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Weird Tales Magazine

Ken

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I'm just wondering if Weird Tales is even a legit publication anymore,

... sure. But would it be a plus to be pub'd in it anymore?
Agents and editors might be sorta aghast if a writer puts that in their bio.
Undeserved or not, Weird Tales is considered something like the KKK Times at present.
 

Taran

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The editor attacking me for pointing out the returned submissions on a Facebook Group just shows how unprofessional the current staff are. Not that you needed more convincing.
 
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AnneMarble

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A little update after one of the contributing editors at Weird Tales called me a whiner for for pointing out their erratic submission windows. It seems a few months ago the editors were dumping previously accepted stories to "make room" for a new round of submissions.

"My own latest shock came in an email from Marvin Kaye earlier this month in which he welshed on his acceptance of the two stories he was going to run in his magazine."

Source: http://adventuresfantastic.blogspot.ca/2013/07/further-thoughts-on-marvin-kaye-and.html
Thank you for posting that. The whole thing just get weirder -- and not in the good way. I can't imagine finally (finally!) selling a short story to a magazine with such a great history, and then later learning the editor changed his or her mind. What?! I can't remember hearing about this in any Bewares thread. Maybe it happens now and then, but I hope not.

So of course I bought the Chap O'Keefe book. :D A Clark Ashton Smith style story, a sword and sorcery story, and an article about a publishing trainwreck, all for 99 cents. Sounds like the perfect purchase for me.
 

Douglas Draa

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The editor attacking me for pointing out the returned submissions on a Facebook Group just shows how unprofessional the current staff are. Not that you needed more convincing.


Hello, I'm the contributing editor that "Taran" is referring to. Anyone who is interested in what was actually said and why I said it can follow this link to the FB Group to see what really took place a few days ago. You'll have to scroll down a little bit until you come to where Glen posted the Weird Tales submissions link. This might just put "Taran's" statements in a different light.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/256527154464139/?fref=ts

Take care.

Doug
 
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Douglas Draa

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  • Taran Under the current management, their submission windows have been extremely short and erratic, and there was an incident where they did a blanket rejection of all material to "make room" for new submissions. Would wait until it stabilizes again before submitting.
    21. Oktober um 05:00 · Bearbeitet · Gefällt mir · 1

  • Doug Draa, TARAN, I don't know where you received your information, but it's completely false. There NEVER was any BLANKET rejection. 7 Stories were sent back to the authors. They were then informed...
    1) they could have the story back to submit elsewhere.
    2) if they wanted us to have it, we would happily hold onto it, with the understanding that we would not be able to use it for some time.

    And as far as short and erratic submissions windows are concerned, what would you do when you get flooded with literally a few thousand submissions with more publishable material than you could use in a dozen issues? It's this kind of whinning that convinced Mr. Kaye that he needed to re-open submissions even though we had more material than we needed. Be happy that it's not my decision or the magazine would rely mostly on solicited material. It would spare us time, money and the stress of dealing with this kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't kind of complaining.
    22. Oktober um 20:29 · Bearbeitet · Gefällt mir

  • TARAN Information from here: http://adventuresfantastic.blogspot.ca/... Adventures Fantastic: Further Thoughts on Marvin Kaye and Weird Tales, Plus Some Suggestions
    adventuresfantastic.blogspot.comI know some folks who were thrilled to get acceptances to Weird Tales but who probably won't see the stories in print there now. Very upsetting.






    23. Oktober um 00:52 · Gefällt mir

  • Doug Draa Sorry, but you are using a straw man argument. That's ONE writer who is understandably pissed off. BUT where does it verify your accusation of (I'm quoting your exact words) "blanket rejection of all material".






I removed Taran's real name since this is outside of FB.
 
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eqb

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Hello, I'm the contributing editor that "Taran" is referring to. Anyone who is interested in what was actually said and why I said it can follow this link to the FB Group to see what really took place a few days ago....

So, no blanket rejection, but you did send back seven stories you had previously accepted, just so you could open to submissions again. Is that accurate?

Out of curiosity, were there contracts for those stories?
 

AnneMarble

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So, no blanket rejection, but you did send back seven stories you had previously accepted, just so you could open to submissions again. Is that accurate?

Out of curiosity, were there contracts for those stories?
And how many individual authors were affected? The author of Witchery had two stories that were accepted and then... What would the word be? Unaccepted? Did the other authors have more than one story

Is it just me, or does seven stories seem like a lot when you think about it? It's a small number when you first look at it, but then again, that could be almost one issue's worth of stories. (If this were Analog, that would be more than a full issue, but they tend to publish novellas and novelttes, plus serialized novels.)

It does all seem odd anyway. :(
 

Douglas Draa

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So, no blanket rejection, but you did send back seven stories you had previously accepted, just so you could open to submissions again. Is that accurate?

Out of curiosity, were there contracts for those stories?

Hi,
Yes, that is correct. Mr. Kaye decided it was necessary. Like I stated in FB, there is so much pressure to open up the submissions portal that he felt that this was the best worst solution. I understand completely how painful that had to be for the authors who got bumped to make more room. And I understand completely that this has seriously upset some/lots of people. Please don't forget either that Mr. Kaye could have simply pulled "Last Dangerous Visons" and sat on the stories for years, stone wall the authors. That would have been a true injustice.

No, they were not under contract. Contracts are signed shortly before the magazine gets ready to go to print. (If I understand it correctly). At least that's how it is with the latest issue.

Doug
 
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Douglas Draa

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And how many individual authors were affected? The author of Witchery had two stories that were accepted and then... What would the word be? Unaccepted? Did the other authors have more than one story

Is it just me, or does seven stories seem like a lot when you think about it? It's a small number when you first look at it, but then again, that could be almost one issue's worth of stories. (If this were Analog, that would be more than a full issue, but they tend to publish novellas and novelttes, plus serialized novels.)

It does all seem odd anyway. :(

I won't argue with you on this point. Don't forget though that Analog is a huge operation in comparison to WTs. The SF market is much much larger than the one for weird fiction. Or at least that is my impression. This isn't the 1980s where writers had slews of markets for their work. That puts an enormous amount of pressure on the magazine to accept stories that might possibly have (currently) no other home. They had the submissions portal open the last time for a very short time and received over 2K submissions. With a (positive in a good way) incredible amount of good quality material. Can you imagine what would happen when Mr. Kaye would say "Thanks folks" that's it for the next few years."

We are not monthly like the bigger mags. And don't need as many stories a year as they do.

You are absolutely correct. 7 stories could almost fill the entire fiction content for one issue. But for good or for bad, Mr. Kaye decided that that would/could put off opening up the submissions portal for several or more months. Like I so testily told Taran on FB, I would do this differently by soliciting much more if not all work. Then everyone knows up front not to ask and there would be less pressure on the staff. But it isn't my magazine. It's Mr. Kaye's and whether any one of us agrees or not. It is his to do as he sees fit. He has my confidence and only time will tell if this is a successful strategy or not.

Doug
 

eqb

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Like I stated in FB, there is so much pressure to open up the submissions portal that he felt that this was the best worst solution.

That strikes me as the worst solution, actually. Acceptances shouldn't turn into unacceptances, with or without a contract.

This isn't the 1980s where writers had slews of markets for their work. That puts an enormous amount of pressure on the magazine to accept stories that might possibly have (currently) no other home.

So now you're saying Kaye accepted stories not because they were good, but because they couldn't find a home somewhere else?

Kaye can run the magazine as he likes, obviously, but if an author can't trust the editor not to pull tricks like this, they are better off submitting elsewhere. Just my opinion.
 

Douglas Draa

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That strikes me as the worst solution, actually. Acceptances shouldn't turn into unacceptances, with or without a contract.



So now you're saying Kaye accepted stories not because they were good, but because they couldn't find a home somewhere else?

Kaye can run the magazine as he likes, obviously, but if an author can't trust the editor not to pull tricks like this, they are better off submitting elsewhere. Just my opinion.

No, I'm not saying he took the tales because they had no other home.

What I meant is that since WTs is the only (or one of the only) home(s) for many such stories, the pressure is very high to accept submissions. When Analog is closed there are still quite a few other magaines for SF. Now I think that Fantasy short story writers also have it tough finding magazines to submit to.

Doug
 
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eqb

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No, I'm not saying he took the tales because they had no other home. What I meant is that since WTs is the only (or one of the only) home(s) for many such stories, the pressure is very high to accept submissions.

The more I hear about how Kaye runs the magazine, the more I want to warn authors against submitting there.
 

zanzjan

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What I meant is that since WTs is the only (or one of the only) home(s) for many such stories, the pressure is very high to accept submissions.

Okay, normally I try to stay well away from these sorts of threads, but I don't get this statement at all. The job of any professional magazine should be to accept and print those stories that it believes are both a) good enough in quality, and b) a good match for the magazine. I can't see any circumstance where a magazine should feel "pressure" to accept substandard/ill-fitting stories, unless either its pay or reputation is low enough that it is not attracting authors of the caliber it wants.

So, either you're saying you accepted stories that weren't good enough for the magazine, or you're saying that they were good enough but you were fishing for better. In both cases, IMHO, that is a really crappy way to treat your authors. We are capable of handling rejection -- that's standard fare for the life of an author -- but to be accepted and then get dumped at the altar? That raises some serious ethical concerns about the way WT is being run, how they perceive their relationship to content creators, and is perhaps yet another reputation misstep that WT can ill afford.

I very much hope that I am misunderstanding the situation, as I have a fondness for WT going back to some excellent writing advice from George Scithers back when I was just getting started, but it seems the only logical conclusion from the statements above. If there's a mitigating clarity that can be provided, now may not be a bad time for it.
 

Buffysquirrel

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I'm sorry, but who is running this magazine? The editorial team, or the whinning [sic] authors who have the power to force it to reopen to submissions, the power (apparently) to pressurise the editors into accepting their submissions, who nonetheless presumably aren't the same as the authors who've had their stories returned on their hands after acceptance, even though they also seem to be "whinning"?

If you have more stories than you can use, you keep the best and reject the rest. If an author pressurises you to accept, you wait a few days then reject their submission. If authors pressurise you to reopen to subs, you take no notice of them whatsoever. They're not running the magazine; you are. Or at least playing at it.
 
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Aggy B.

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Please don't forget either that Mr. Kaye could have simply pulled "Last Dangerous Visons" and sat on the stories for years, stone wall the authors. That would have been a true injustice.

No, they were not under contract. Contracts are signed shortly before the magazine gets ready to go to print. (If I understand it correctly). At least that's how it is with the latest issue.

Accepting stories but not offering a contract until shortly before publication is sitting on the stories and stonewalling the authors because without a contract they have no guarantee of publication in a timely fashion. Or ever.

Especially not when you then decide to hand back previously accepted material without warning.
 
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Taran

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Mr. Draa, I was indeed initially under the incorrect impression that more stories had been returned--though, as has been pointed out, seven stories is still nearly an issue's worth of material. However, that doesn't change the fact that

a) Your response struck me as unnecessarily hostile ("whinning"? These are legitimate complaints, and I wasn't the only one on that message thread making them).

b) The main issue is that any stories were treated this way, whether they were under contract or not...especially when there is, as you argue, such a limited field for weird fiction in the first place.

I overreacted in my characterization of the exchange when I posted here, and I apologize for that. But I still maintain that Weird Tales is not a good place to submit to under current circumstances.
 

gringo

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weird tales weirdness

So, I saw not long ago that Weird Tales had reopened to submissions and so I went ahead and sent them something. Unfortunately that was before I'd come here and read all the cautionary Tales of Weird goings-on over there.

Well, we'll see what happens. I'm confident everything will be fine, and I'll keep folks posted over here if anything crazy happens.

*crosses fingers*
 

gringo

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For anyone who's keeping score, I did receive a confirmation from WT after a short Thanksgiving-related delay.

They say that "hopefully" they'll have a reply for me in "a couple of weeks".

We shall see...
 

truantoranje

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For anyone who's keeping score, I did receive a confirmation from WT after a short Thanksgiving-related delay.

They say that "hopefully" they'll have a reply for me in "a couple of weeks".

We shall see...

Did you ever hear anything?
 

dondomat

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Thank you for posting that. The whole thing just get weirder -- and not in the good way. I can't imagine finally (finally!) selling a short story to a magazine with such a great history, and then later learning the editor changed his or her mind. What?! I can't remember hearing about this in any Bewares thread. Maybe it happens now and then, but I hope not.

When reading material detailing the relations between Lovecraft, Robert Howard, and Weird Tales, this sort of thing happened all the time, back then. That's the one tradition I hoped would not be revived :)