William
Sanders
Senior Editor and Mean Old Bastard Emeritus
And here we are again, with a new collection of fine reading to help get you through those long winter evenings, and enough variety that you shouldn't get bored. Everything from cyberpunk, by my esteemed colleague Eugie Foster of Tangent magazine, to a disturbing little fantasy short-short by church secretary Samantha Henderson, whose employers may be a bit shaken if they should read it.
Variety is what you'd expect, too, from this bunch of writers. Have a look at the contributors' page, if you haven't already, and you'll see what I mean. So much for the usual white-bread-made-in-USA uniformity that we so often see in this genre; this issue we've gone interracial, international — and, if you count Bud, possibly interplanetary as well. What's odd is that this wasn't something that was planned; it just happened that way.
You might also note that three out of seven stories are by women; not as high a percentage as last month, but still higher than you'll find at any of the big prozines.
Quite a range in ages and levels of experience, too. As you see, we've got stories from well-known old pro John Barnes and the noted team of Ian Watson and Roberto Quaglia (not to mention a certain old pro, whom modesty forbids I should identify) and even a poem by an official Grand Master, Bruce Boston; and we're honored by their presence.
But we've also got stories by new writers with only modest publishing records; and we're honored by them too, honored to have been able to help them show what they can do.
In fact we're getting more stories from newer writers than I'd expected. When we started the magazine I had in mind mostly creating a place for established pro writers to publish the stories that were lying in their trunks, covered with little round marks from being touched with ten-foot poles. And we have gotten some like that, but not as many as I'd expected — largely because so many of the full-time pros have just about stopped writing short stories, since there's no longer any money in it.
I hadn't thought in terms of newer/younger writers; to be frank, I figured when a beginning writer keeps getting a story back there's probably a good reason for it. And I think that's still true in most cases...but I've encountered enough outstanding exceptions, over the last few months, to make me do some rethinking.
Which brings up another of those surprises.
Several reviewers, as well as various individuals registering comments in blogs and newsgroups and the like, have remarked — sometimes a bit scornfully — that Helix fails to live up to its billing; that many of the stories we've published so far have not been particularly controversial.
And — this may surprise you — I entirely agree.
The easy answer is that we never said that was what we were going to publish; we said we hoped to publish stories that had been rejected by other magazines, for various reasons, and we mentioned potentially controversial content as one of those possible reasons.
(A certain amount of confusion may have resulted from an article that appeared in a certain online magazine. Without getting into the now-stale details, let's just say I was not quoted accurately.)
But I can see, too, how there might have been some misunderstanding, in that we said we were looking for stories that had been rejected as too controversial or touchy or potentially offensive. By that we didn't necessarily mean stories that actually were too risky to publish; just the kind that editors and/or publishers thought were too hot to handle.
And our experience so far demonstrates that the judgment of editors and publishers in this regard is not necessarily valid. On the contrary, we've gotten very little in the way of negative reactions, even to the most controversial stories we've run. The only one that's generated any substantial flak so far has been Janis Ian's "Mahmoud's Wives" in issue #1, and even that consisted largely of some whining by PC types; there haven't even been any angry letters, let alone bombs or death threats, from persons of the Islamic persuasion. (And according to our tracking service the story has been read in many Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia.)
Another story in that issue had been bounced by one major editor with the remark that he'd be lynched if he printed it. So far nobody's shown up around here with a rope....
In other words, the stories that the editors thought would be too controversial to print turned out to be nothing of the sort.
It would be nice to think that the editors and publishers of SF would look at our example and say, "Well, wouldn't that blow your hat in the creek! I guess we were being too cautious, huh? All right, then, that'll be a lesson to us—"
But somehow I don't expect it.
Some of the back stories are really amazing. My old friend Michael Payne, whose marvelously hilarious story appears in this issue, informs me that while it was rejected by the major zines, one editor did say he'd publish it if only Mikey would take out about half of the repetitions of the word "goddamn." And no, despite what you might think, it wasn't the editor of Boys' Life.
Still, it's true that some of the stories that come in clearly are not controversial even by the fraidycat standards of the industry. Consider Nora Jemisin's story in this issue. Surely no one could possibly find anything offensive in this haunting and beautiful story of love and redemption. Yet it was rejected, repeatedly. Why? You'll have to ask the little gods of the slush piles.
So I suppose we need to add another category to our statement of purpose, and say that we're looking for stories that have been rejected because they were deemed potentially controversial or offensive or just disturbing — or because the editors had taken leave of their senses.
Maybe I shouldn't say anything about my own contribution to the present issue, but you might be interested to know that it was the indirect reason for the founding of this magazine. I had sent it to my usual publisher, and gotten it back with a strange rejection note that didn't make any sense; then I tried a couple more places with even worse luck — one British editor emailed a rejection literally within minutes of having gotten it!
It wasn't hard to guess the reason; that was around the time of the furor over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet, and people were understandably nervous about anything that might bring down the wrath of the jihadists. Still, I was pretty pissed off; and I told some of my friends about it, and we got to talking about stories being rejected out of editorial caution, and how this sort of thing seemed to be getting more and more common — somebody said, "The Dangerous Visions era is over" — and later that night, under the stimulus of a blended Canadian whiskey which I cannot recommend, the idea was born.
One other thing: you may have noticed the absence of the usual Letters section. This is quite simply because we didn't get any letters this last quarter — other than a couple of congratulatory one-liners, and we'd have looked pretty silly printing them and nothing else.
I wonder — is it that people just don't write letters to magazines any more? I notice that quite a few of the SF magazines, both print and e, no longer have we-get-letters departments.
At least part of the function of the traditional letters page may have been taken over by the online forum. Many magazines have their own fora nowadays; and we've been asked if we're planning to have one.
The answer being: yes indeed, just a couple of weeks after Hell freezes over. Those things may be fun for the participants but they're a pain in the ass to run, what with the inevitable trolls and spam. We tried having a simple newsgroup for a month or two, and it turned out to be a huge energy sink.
Anyway, the letters page has been discontinued for lack of participation. If we start getting messages again, and they look worth publishing, we'll certainly reinstate it.
And now, if you haven't already done so, please read Lawrence's editorial as well. He makes some excellent points.
Lawrence
Watt-Evans
Managing Editor and Freelance Pedant
Where the Money Comes From
Helix is free. We've said that all along, and we meant it.
But we've also asked people to give us money, to keep us going. Some of you have done that, and for that we're very grateful. We've been impressed with the generosity some people have displayed.
But we've also been a bit surprised by how relatively few of them there are.
When we were starting out, we expected that most people would read a few stories and maybe some of the other material, and if they liked what they saw they'd send us a few bucks each issue. We were hoping for hundreds of small donors each time out.
That's not what happened. Instead we got fewer donors than we'd anticipated, but they've mostly been more generous than we expected, some of them much more generous.
This is still a viable model from our point of view, of course, as long as we have enough money to pay for the server space and still give each contributor a reasonable sum when we divvy up what's left. So far, we've done well enough to pay our writers an amount that doesn't embarrass us.
Still, it bothers me a little. It doesn't seem entirely fair. Most readers never send anything, while some are paying far more than their share.
I know some readers really can't afford to send anything, and I wouldn't ask them to. I also know that some people like to be generous, and I'm certainly not going to complain about that, either. But I can't help thinking that we should be getting more small donations than we are.
I suspect that part of it is the inconvenience of sending money. Most folks are basically honest, and willing to pay for value received, but when you have to go fill out a form on PayPal, or write a check and find a stamp and address an envelope — well, it's a nuisance. We can't deny that. All we can do is urge you to make the effort.
If anyone has suggestions on how to make it easier without cluttering up the website with a dozen payment methods, e-mail me, and we'll consider it.
I've been asked why we don't take ads, why we aren't looking for any sort of corporate support, why we expect readers to pay for everything.
Basically, we're being idealists.
Neither Will nor I is usually much on idealism; in my own opinion, idealists are responsible for a large part of the trouble in the world. In this case, though, we're indulging our idealistic impulses. This is largely because of the very nature of Helix. Our intent is to present the best stories we can find that couldn't find homes with traditional markets. We want to only serve two groups: our writers, and our readers.
Not advertisers. Not sponsors. Not grant administrators.
Traditional magazines don't make most of their money off readers; they make their money off selling ad space. And the major reason they're reluctant to publish controversial material isn't that it'll scare off readers, but because it'll scare off advertisers. Reader complaints don't generally bother editors that much, but they do upset advertisers. Losing subscriptions hurts the bottom line not only because it means you have less money coming in from subscribers, but because it means you can't charge as much for advertising — and the latter reason is the more important one, which is why, when renewal time comes around, you get notice after notice, offering you lower and lower prices, more and more special deals, until you finally agree to sign up for another year.
The actual subscription money barely pays for printing and shipping, but the higher rates you can charge for advertising — that's where the real money is!
So — we don't accept advertising for two reasons. One is that we don't ever want to be beholden to our advertisers. We don't ever want to worry about losing ad revenue because we're running a story that'll piss off a sponsor — or worse, turn down a good story because we think it would piss off a sponsor.
And the other reason is simply that we don't like advertising. It's intrusive and annoying. That's the really idealistic part — thinking we can indulge our own prejudices and still survive.
Why should you give us money?
So we can give it to the writers.
The writers who have allowed us to publish their stories were taking a gamble by sending us their work. We weren't able to promise them so much a word, or a flat rate, or, really, anything. We said they'd get an even share of whatever we took in, less expenses, but there was no guarantee that there'd be anything left after expenses. They took a chance that we'd get enough from you, the readers, to justify letting us publish their stories.
They won that gamble — not a big jackpot, by any means, but they've gotten paid, and more than most of them expected. Not as much as they'd have gotten from Asimov's or F&SF, but a decent amount, enough that we don't feel any need to apologize to them.
But we would like to pay them more. We're more likely to get name authors if we pay more. We're more likely to get good writers coming back if we pay more. We can demonstrate to the talented beginners we find that yes, they can make money at this. Everyone's happier if we pay the writers more.
So if you like what you read here, send us money. It goes to the writers. Not to distributors or bookstore owners or accountants or advertisers or printers, but to the writers.
One reason Will offered me the position of managing editor was that I'd been successful in publishing a serialized novel online, and we thought that Helix was similar enough that my experience there would be useful. This has been less true than we had expected. The trick with the serial, you see, was that I let it be known that if the money didn't come in, the next chapter didn't get posted. People who wanted to read that next chapter were eager to send in a few bucks to make sure it appeared, and I wound up finishing the whole novel, in weekly installments, without interruption.
Helix, though, doesn't work that way. It's a quarterly, rather than a weekly. The stories don't stop in the middle of the action. And we've never said, 'If we don't take in X dollars, the next issue won't appear.'
But if the money doesn't come in, eventually the next issue won't appear. We haven't set a specific amount, but we're agreed that if it stops being fun, if the amount we share amongst the writers is ever so small it's embarrassing, then we'll quit. We aren't going to tamper with our rules, change our frequency, or put out an issue we don't consider up to par in either size or quality of content; if we ever can't do the project properly, the way we think it should be done, we'll just stop.
So we want to encourage people to give us money, but without nagging, without being as obnoxious as the advertising we won't run.
It might be that our best approach would be to give donors something specific in return. At present, they get a thank-you e-mail, and they get to see the next issue about a fortnight early, but that's all. If it's not enough — well, we aren't interested in playing games. We assume our readers understand the situation and don't need a lot of used-car hucksterism to convince them to support Helix. The stories and poetry and features should be enough.
As I said, we're being idealists, and idealism almost never works.
When it does, it's a pleasant surprise.
Surprise us.