I’m delighted and a little daunted and planning on lots of things.
Right now I’m composing a blog post about self-publishing and why SFWA”s looking at it, as well as my own adventures, past and planned, in self-publishing.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
Back when I was VP of SFWA, Executive Director Kate Baker told me she had a dream. “I want to make the Nebula conference -the- premier conference for professional F&SF writers,” she said. “Something that no one wants to miss. A conference so good that if someone has budget for only one convention each year, that’s the one they know they’ll get the most value out of.”
It seemed like a pretty good goal to me. After all, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America is over fifty years old, has close to 2000 members, including some pretty impressive names, has and continues to do major work in the field protecting professional F&SF writers, and gives out one set of the industry’s major awards as well as the recognition of the SFWA Grand Mastership.
It’s five years later, and in my opinion, Kate’s done what she set out to do. She didn’t do it alone, of course. She had the help of a whole lot of amazing SFWA staff and volunteers, including the amazing Terra LeMay and Steven H Silver. Mary Robinette Kowal got turned loose on programming the last couple of years and has been doing a stellar job. And others have made their mark with additions, such as the Nebula Award Alternate Universe Acceptance speeches or the mentoring program led by Sarah Pinsker or (I’d like to think) two I’ve contributed: the volunteer appreciation breakfast as well as the spouses and partners reception that have been regular features (and I hope will continue to do so!) Or the Book Depot, because I don’t know of ANY other con that takes as much care to make sure that its authors — including the indies — can sign and sell their books there. And there’s a fancy Nebula website, which remains a work in progress as more and more gets added to it, preserving the history of the Awards.
We’ve only got a small fraction of the schedule so far, with plenty of new stuff getting added every day, but here’s some highlights.
I don’t mean to imply that the old version of the Nebulas was not what they promised to be. They were a chance to mingle and meet, but programming was usually slim and single track at best, and sometimes the topics were very broad indeed. They didn’t feel like a professional conference so much as a party. That’s fun, but it doesn’t give members stuff they actually need to be successful at what they do.
So…well done, Kate. You deserve a lot of applause for the effort you’ve led and you did exactly what you said you would do. The Nebulas now also stay within their budget, which is impressive, and has made enormous strides towards paying for itself, an important thing at a time when we see SFWA’s budget changing and adapting to the new publishing landscape.
It’s my last Nebula weekend as SFWA president, so I’ll be flitting around with a lot of relief on my face. Please say hi, but more importantly, please tell Kate and her team how much you’re enjoying the conference. I’m really going to miss working with this group of fabulous, amazing, talented people.
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I am part of the Writer’s Symposium this year at Gen Con and looking forward to it. Last time I went to one, it was in Lake Geneva, and a whole lot tinier, I believe, than nowadays.
One lure is the chance to talk with my brother Lowell, who is (is it possible?) a bigger game geek than I. You may be familiar with his Age of Ravens website, which talks a lot about RPG history, design, and gamemastering.
The SFWA Board and the Game Committee are continuing to discuss how to best tweak the qualifications.
Marc Tassin has very kindly set up a town hall event at the con, where I can talk about the decision, listen to your feedback, and take questions. Here’s my schedule overall; if you’re interested in the game writing decision, please let me know if you’re going to miss the Town Hall and would like to set up a time to come and talk to me. I’m currently writing up another blog post on what SFWA offers game writers, because there’s quite a bit.
Here’s my schedule; I’ll be updating it as it fills up. Unless noted, an event still had tickets last time I checked.
Thursday
9 AM – attend Writers Symposium Opening Ceremonies
1 PM – Writer’s Craft: Writing Stories in First Person
2 PM – Short Fiction: Where to Start the Story
6 PM – Writer’s Craft: Story to Idea Workshop No tickets left
7 PM – Town Hall meeting about SFWA
Friday
9 AM – Writer’s Craft: Novel Writing 101 Very few tickets left.
10 AM – Character Craft: Hearing the Character’s Thoughts
12 PM – Signing
4 PM – attending a panel
7 PM – Attend friend’s reading and dinner after
Saturday
9 AM – attending a panel
12 PM – Lunch meeting
6 PM – Character Craft: Building Them Up
8 PM – Author Hangout Event
Sunday
9 AM – Read & Critique Session C
11 AM – attending a panel
12 PM – Private event
1 PM – Closing ceremonies
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3 Responses
Congrats on the SFWA vice presidency. As to including self-pubbed authors in SFWA, the sooner the better. If SFWA doesn’t find some way to include them, it’s days are numbered. Many authors aren’t even considering traditional publishers and instead are publishing directly on Amazon because self-pubbing actually makes them more money. So the self-pubbing trend is only going to continue to grow in the future. If SFWA is going to survive it has to include them.
My condolences! Given the recent history of the SFWA and it’s attacks on Conservatives and the falling sales of the books the SFWA backs, I suspect a very trying and frustrating time for you.
Self publishing is the future, damn it! I like paper books! But I fully appreciate E-books simplicity and the lack of the gatekeepers that exist at the major publishers. Until Baen Books came out, I had almost quit reading new Science Fiction, and was subsisting on haunting used book stores for stuff I hadn’t read.
Lots of assumptions there – not sure that I agree with you some of them, such as “it’s [sic] recent attacks on Conservatives”, particularly given how many conservatives there are in the org. One of the things I appreciate about the organization, in fact, is the spectrum of beliefs, since I think political diversity is pretty important.
I’d be interested to find out where you’re getting “the falling sales of the books SFWA backs”. Do you mean SFWA-published collections like the Nebula anthology? Or the “Featured Author/Book” section on the website? I’m not sure that’s accurate, and certainly I’ll be curious to see how the recent decision to make the latter available to all members works.
But I do appreciate a lot of the Baen authors, particularly folks like Eric Flint and Elizabeth Moon. I’m looking forward to her next Paksennarion book. Dunno if I get to count myself one — I’ve got a story forthcoming in one of their military fantasy anthologies — but there’s some fine company there. If you like military SF I just finished a couple of excellent self-published ones by Elliott Kay: POOR MAN’S FIGHT and RICH MAN’S WAR, which I recommend as fun reads.