Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show

grammar fascist writes "Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, a science fiction / fantasy webzine, went online just yesterday. Card, the editor-in-chief, has stayed true to his ideals: quality stories, author's rights, and trust in people's honesty. New stories are released quarterly, with new column installments added monthly to the current issue. New art is created for each story. There isn't even an attempt at draconian content control. Writers and artists give exclusive rights for one year - after that, limited rights. Card wants your stories and art, not your copyrights. I've finished the first issue now, and the stories are great. "Eviction Notice" made me cry, and I laughed out loud at "Loose in the Wires." I paid my $2.50 initially to support the business model, but the stories themselves are worth it."

Comments

Ummm...

[KDan]

Ok, so Orson Scott Card is a great author... but how is this groundbreaking? There are numerous webzines that publish quality stories, out there...

Try Duotrope's digest to find them.

Daniel

Author's rights WHAT?

[damned_mediocrity]

From the /. article summary: "Card wants your stories and art, not your copyright." Ummm, not to question the great slashdot editors, but this is *standard practice* for lit magazines, both in print and online. The author USUALLY retains the copyright for published work. Nothing unique here. Also, most print lit magazines only purchase first serial rights and/or some type of one-time anthology rights. Card's magazine purchases EVERYTHING, all rights, for an entire year. This agreement is actually worse for writers than what most publications offer. As for having all rights (except online rights, which they keep forever!!) returned to the author after a year, this seems great... except when you consider: a) for many print/web literary publications, rights return to the author immediately after publication. b) that the author won't be able to sell the story very easily if it's appeared in another magazine before. Editors want FIRST serial rights, so they can provide readers with unique, never-read-before content. When rights are returned to the author after a year, the author's not going to be able to do much with them, except for maybe putting the story in a print anthology. Sorry slashdot editors, but this looks like a not-so-hot deal for authors.