coalescent | New magazine

On the one hand, hey, good for them. It's always good to see more reviews and more reviewing-friendly magazines, especially ones with such lofty ambitions.

On the other hand, get back to me when their published reviews meet their guidelines (especially the "no one but you could have written this review" one) and they have enough of a business plan in place to be able to pay people.

On the other hand, get back to me when their published reviews meet their guidelines (especially the "no one but you could have written this review" one)

That's a very fair criticism, and I take your point. We're working toward it.

and they have enough of a business plan in place to be able to pay people.

We could only hope. If you know of a business plan model that could make that happen, please share. To date, it's all out-of-pocket for Jonathan and me, and my guess is that, say, Amazon links ain't going to net us enough to pay our contributors more than a few cents each, for instance. Considering we've still got a dozen pieces in the pipeline that will be going up over the course of the next couple days, and that we plan to keep that speed up for the duration, at even $50 per review we're looking at a cost of $850 per (roughly) "issue". Not chump change for Jonathan and me to shell out.

--gabe chouinard

As much as it goes against the modern grain, I would honestly recommend having your readers pay for the content they read. Ad-supported publications generally do very poorly online, in my experience. By all means offer free content, but either solicit donations or put some of your content behind a paywall. I've yet to see anyone make it work any other way.

Another option, of course, is to start up a separate money-making venture and funnel the profits from it into support of Scalpel; then it's still out of pocket, but as your "pocket" has increased by $850 or however much, there's no net loss to you other than your time and effort. Running two startups at once is pretty hectic, though.

I certainly wish you the best with it. Roberts's column was terrific and I'd love to see more like it. I hope you can encourage your reviewers to really let loose, not be so shy with their I-statements and opinions (speaking as a reviewer, I am so tired of reading and writing reviews where the reader is referred to as "one" and the reviewer's voice is buried beneath equivocations), and have a good time telling people what they think. I'd be willing to take a bit of a pay cut for a venue that encouraged that sort of writing--or make a donation to it, or pay to read it--and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

We've discussed various ways of generating cash, including using a combination of Amazon links, PayPal donations, ad revenue and whatever else we can throw in. The problem is that with so many streams, it's difficult to keep people interested enough to actually contribute. Another thing to deal with is that if we did such a thing, we'd want to keep our accounting transparent. Jonathan and me certainly aren't in it for the cash!

As for reviews... we're encouraging as best we can, and I hope that some of our own contributions will go some way toward illustrating more precisely what we're looking for. It comes down to those contributing reviewers, and how willing they are to dig in and produce the kind of stuff we want.

But in the end, we're still in the nebulous stage. After all, this mag went from concept to launch in... what? A few days over a month? So we'll evolve.

Question: is there anyone in sf/fantasy who has a web-only publication with decent rates of pay for writers and a genuinely sustainable (ie not donation-seeking) business model? I guess Ellen Datlow's scifiction was the closest we had - though evidently it wasn't sustainable in the long-run. SH and Helix qualify if you drop the restriction about donations. I can't think of anyone doing this in the non-fic field.

Why isn't donation seeking sustainable?

Also, I point you to Chizine and Baen's Universe.

Why isn't donation seeking sustainable?

In the narrow sense, because it relies on the whim of a relatively small population - certainly smaller than your readership - and isn't as directly tied to your performance as a magazine (I suggest) as actually taking money every time someone wants your content.

In the broader sense, because Rose's question was about business models, and I don't think of taking donations as being part of regular business practice. Regular charity practice, sure - heaven knows, I work for a charity. I have no problem with sf entities running on their fannish energies and without a "professional" structure of payment/cash flow to sustain them; but in a sense, what I'm trying to bottom out here is whether Rose's aspiration of payment from a venue like Scalpel is a reasonable aspiration for anyone in the field.

but in a sense, what I'm trying to bottom out here is whether Rose's aspiration of payment from a venue like Scalpel is a reasonable aspiration for anyone in the field.

If that was true, there wouldn't be any need for Scalpel, because there would be dozens of good paying venues for us all to begin with.

Well, it may be that there is a business model that can be made to work, but which no-one's yet stumbled on.

I hope so.

And if so, whenever it's discovered, I'm stealing it straight away.

Bearing in mind that it may not necessarily be replicatable. I have a feeling that SH's donation model only really works because there aren't a dozen other sf 'zines doing the same thing.

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