I have a bunch of unused spec-fic domains. I’ve been letting them expire, but I held on to ScienceFictional.com. I like the name, but I just can’t figure what to do with it. I let Johnny B use it for a blog for a while. I tried formatting a Spec-Fic magazine, but it was the target of spammers to the point where it was not usable. I was rambling the other day about a Story of the Day site, so I decided to give that a try.
I have created a prototype website where each day a new feature story will show up on a blog entry. Readers can subscribe via rss and read a new story each day. I won’t publish the stories, it will be a blurb and a link to the online version of the story. I will feature a story on a different ezine each day.
In this way, I don’t have to publish the stories and I can rely on authors, editors and publishers trying to publicize their sites to give me the links and blurbs. I am half way through making a form where people can suggest a story. I then have to make a way so that I can post to the blog from the suggestion list and rig it so a new story appears every day at one minute after midnight.
I am still pondering this. One negative is that Spec-Fic doesn’t make much money. (I have had about 12,000 amazon context links served on my sites in the last week, resulting in only 45 clicks and no money!) I also want to link to stories of better quality (without actually having to read them) so I am wondering if I should limit the stories to the Ralan paying classifications. I am also of the opinion that the only people who read spec-fic magazines are authors who want to sell their stories. I used to watch the logs at atales.com and for each hit on a story there were 20 hits on the guidelines page. I want to gear this towards readers as much as possible and hope that the writers will wander in for self-promotion.
The site’s not up yet and I need some feedback while I am bulding it. Good idea – stupid waste of time – won’t work – might work but not all that useful – can’t work for good reasons? Let me know. The blog part is working, just nothing there yet, I want to see if the first post appears at midnight: Science Fiction Story of the Day
2 Comments
Interesting about the guidelines. It’s quite the opposite at Sam’s Dot. We get a lot more hits to the various on-line zines. Even the purchase center where people can buy stuff gets more hits than the guidelines.
This is a great idea.
I don't like the term “spec-fic” because it doesn't mean science fiction. Spec-fic could be anything. Maybe something more robust like “Spec-Sci-Fic.” could be a better term.
As for a story of the day, I like the concept. I've always wanted a one-stop place where I could read spec-sci-fic. There's a lot out there and wading through these waters can be time consuming