"Eric Flint - Grantville Gazette - Vol 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

Editor's Preface
by
Eric Flint


TheGrantville Gazette is an experiment. It originated as a byproduct of the ongoing and very active
discussions which take place concerning the 1632 universe I created in the novels1632 and1633 (the
latter co-authored by David Weber). This discussion is centered in one of the conferences in Baen's Bar,
the discussion area of Baen Books' web site. The conference is entitled "1632 Tech Manual" and has
been in operation for about four years now, during which time something on the order of 75,000 posts
have been made by hundreds of participants.

Soon enough, the discussion began generating so-called "fanfic," stories written in the setting by fans of
the series. A number of these, in my opinion—with some editing, at least—were good enough to be
published professionally. And, indeed, a number of them will be very soon—as part of the anthologyRing
of Fire , which is being published by Baen Books in January, 2004. (Ring of Firealso includes stories
written by established authors such as myself, David Weber, Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer, K.D.
Wentworth and S.L. Viehl.)

As it happens, the decision to publish theRing of Fire anthology triggered the writing of still more fanfic,
even after submissions to the anthology were closed. It is possible that some of these stories will be
included in a second anthology—but that depends on such an anthology ever being produced, which, in
turn, depends on sales ofRing of Fire. There will be no way to determine that for many months yet.

And, in the meantime... the fanfic kept getting written, and people kept nudging me—okay, pestering
me, but I try to be polite about these things—to give them my feedback on their stories. The problem,
from my point of view, was that that involved work for me with no clear end result I could see.

Hence... theGrantville Gazette. Once I realized how many stories were being written—a number of
them of publishable quality—I raised with Jim Baen the idea of producing an online magazine which
would pay for fiction and factual articles set in the 1632 universe and would be sold through Baen Books'
Webscriptions service. Jim was willing to try it, to see what happens.

I began by calling this an "experiment," because we simply don't know yet whether it will be successful
enough to continue. I hope it will, in which case this will become retroactively Volume 1 of theGrantville
Gazette, with more volumes to follow.

"Successful," in this instance—as in any instance involving commercial publishing—can be translated into
simple terms:sells enough copies. I realize that sounds crass and crude, but that's just the way it is. Facts
are stubborn things, and it's just a fact that commercial fiction publishing is done for profit—or, at the
very least, will not be done at a loss. Not for very long, that's for sure. "Money talks, everything else
walks." It sounds crude because itis crude—but it's also a fact of life. Baen Books might be willing to
continue theGrantville Gazette as a break-even proposition, since sales of the magazine presumably
boost sales of the books in the series. But neither I nor anyone else can reasonably expect a commercial
publisher to keep producing something at a loss.
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