia.

[Rechan]

Even while sales are shrinking for short story venues, I can vouche for this: I’ve been trying to sell mainstream short stories for months now. I have looked over many, many magazines/online sites that handle short stories. 90% of them have closed submissions due to Overwhelmed Slushpiles. Even the ones that have open subs right now, the responses are delayed due to being overwhelmed.

So there’s a hell of a lot of Supply out there, but far too little demand.

[Rechan]

Agreed that a lot of readers want longer works, at least novellas if not novels, because when you have limited reading time (as most people do), it’s a lot easier to read a novel bit by bit – and even skim somewhat – instead of having to have the level of focus that reading a short story requires, where if you miss one key paragraph (or even sentence), the story might not make any sense. And yeah, you do have to work harder because of being presented with a new cast and setup with each story.

What it boils down to is, short stories are more work to read, and with most people reading purely for entertainment, they’ll take whatever asks less effort of them as a reader.

That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

It’s more work reading something 10 pages than it is reading something 30 times longer.
People want to read in short spurts. So they don’t want to read a story that can be started and finished in a short amount of time.

Does the above look counter-intuitive to anyone else?

[Voice]

Agreed that a lot of readers want longer works, at least novellas if not novels, because when you have limited reading time (as most people do), it’s a lot easier to read a novel bit by bit – and even skim somewhat – instead of having to have the level of focus that reading a short story requires, where if you miss one key paragraph (or even sentence), the story might not make any sense. And yeah, you do have to work harder because of being presented with a new cast and setup with each story.

What it boils down to is, short stories are more work to read, and with most people reading purely for entertainment, they’ll take whatever asks less effort of them as a reader.

That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

It’s more work reading something 10 pages than it is reading something 30 times longer.
People want to read in short spurts. So they don’t want to read a story that can be started and finished in a short amount of time.

Does the above look counter-intuitive to anyone else?

I can see why that would look counter-intuitive, but I can also see the other point as well.
Personally, I read both longer works as well as shorter works, primarily while taking transit. With an hour to read coming home from work each day, I sometimes find it easier to read a short story than I do to get into a novel. That said, I sometimes WANT to delve into a novel and lose myself in it rather than have the intensity that comes with a short story.
So really, it works both ways.

[mwalimu]

That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

It’s more work reading something 10 pages than it is reading something 30 times longer.

I interpreted Poetigress’s statement differently. My take on it is that it’s more work reading 30 10-page stories than one 300-page story. The reasoning behind that might be something like that in each of those short stories you have to become familiar with the characters, the setting, the tone and style of the work, the process of getting your mind wrapped around a story. With a longer story you only have to do that once. It would be on a larger scale for the longer work but not proportionally to the length.

Note that I am simply trying to restate the position here (and may or may not be right) and not taking sides on whether I concur with it.

[Chipotle]

I don’t know how much we can draw from what seems to work and not work in the “mainstream” science fiction and fantasy markets. For instance, novellas are notoriously hard to sell outside furry, but FurPlanet seems to do pretty well selling them in standalone editions. We love our ongoing series, to be sure, but I suspect we’re actually more receptive to the notion of putting them together from shorter bits rather than sweeping novels.

I think a magazine could do reasonably well; the big challenges are distribution and the editor/publisher’s available time. (The latter one is what I tend to fall down on when I try. It’s a bigger problem than it sounds like it should be.)

[Poetigress]

My take on it is that it’s more work reading 30 10-page stories than one 300-page story. The reasoning behind that might be something like that in each of those short stories you have to become familiar with the characters, the setting, the tone and style of the work, the process of getting your mind wrapped around a story. With a longer story you only have to do that once. It would be on a larger scale for the longer work but not proportionally to the length.

Yes, that’s what I meant. It’s not about the length of time it takes to read the complete work; it’s about the effort involved for the reader.

Rechan, I would agree that supply is always going to outstrip demand as far as slushpiles go, but I don’t know that I’d agree that 90% of places tend to be closed due to the slushpiles being overwhelmed. That kind of thing tends to happen periodically, especially to the big-name magazines, but in my experience there have always been a lot of semi-pro and token markets open, as well as anthologies, some with a turnaround time of days to weeks. We may be looking at different genres, though, so your mileage may vary.

[jaystoat]

If I understand correctly, FurPlanet’s greatest sales come from impulse purchases at the furry conventions’ dealers’ den tables, not from mail-orders through FurPlanet’s online catalogue. FurPlanet goes to a lot of furry conventions around the U.S. I don’t know if it is practical to sell at Canadian conventions due to Customs and import laws, and I assume that FurPlanet’s books are not available at EuroFurences or Australian conventions. Where is Jaffa Books located; Australia? Unless America’s furry fans become more willing to order books through online catalogs, I can’t guess whether a furry publisher in Australia would be viable.

I just got back from RivFur here in Brisbane, which was a small con (I think about 150 attendees) and managed to move a lot of books, despite having a fairly small range (I act as the Australian retailer for FurPlanet and Rabbit Valley as well as selling Jaffa Books original content), so I would definitely say Australia has the potential to support an anthology. Yes, the big market is in the USA though, and I would have to look into possible ways to make it convenient for US furs to get hold of any potential anthology.
Ebooks are of course just one way this can be done.

Regarding the posts saying that short story collections are struggling as a whole - I might just be an anomaly, but the two short story collections I have published are amongst my top sellers.

[FuzzWolf]

This is an interesting topic and I find myself of two minds about it.

My initial reaction is that no, the market (both for writers and readers) would not support another general audiences anthology.

New Fables skipped a year in 2011, ROAR 5 was delayed several months and Trick or Treat was originally supposed to be two separate books. The reason for all these was a simple lack of appropriate, quality submissions.

It looks like we as a community don’t have enough support for the clean anthologies we already have let alone adding more.

On the other hand, sometimes one offs and issue 1s are popular. It’s also possible to just hit the right topic that really inspires people. From what Voice told me, the response to Abandoned Places was very enthusiastic.

On the subject of anthologies in general, I love them. I love short stories and I devour mainstream sci-fi anthologies as well as furry ones. However, it seems I’m in the minority both in and outside the fandom. Anthologies in general don’t sell as well as novellas or novels and the clean ones sell less than the adult ones.

Those are just my observations. If someone decides to pick up the banner and produce another clean anthology that’s great. I’m all for more books. It might be an uphill battle though.

[Rechan]

My initial reaction is that no, the market (both for writers and readers) would not support another general audiences anthology.

New Fables skipped a year in 2011, ROAR 5 was delayed several months and Trick or Treat was originally supposed to be two separate books. The reason for all these was a simple lack of appropriate, quality submissions.

On the other hand, sometimes one offs and issue 1s are popular. It’s also possible to just hit the right topic that really inspires people. From what Voice told me, the response to Abandoned Places was very enthusiastic.

I do think it’s a matter of Theme. I mean, the General audience Pulp and Punk’d both got filled. I can’t really comment about Urban Knights, which was general audiences, because it’s been pretty silent.

As a writer, I’ve never been interested in Roar’s themes (or Fang’s for that matter) and writing for New Fables’s pecific theme is a bit hard.

[SeanRivercritic]

On the subject of anthologies in general, I love them. I love short stories and I devour mainstream sci-fi anthologies as well as furry ones. However, it seems I’m in the minority both in and outside the fandom. Anthologies in general don’t sell as well as novellas or novels and the clean ones sell less than the adult ones.

As much as I seriously hate to say it, this is right on the money (which I guess would be something good for a publisher to know). The average reader in the fandom wants more time to connect to a single story or string of charaters, and the average reader would also prefer adult to clean. Granted, some of the adult titles in the fandom could very easily be changed to clean-ish without changing anything significant, and would probably draw the same crowd. This is besdies the point, though.

Though to be honest, adult and/or mature titles tend to sell just as good if not better than general-audience books in several markets outside of the fandom as well. Not to mention that looking at percentages, the guild has a much better anthology to novel sales ratio than just about any other market that’s out there.

We have the guild anthology coming out in a couple of weeks, so lets see what sort of sales that can do. I’m waiting on some finalizations from RV, but it’s looking good for release the last week of August/first week of September. In a month or so, once we get out of the back-to-school rush here at my main job, and assuming I won’t be in charge of a potential Tales from the Guild, Vol II, I may be looking to start something more general audience; have a couple of ideas in my head.