Buried Treasures

The leading light of small press editors, Lou Anders ( http://www.louanders.com ) sent me this link to a lengthy article, "Buried Treasures", by Peter Heck, published in Asimov's. http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0710/onbooks.shtml

If you're interested in the state of publishing, and the whys and wherefores of small press, this exhaustive article will illuminate you.

Here's the gist. Peter writes: "Whether you call it evolution or devolution, SF publishing has changed rather radically from what it was, say, a decade ago. Most of the changes have been negative in terms of accessibility to potential readers and income to writers. However, perhaps there will turn out to be a small improvement or two in terms of literary freedom as the center of gravity, to coin an entirely paradoxical metaphor, moves to the fringes.

For, among other things, more of the most interesting fiction in the extended genre than not seems to be found, at least by those able to find it, in the lists of the so-called small presses, and in the list of a publisher like Pyr, which seems to straddle, or perhaps in the end will erase, the distinction between such lists and the so-called major SF lines."

He goes on to explain quite fluently what's happening with major publishers (like my own) that's making it hard for writers to write what's dear to their hearts, and forcing those who are driven to do it anyway to choose small presses to publish their work. There are wonderful things about small presses, as I learned in publishing ABSALOM'S MOTHER AND OTHER STORIES with the fine small publisher Fairwood Press. The chief advantage is artistic freedom. The downside is limited distribution.

There's a lot to be learned by Peter's detailed analysis of five small-press books and why they deserved, and indeed, needed to be published, but why they didn't fit the commercial mold of large presses. Pyr's SAGRAMANDA (Alan Dean Foster) is one of the books he writes about, and which now I have to run right out and buy.

If you love the genre, this article is worth ten minutes of your time. But you may have to go straight to Amazon.com and do some shopping.