Monday, March 03, 2008

To Reprint or Not Reprint

What's the case with these reprints? I've already finished reading Vicente Groyon's A Different Voice and will soon start with Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo's Tales of Fantasy and Enchantment. In the meantime, am wondering: what would entail having reprints in an anthology?

I can understand if the anthology is a best-of publication, in which case it should be all reprints. But in the case of Hidalgo, the TOC has a mixture of previously-published and first-timers. So did the editor ask for the specific story to be published? I know the Alfred Yuson story in PSF3 was specifically requested by the Alfars.

Personally, I would want to have all new stories all the time-- despite my whining and grumping about not having time to write these stories. I don't know: maybe I'm just arrogant to think that I can actually supply all these stories. But having finished writing a story I think is good enough to go up against my standard (which is "Logovore"), can you blame me right now?

So as a writer, here's a question addressed to other writers: would you prefer to have an original story in an anthology or a reprinted one? (Even if the editor requests for it?)

9 comments:

Charles said...

You do know that the secret to wealth is to get paid numerous times for the same work that you did, right?

Also PSF has had a couple of reprints beyond the Yuson. The Tan (the more talented Tan) and the Candano comes to mind.

banzai cat said...

Yeah, I heard about the other reprints in the PSF.

Still, despite the 'famous' secret, I still would prefer to read new stuff-- er, write new stuff I mean. After all, if I were a reader, I would want to read new stories from the writers I'm reading, right?

Charles said...

That's assuming your previous stories were accessible in the first place. =)

Which honestly isn't the case with local fiction (hence the reprinted PSF stories sounded new).

banzai cat said...

Which is why we have... *drumroll* story collections! :-)

Charles said...

So when's yours coming out?

banzai cat said...

*chokes on coffee*

Dean said...

There are certain stories that we read but were not immediately accessible to a broader audience. PSF is not positioned as an all-original anthology, but rather as a mixed antho. We also make the occasional specific story request (like the Yuson) because we felt certain stories from an author's corpus should be in the antho. I'd rather have people have the chance to read a previously story that I liked rather than miss out altogether. Our guidelines are clear about a preference for originals but we also make room for reprints.

Charles said...

Banzai Cat: You're supposed to be choking on buko juice.

banzai cat said...

dean: That's interesting. So did you request those stories (not Yuson's) that were reprints? On your end, if don't mind me asking, how did you end up sending 'The Middle Prince' to Jing Hidalgo's collection?

charles: *sigh* I wish. But more than one glass and I end up runnning to the bathroom.