Editorial Prerogatives (Or why the Editor is Always Right)

tyron has envisioned this in another form to tempt me to the Dark Side. Pretty, no? What do you think? Should we go for this both as e-book and print, not just the website?

Of course if we do, might as well expand the pages and not just limit it to the twelve stories. You know, add a little something for the newer versions. That always helps.

What do you think?

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sean wallace has a interesting point posted over here about the problem of editors including their works in their own anthologies. (I did always wonder then why a big-time author/anthology editor like Robert Silverberg included his stuff in Legends and Far Horizons. But I digress.)

Anyway, sean asks: "Is there really a good enough reason to publish yourself, in this case, at the expense of other possible contributors?"

Personally? Yes. I would normally agree with sean's point except that before we came out with Farthest Shores, I was afraid there would not be enough quality contributors. In a way, I was right: some of the works needed a lot of polish while others didn't get the secondary worlds concept.

What was worse, methinks, is that a number of writers who didn't submit because they felt they couldn't write secondary worlds.

Whatever the reason, the local writing spec fic market still isn't that big enough and we had to fill the antho. (Even by extending the deadline, I don't think it would make a difference.) Ergo, we put in our own works.

Not that we're defending our decision, mind. Just a different editorial perspective that sometimes a different writing environment may have different effects on the editorial decisions.