bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

*Writing from somewhere in a hermetically sealed room* As I am now in the brain-melting throes of writing my dissertation (12,000 words and four weeks to go), these round ups are focused on what dedicated SFF UK imprints are doing to digitally market themselves, their books and their authors to their fans and wider readerships.

Gollancz: have recently announced they’re making the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction, ‘the definitive reference work in the field’, available free online. In another step towards helping more genre books reach wider audiences, and helping audiences to reach more books, Gollancz are launching the SF Gateway. It’s going to be the ‘world’s largest digital SF library, which will make thousands of out-of-print titles by classic genre authors available as eBooks’ (so not an intergalactic gateway to other such gateways, but still pretty neat). Available to access this autumn, the project has been headed by Gollancz’s digital publisher, Darren Nash. This really is an amazing venture, and really utilises the digital form. In a further step towards digital domination, Gollancz are also teaming up with pulp website Good Show Sir, with the goal of making every cover linkable to the actual text by 2012 (this last part might be a lie, but they’re missing out on a trick – who wouldn’t want to read about Nazi gnomes?!).

Angry Robot Books: are back again this week because I’ve been writing the section in my dissertation (known henceforth as the ‘Big D’) about how negative perceptions of the fantasy genre are often linked to cheap, and badly written, swords and sorcery fiction from around the 1950s. This was otherwise known as ‘pulp’ fiction (so-called due to the cheap wood pulp paper that enabled the printing of several key fantasy and science fiction magazines around that time). The Big D points out that publishers have been trying to put their sordid, scantily-clad maidens past behind them. Commissioning editors who were interviewed for the Big D all agree wholeheartedly that negative perceptions are linked to the covers for these texts (please see Nazi gnomes cover for reference). Art Directors and the like have been working for years to rebrand SFF away from these ‘pulp’ covers, only returning to them in a retro, ironic fashion. I write all of this because this week, Angry Robot announced the signing of swords and sorcery author Paul S Kemp. Kemp is ‘unashamedly a fan of the classic ‘swords and sorcery’ fantasy’. His series of novels will be bringing ‘swords and sorcery right up to date’. But with a few key changes. It’s about thieves and treasure hunters, who are the new assassins (Douglas Hulick’s Tales of the Kin helped with that), and Angry Robot are keen to emphasise that it uses ‘very modern language’. I’ve done a few questionnaires for my essay, and people generally find the language and names used (see Tolkien’s works for detail) off-putting when it comes to reading fantasy, and so would rather not. Could more books of this ilk being published, with modern covers, modern language and trending themes, be part of the key of helping SFF to reach wider audiences, without the need for a HBO series?

I will leave you with a quote from H. P. Lovecraft on the matter of being published by pulp magazines (which he was): ‘the field is so repugnant to me that it’s about the last way I’d ever choose to gain shelter and clothing and nourishment.’ Beautiful.

bite me: the week in bite-sized chunks

Atom:

Dear teenage self,

If only Atom’s The Atomics, a new blogosphere of reviewers aged twelve to eighteen who will be given the opportunity to see Atom’s latest titles before they go to print, had existed back when you were morosely putting pen to paper. You could have stopped writing about the love that never could be (he’s gay, by the way), and instead wrote reviews and been published in the Atomics section of the Atom website. I wrote about this last month as Atom are great for interacting with their blogging fans (and feeding them buns). They are also keen to let readers know they aren’t just publishing ‘girly’ paranormal romances, they’re currently expanding their list to cater to a breadth of teenage topics, including mystery and adventure. Perhaps this signals a move away from what could be known as their Twilight Era, their ‘tween’ stage on the way to being a fully established imprint no longer under Orbit’s considerable shadow. Atom is all grown up and ready to split (sorry).

Angry Robot Books: these guys have, rather excitingly, just launched their digital short story store and from the 1st December readers will be able to buy and download their authors’ short stories (AKA ‘Nano Editions’). Also, at 59p each or 10 for £3.49, they’re not pricey. Eager to embrace the new opportunities digital technology is presenting publishers with, Editor Lee Harris calls this venture an ‘excellent way for readers to sample unfamiliar authors, without breaking the bank.’ In addition, I realise I’ve said this before but I really do intend to review a title by this publisher if only to justify my place in their Angry Robot Army, where I am currently registering as so low in the ranks I’m only classed as Miffed. Also, great interview with Harris in SFX here.

2010 Urban Fantasy Cover Art Awards: voting is now open for these annual awards by All Things Urban Fantasy and closes on 29th December. Featuring titles published between the 1st January and the 31st December 2010, the 15 categories include Best Male Cover, Most Unique Cover, Cover of the Year 2010 and, my personal favourite, Best Female w/ Animal Cover. Voting also means you’re eligible to win some of the shortlisted titles. I love covers, being a hardcopy romantic, and naturally there are many beautiful pieces of art to choose from, such as artist Chris McGrath’s cover designs for Clay and Susan Griffith’s The Greyfriar, a Steampunk title published by Prometheus Books (and surely based on Mitchell, the vampire from the excellent BBC supernatural drama Being Human?). My favourite cover out of all those in the running has to be The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff, published by Razorbill and by cover artist Jonathan Barkat, for its uniqueness amongst the usual Urban Fantasy tokes and because it features that which terrifies me the most: a baby in a pram.

how many books can you fit on the head of a pin?

I know this is supposed to be a Bad Thing but I love judging a book by its cover. In this increasingly digital age (as we keep being told), covers might be the last bastion against against the mounting need to cram all the books into a teeny little living space. Or, to put it another way, it's the greatest and most exciting challenge a publisher now has to face: how to market a book without a cover.

If done well, a cover can be a great marketing tool. Blurbs, carefully wrought designs, author quotes, and, if you're lucky, a lovely big picture to gawp at and reference in case you forget what the main protagonist looks like.

It can also be a dead giveaway that you're reading a fantasy about a big dragon who enjoys shouting things like 'puny mortals!' and burning villages to the ground (thanks, Hobb).

But publishers are sly. They know that some of us like our Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in anonymous jackets that could easily pass for semi-intelligent thrillers or modern romances (shudder). Many want covers and jackets that will blur beneath the common commuters' eye and don't invite judgement on the reader. This is also a great marketing tool if you want to spread the net a little wider and target the fabled Mass Market. One point to eBooks then. You can't judge a book by its eReader (although, interestingly, it is possible to judge a person).

But what will this do to the content? And will happen to the content that the SFF 'fan' has been loyally consuming for all these years? Those of us who have been here from the start, since before being a geek became cool? Who still aren't cool? When SFF publishers begin to commission with everyone in mind, will these genres suffer, and be resigned to the subbasement of SFF in place of the new favourite kids, Urban and Dark Fantasy? Suddenly everything might become about vampires and catering to fragile tweenage hearts.

Or will it? There are still license-based imprints out there like Games Workshop's Black Library, or midlist imprints like Solaris, who are doubtful to ever snub Warhammer in favour of another Urban Fantasy about a kick-ass girl fighting sexy demons.

Anyway, really a cover shouldn't matter, or the format either. A book is made up of its content. But I still want to be able to judge a book by its appearance (on screen or off). I want to know that publishers are working hard, keeping on their toes, to make their content look appealing. To publish content they can make look appealing. And I want to know how they're doing it, and I want to be there when they do so that I can make my choice.

Join me. Revel in it. Judge.