Proposal to merge Prism with New/Dark Horizons

[David A. Riley]

There you go. That's somewhere I never venture: Facebook. 

Yes, the name, Houses on the Borderland, may well have caused some confusion. Might have benefited from being called something else altogether.

[Stephen Theaker]

I think so - if you search for it on Amazon every edition of House on the Borderlands comes up first.

Anyway, Bookdata registration form just sent, should have the ISBN stuff sorted out by the end of the week.

[D. J. R. Allkins]

I side with the merging or making it an e-newsletter publication.  As it is, it isn't really doing anything unique to justify it's existence.  There are lots of other places for fantasy news and reviews.

[Paul Campbell]

Really not sure about the merging thing.  I much prefer an E-prism option. [...] the reviews and news items are much better served being online so they're more immediate.

I agree; not keen on the merge idea. And Prism should be entirely online. One of the main reasons I stopped doing book reviews for Prism (other than the 200 word limit) was the amount of time it took to get to print. I still review, but they're all now posted directly on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1AYLPPIHA68A1/ref=cm_cr_dp_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

[Stephen Theaker]

I'm all for putting reviews online where possible, but you do have to take into account that putting all the reviews online instead of in Prism wouldn't be a straightforward swap.

At the moment we have a fairly well-oiled machine for generating reviews - Prism, its section editors, and its contributors. But that machine is designed for producing batches of reviews every three months. Would the current section editors be available every day or two for editing and posting the reviews online? Some of them probably would, but that's the kind of thing that needs evaluating before making a decision.

We've been through this before - round about the time Lee took over Prism it was decided to shift lots of its usual content to the website - news, member news, interviews - and for a month or two stuff appeared on the website, and then it didn't, and the website went dead for months on end. Like I said at the AGM, the content disappeared.

And I think that may well be what would happen with reviews - they would continue to appear for a little while, and then when people lose interest they won't. Because the difference between a magazine like Prism and a website is that there are no consequences to not posting new material on the website. It just goes a bit quiet. Whereas if a magazine like Prism is missing an entire section that's a big deal.

So I'm not saying don't put Prism all online, just that it would have to be done carefully and with a bit of planning, to ensure we don't lose the resources we currently have at our disposal.

[David A. Riley]

Those are some very valid points, Stephen, and a lot of thought will have to go on before any decision is made, I'm sure. Savings in purely economic terms are one thing, but what we might also lose has to be considered too. TYhe printed version of Prism does provide us with perhaps a vital focal point, without which, as you say, the continuance of reviews, etc., might fall by the wayside.

I would like to ensure that reviews are as uptodate as possible - and the fact that three of yours didn't reach me last time, points out that it is vital all review editors keep me uptodate too when it comes to sending Prism off to the printers. I need every last review they have. I certainly don't like having reviews of books that are over twelve months old sent to me. 

There is bound to be some time lost between Prism being sent off to the printers and its eventual distribution to the members, but that shouldn't be more than 3 weeks. I can still accept reviews virtually up to the 17th or 18th of the month before and fit them in.

Personally, I don't think book reviews need to be hot off the press. Film reviews of movies that are at the cinema are more time related, but we don't do many of them, and what films we do have tend to be DVDs, which are not so urgent.

I also like to think people enjoy Prism for other things besides reviews of course, but I suppose these kinds of debates are always going to recur, especially when at agms people start to bring up complaints, etc., and suggestions of these kinds.

[David A. Riley]

Really not sure about the merging thing.  I much prefer an E-prism option. [...] the reviews and news items are much better served being online so they're more immediate.

I agree; not keen on the merge idea. And Prism should be entirely online. One of the main reasons I stopped doing book reviews for Prism (other than the 200 word limit) was the amount of time it took to get to print. I still review, but they're all now posted directly on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1AYLPPIHA68A1/ref=cm_cr_dp_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

I personally have no objection to anyone doing a review longer than 200 words. I believe a review should be as long as it needs to be. Imposing a limit like this makes no sense to me.

Also, if anyopne sends in a review of a recently published book, I see no reason why it shouldn't be in the next issue of Prism. If it's too late to go via the section editors, send it straight to me. Or, if section editors get reviews at the last minute, contact me to see if there's still time to get it in the next issue. I don't mind doing a bit of last minute reshuffling. The only time it's too late is once my copy has gone off to the printers.

[Peter Coleborn]

As long as reviews are edited for consistency of format, etc, of course 

[DavidJHowe]

I think that the *most* important thing is that the Society has an in-house journal which we can all be immensley proud of and which people *want* to join in order to get it.

Plus we need to try and realise some cost savings - the current costs of all the publications separately is pretty high, and compared with what we *could* get for our money, really doesn't make sense.

As soon as I have a better grasp of the monetary situation, then I'll be discussing with all the editors - who all do an amazing job - to see how we can combine things to give us a product which will blow people's minds and expectations out of the water. I'm looking at a quarterly hardbacked journal, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, fact, artwork ... all combined together with full colour covers by some of the top fantasy and horror artists who are members and friends of the BFS ... something amazingly special that you look forward to receiving every three months or so.

If we can crack that, then hopefully we'll have a great model to move forward with. This also means that the individual editors don't have to worry about the layout and printing aspects of the process, freeing up even more time to work with authors and artists, to collect news and generally to *edit*.

What's key here is that those who are not members are immensely jealous of what members receive, and who *want to join* in order to get the publications.  And this is whether those publications are physical or e-book or email or wherever. We need to apply the same high standards to all of them.

I want to set sights and expectations high, and not to feel at all constrained by what the BFS has done in the past ...

David

[allybird]

Sounds good David!

[David A. Riley]

This sounds a promising proposal and, if financially credible, a good move forward for the BFS.

"This also means that the individual editors don't have to worry about the layout and printing aspects of the process, freeing up even more time to work with authors and artists, to collect news and generally to *edit*."

Oddly enough, "worry(ing) about the layout and printing aspects of the process" are some of the aspects I enjoy most in producing Prism. Indeed, it would probably be as well, if this plan is accepted, to do away with an overall editor for Prism, and just provide space for the various section editors to have their reviews slotted in to the final product, rather than have it as a supplement.

I'm personally a bit sceptical about a hardbacked (as opposed to softcover) journal but, if one could be produced within the available budget provided by members' subscriptions, fine, if that can be sustained into the forseeable future.

[Stephen Theaker]

Sounds exciting. Putting out such a big publication every three months will be quite demanding, but I'm sure you'll be able to pull it off.

When will this kick in? Should I still be typesetting Dark Horizons 58 (March 2011), for example?

[DavidJHowe]

I'd like it to kick in as soon as we can really ... I'm waiting for some of the financial stuff to be sorted between Helen and Debs at present, and to get a better idea of what we have funds-wise available.

It would be really nice to put out a 'Christmas Special' at the end of the year to kick it all off, but this might not be feasible.  I would hope to have it sorted by 2011 though, so I would suggest you hold off setting DH (or anything) for the time being - at least until we've had a committee meeting to discuss all this through and to assess doability.

D

[ChrisT]

I've no problem in posting reviews online - which I think would be easier to do has and when they turn up in my inbox, rather than collate them altogether into a single .doc file to send to David; this would also reduce the lead-time between new books being read and the reviews being seen.

But: Prism articles should be print - I do like to read offline so to speak. If it's cost-effective to add Prism articles onto the back of a DH or NH then so be it.

[Stephen Theaker]

Wow, that soon? 

So I've already done my last issue of Dark Horizons... Glad it was a really good one. 

I don't really fancy working on a combined journal, but I can understand your reasons for wanting to take that route.