Another big opportunity for growth in short fiction is international. The majority of what is published by US publishers originates from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, but there’s a much larger audience beyond. It’s not uncommon for works to be republished in other countries and often translated to other languages. Years after the digital explosion, the industry is still focused on regional instead of global marketing and distribution. For the online magazines, the internet makes that easy, but for digital and print, the distribution systems are complicated or nonexistent. In the EU, VAT fees are also an issue. In parts of Asia, books and magazines are sold at far lower prices than they are here. Adjustments need to be made and creative solutions discovered if we are to enter an age of an international science fiction community.
That said, this cannot be viewed as a one-way exchange. Opening the doors to the rest of the world also means letting others in. It’s no secret that I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years seeking out translated works for Clarkesworld. Through a relationship with Storycom in China, I’ve been able to publish many fantastic Chinese authors. We’ve also published translations from South Korea, Italy, and Germany. In the last few years, the short fiction community—publishers and readers—has become increasingly more open to works in translation. I’ve seen first-hand how these efforts can build an audience for both US authors abroad and for foreign authors at home.
Through these experiences I’ve learned a lot about the science fiction communities in other parts of the world. While some regions might still equate science fiction with children’s literature or worse, others, like China, appear to have culturally embraced the genre at the highest levels of business and government. In November, I had the opportunity to visit China and participate in a number of events and conferences. It’s a much younger community than ours is here, very enthusiastic, and growing fast. It’s highly likely they’ll continue to have increasing role on the global SF stage in the years to come.
Though its impact reaches far beyond just publishing, there was at least one crowdfunding issue that triggered some serious concern for a portion of the short fiction community in late 2017. Many authors and online magazines, mine included, utilize Patreon to connect with fans and generate revenue. You could describe what they offer as a cross between traditional subscriptions and crowdfunding. For example, a magazine or author can set up an account that allows you to make a monthly financial pledge, and in exchange you might get a digital issue from the magazine or a short story from the author. You can quit at any time. (It can get a lot more complicated than that, but I’m trying to keep it simple.) Over the last few years, the number of people using Patreon has grown significantly, and it’s had a significant financial impact on the genre short fiction community. Some of the authors using Patreon include Tobias S. Buckell, Kameron Hurley, Sean McGuire, N.K. Jemisin, and Catherynne M. Valente. Magazines include Clarkesworld, Fireside, Apex, Uncanny, and more.
In December, Patreon announced that they would be making a change to the way they processed fees. They planned to pass along the credit card processing fees to the patrons, their term for the people who support “creators” on their site. The reason most people don’t know about these fees is that it they are typically paid by the business where you use your card. Up until this point, they were being paid by the creators. The new model was met with almost universal opposition and made worse by poor communication from Patreon. Over the next few days, many supporters reduced or deleted pledges. By the time Patreon announced their intention to cancel the fee changes, many creators had lost a significant amount of monthly revenue. Some patrons returned, but the damage had already been done, namely to the trust that had built up over the last few years.
As we make our way through 2018, it will be interesting to see how Patreon recovers from this PR failure and how the community adjusts moving forward. In many ways, their timing couldn’t have been much worse. Just a couple of months earlier, crowdfunding giant Kickstarter unveiled Drip, Patreon’s first serious competitor. Drip is presently invite-only but anticipated to open to a broader audience in 2018.
In previous introductions to this series, I’ve described the process by which the stories are evaluated. Something I didn’t spend much time on was how eligibility was determined. In most cases, it’s fairly straightforward. If the story appears for the first time in English in 2017, it was eligible for consideration. However, there are some edge cases. For example, like most Year’s Best editors and award rules, I treat a magazine or anthology with a January 2017 cover/publication date to be a 2017 publication, even though copies might have reached subscribers in December 2016. Basically, we’re honoring the intent of the publisher.
Sometimes, a story can become detached from an issue/book and published separately. For example, a story from an anthology might be released online in December as marketing for the book. In that case, that particular story is considered published in 2016, while the other stories are from 2017. If you’re lucky, best of the year editors have been told about this in advance and can consider the story
