Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Worlds

[TheAlmanac]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

OK, declaring self interest, open to English people ?

I think there are a number of legal and logistical reasons why they can't...

SNW wasn't open to Québec residents, for instance, because they'd have to accept French-language submissions, and I suspect that opening it up to the UK would require them to open it up to the rest of the EU as well.

I'd be happy to submit in, er, English !

...but how happy would the publishers be about having to accept submissions in French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and so on?

 

[DimesDan]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

^Of course one could always put a rule in that says that the stories would only be accepted if in the Queens or could hire a translator for each of those languages.

 

[Idran]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

^Of course one could always put a rule in that says that the stories would only be accepted if in the Queens or could hire a translator for each of those languages.

I think the issue with the former is if that would be legal for a contest such as this; from what TheAlmanac said, for example, it sounds like legally if you hold such a contest in Quebec, you have to accept French-language submissions, you can't have an "English-only" rule.

And good translators can be really expensive, for the latter. I can't imagine S&S wanting to go to that much expense. Christopher mentioned that published entries were paid at a rate of $0.10/word; that's about the rate of a good freelance translator, more for a less common language, and S&S would have to pay that for every foreign language submission whether or not it was published if they went that direction. That'd be, what, $500-750 per story or so?

 

[Defcon]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Dayton Ward has posted additional info on the new Strange New Worlds on his blog:

https://daytonward.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/the-return-of-star-trek-strange-new-worlds/

 

[Plaristes]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

I guess it's no surprise that they don't want any Abramsverse submissions, but I wonder why they're disallowing TAS stories.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

They are? That's odd. I thought that any rights issues to TAS had been resolved decades ago.

 

[Plaristes]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

They are? That's odd. I thought that any rights issues to TAS had been resolved decades ago.

That's what the rules page says that Ward links to in his blog post.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

I guess it's no surprise that they don't want any Abramsverse submissions, but I wonder why they're disallowing TAS stories.

Despite some conversations in other threads on here, I have a feeling TAS is still in its own quirky category where rights are concerned...

Of course, the rule change I have the biggest problem with is that all Canadians (not just Québecois) are now excluded as well.

I suspect this was done for tax reasons--reporting requirements have changed since 2007, and the publishers probably don't want to deal with W-8BEN forms on top of the W-9 forms already explicitly mentioned in these rules--but I'm still quite saddened at not even having the option to enter now.

 

[Defcon]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

startrek.com has a short piece about it as well. Seems like the cover will also be selected from fan-submissions.

http://www.startrek.com/article/strange-new-worlds-fan-fiction-contest-returns-for-2016

 

[JD]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

I guess it's no surprise that they don't want any Abramsverse submissions, but I wonder why they're disallowing TAS stories.

They are? That's odd. I thought that any rights issues to TAS had been resolved decades ago.

Yeah, the TAS exclusion is kind of weird. I could see if the novels weren't allowed to reference TAS but we've gotten plenty of TAS stuff in the novels, so they obviously have the rights to it.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Seems like the cover will also be selected from fan-submissions.

Oh, that's a nice touch.

 

[Kinggodzillak]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Very frustrating that this is only open to US residents. I really wanted to submit something. I understand that making it US-only makes the editing workload more manageable, but it's wrong to exclude fans from other countries like that.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Very frustrating that this is only open to US residents. I really wanted to submit something. I understand that making it US-only makes the editing workload more manageable, but it's wrong to exclude fans from other countries like that.

It's not about the editing workload. It never was. This is a contest with money and prizes involved, and different countries have different laws pertaining to contests. It would be too difficult to sort out the different laws for all the different countries, and it probably wouldn't be fair to the contestants in different countries to hold them to different legal standards in the same competition.

 

[Bibliomike]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Christopher's right that the workload is not the reason behind the legal restrictions, but I did wonder if that might have played a factor in limiting entrants to only one story. I know Dean Wesley Smith used to post pictures of the HUGE slush pile he would wade through each year. The year I placed a story, SNW 2, he said there were some 4000 mss, and I can only imagine it grew every year thereafter... probably like tribbles...

I'm also intrigued as to why 7500 words, which used to be the upper word limit, is now the minimum. Anyone have any ideas on why that would be?

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Christopher's right that the workload is not the reason behind the legal restrictions, but I did wonder if that might have played a factor in limiting entrants to only one story.

I'm sure it does. Part of the reason the previous contest became unmanageable was the time and expense and personpower involved in reading and choosing among all those manuscripts.

I'm also intrigued as to why 7500 words, which used to be the upper word limit, is now the minimum. Anyone have any ideas on why that would be?

Maybe something to do with the digital-first format? Or maybe it's because, with fewer submissions, there might be fewer winning stories, so they want them to be longer. But I'm wildly guessing here.

 

[Plaristes]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

startrek.com has a short piece about it as well. Seems like the cover will also be selected from fan-submissions.

http://www.startrek.com/article/strange-new-worlds-fan-fiction-contest-returns-for-2016

That page describes this as a "fan fiction writing contest." I thought Christopher has always been adamant that SNW is professional writing, not fan fiction.

It's appropriate for a Star Trek contest, though, that apparently this will be published in 2106, according to that page.

 

[Bibliomike]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Yeah, I don't think Pocket should have used that terminology, although I suppose it depends how you parse it. It is a "fan fiction-writing contest (i.e., ones in which fans write fiction), but it is not a "fanfiction writing contest" (i.e., fiction not written with a professional market in mind).

Do I read the rules correctly that $1000 is the prize everyone gets - as opposed to the old rules, which were being paid at a professional word rate (as the advance), and then the three top stories got a bonus advance on top of that?

Does $1000 for anything from 7500-10,000 words still work out as a pro rate? (I think so... 13 cents/word on the low end, 10 cents/word on the high - is my math right?)

 

[Christopher]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

Does $1000 for anything from 7500-10,000 words still work out as a pro rate? (I think so... 13 cents/word on the low end, 10 cents/word on the high - is my math right?)

That's definitely a pro rate, and a pretty good one. Anything over 6 cents a word is considered pro.

 

[rahullak]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

I'm disappointed that the return of SNW is limited only to US residents. I've been a fan of Trek for about 10 years now, and have begun writing fiction as a hobby. It would've been incredibly exciting and rewarding for me to try my hand at Trek writing with the possibility of pro-publishing.

I understand some of the legal reasons. But to celebrate diversity the way the Trek universe has, maybe the extra effort would give all of Earth a chance at adding to Trek lore.

 

[Idran]

Re: Free Star Trek eBook by S&S (US only) and return of Strange New Wo

I'm disappointed that the return of SNW is limited only to US residents. I've been a fan of Trek for about 10 years now, and have begun writing fiction as a hobby. It would've been incredibly exciting and rewarding for me to try my hand at Trek writing with the possibility of pro-publishing.

I understand some of the legal reasons. But to celebrate diversity the way the Trek universe has, maybe the extra effort would give all of Earth a chance at adding to Trek lore.

Profitably? Because Trek or no, this is to create a product to be sold, and S&S wouldn't do it if they lost money on it.