eFiction Magazine / eFiction Publishing

Weirdmage said:

To be honest, I can't think of a single pro-magazine that pays royalties.

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This ^^ I wrote steadily for trade magazines for over fifteen years. Pay was always by the article.

DougLance said:

With this information in mind, trusting that you actually believe someone as vilified as myself (though all this information can be proven with documents that I could pass along at your request), how does that change your perception of the company?

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Not very well, considering you sent unsolicited emails to an uninvolved third party to rally for their support.

Al Stevens said:

This ^^ I wrote steadily for trade magazines for over fifteen years. Pay was always by the article.

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That's kind of the point. There's plenty of options out there for payment by the word. I am throwing another option into the mix.

Also, our goal is to pay professional rates by the word as an advance on royalties.

BenPanced said:

Not very well, considering you sent unsolicited emails to an uninvolved third party to rally for their support.

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I sent emails to people who had submitted their work for consideration. There is a notice on the submissions page that submitting work signs people up for the newsletter list, which I usually use for alerting writers about new opportunities.

In the case of the messages in question, I had a moment of poor judgement due to the circumstances, and I've taken responsibility for that. I sent a follow up email asking those who weren't interested in supporting the community in that way to unsubscribe.

In the future, I will be updating my policy to make it more clear for writers what they're signing up for and make it easier for them to opt-in/out at the time of submission.

Speaking from experience, eFiction is a scam.

Don't send them anything unless you want to be perpetually harassed by their spam e-mail bot even after you unsubscribe a dozen times.

Don't expect to see a dime from them either. My editor there quit when she realized how bad things were (and I think she actually got paid in real currency instead of spam e-mails, unlike the writers).

Yikes. Since they accepted a story from me week before last, I'll be interested to see whether the royalty deal ever kicks in. Will report back if there's a problem.

For reference, there's a thread in Paying Markets for Nebula Rift and New Realm. In it Doug discusses royalties which sound a lot like his plan back in 2013.

(I originally posted this in the Paying Markets thread, but I guess it's more appropriate here.)

Doug Lance in Paying Markets thread said:

Koschei is correct. There are 5 contributing writers each month who split 50% of royalties.

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Doug, here's a point I hadn't thought of before (bolding mine):

Nebula Rift submission page said:

Should your work be accepted, the magazines pay a 10% royalty on sales of individual issues (not subscriptions). Payments are sent monthly when the amount due totals $25 or more.

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Now, over a year ago, in this Reddit thread, you said this:

Doug Lance said:

In the future, subscription dues will fund advances on royalties. We're not there yet.

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Why aren't you there yet? That sounds a lot more reasonable. The site is geared toward selling subscriptions, not individual issues. And -- royalties don't start until a month after publication date, when it's no longer the new issue, and it's less likely anybody will buy that issue on its own.

In that same Reddit thread, you said this:

Doug Lance said:

I have a new compensation plan. Nobody has been affected by it yet, so there is no one to complain about it.

If I give an advance that matches other market's rates, plus a royalty, that is a better deal. How is it not?

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Yes, an advance would be nice. Fourteen months later, have you decided whether you're going to do that?

In fact, when I think of the implications ... it's simply unacceptable. A given issue could sell great -- both through subscriptions, and people buying the issue during the first few weeks after it appears -- without the authors involved getting a red cent.

In fact, the compensation model seems designed to minimize the risk of ever having to pay a writer. I'm withdrawing my submission.

This was how I read the fine print last year, Manuel.

Filigree, you were smart enough to read the fine print before submitting a story. I feel like an idiot.

I was taken to the cleaners too many times in another industry, before I wised up and started following 'trust but verify'. Plus, this was a new operation, which triggers many of my skeptical tendencies. I'm a slow writer. I value the little bit that I do manage to write more than to send it to an unproven market.

But the world would settle into inertia if every writer was like me. Sometimes these new things work out, and good on them.

Manuel Royal said:

Filigree, you were smart enough to read the fine print before submitting a story. I feel like an idiot.

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Fine print is meant to make people cross eyed. Anyhoo, based upon my observations, in my humble opinion an idiot is one thing you are definitely not nor should you feel like one.


On a totally unrelated note though, I keep picturing you're a possessed typewriter. Hmm I kind of miss the old clickety clack ding of old manuals... *wanders off babbling to self*

Bicyclefish said:

On a totally unrelated note though, I keep picturing you're a possessed typewriter. Hmm I kind of miss the old clickety clack ding of old manuals... *wanders off babbling to self*

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In 1986, somebody burned down my Royal KHM (and the house around it). So ever since, I've been writing on computers, but for years part of me kept listening for that *ding*, and if I heard it now, I think my left hand would reflexively come up to push the carriage return lever. I'm writing (or trying to write) my current novel using yWriter; it has a neat optional feature that makes typewriter sounds.

ETA: I never heard back from Doug Lance, or anyone else at eFiction, after I gave notice of withdrawing my submission. Since I've now submitted it elsewhere, I hope they got the message.

Doug Lance Owes Me An Explanation

Hey Doug Lance, I noticed you reply to the negative comments about your magazines in this thread, whereas you do not reply to repeated e-mails from your contributors when they have problems.

Whoever receives the messages from the "Contact the Editors" button on your website is similarly unresponsive, so I have come here in the hope that maybe this time you'll pay attention to me.

You told me you were publishing my story and that in addition to royalties a "lifetime subscription" had been established for my e-mail address. Well that doesn't seem to be the case, my friend. Thinking I was going about trying to download my issue the wrong way, I reached out to you for help ... four times now ... but I guess now that you got the story you're done with me.

I wouldn't be so concerned if it weren't for the fact that everyone I know who actually paid for the issue received e-mails with broken download links. And when they tried to "Contact the Editors," they too were ignored.

So please, Doug Lance. Explain it to me here, where others are listening.

Al Stevens said:

My perception of the company is not based on whether you do, did, or will pay royalties and how much, how soon, or how often, but on the fact that the company engages in petty online battles that are unwinnable. If you ignore your critics, they'll go away and be forgotten. But every time you respond--no matter how politely and how accurately--you toss another log onto the fire and the internet commandos move in for the kill. It evinces poor judgement and a lack of understanding of the writing/publishing community.

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What Mr Peppard said.

It's a shame these guys don't seem to be on the up and up. I was thinking of submitting to them. Goes to show that research can save a bundle of trouble.

My issue has been resolved. This morning I finally received an e-mail reply from Mr. Lance.

Now I'll just wait and see if those royalties ever show up.

Well, this is interesting.

A few days ago, I started receiving a lot of emails from FMDC (of which eFiction Magazine is a part), with subject lines like "A New 'New Realm' Submission". Each email has a story title, the statement "Submission can be reviewed here:" and a link to the site, where presumably I can read a submitted story and review it.

It's unclear to me whether the links go to stories that have just been published, or stories that have only been submitted. In any case, there seems to be a feeling that I might want to act as either a reviewer, or a slush-pile reader.

I wrote to FMDC, and got a review from Natalie Bender, who said that FictionMagazines had listed me as a "Staff Reviewer", but that they could remove me from the list if I wished.

I wrote back to ask how much the position paid. (ETA: I've since found that Natalie is not with FictionMagazines, but with Submittable.com, which I guess is a sort of service website that different online publications can use.)

I then got an email from "Doug" (presumably Doug Lance), Editor-in-Chief for FictionMagazines.com. He said that I was listed on their "curation team" because I was one of their authors.

No mention of money. So, it appears that, once you're published by FictionMagazines, they expect you to provide unpaid labor in the form of evaluating other submissions.

I explained to Doug that, first, I'm not one of their authors (although my submission was accepted, I withdrew it after reading this thread and realizing how bad their royalty arrangement is); and second, I have no interest in providing them free labor.

Haven't heard back, except for the damn emails with links to submissions, which keep coming.

Wow! That's unbelievable.

Manuel Royal said:

So, it appears that, once you're published by FictionMagazines, they expect you to provide unpaid labor in the form of evaluating other submissions.

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Holy shit. This is insane. Hey, Doug, please explain?

And, just got another email from Doug, about their "revolutionary" idea of asking their readers to provide free editing services.

Wow, that was professional of him.

Manuel Royal said:

And, just got another email from Doug, about their "revolutionary" idea of asking their readers to provide free editing services.

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This thread is an example of why whenever someone says their market is different to other markets because it's a community (or the other exciting fruit flavour, that they're like a family), I run the other way. It's often used to pressure people into doing things, and to keep their complaints quiet. If you don't do it, you're letting the community down. If you complain, you're ruining it for everyone. It's easy to pressure people with a community narrative, especially if they've had trouble getting accepted elsewhere and don't know much about how it should work.