Editor Incest, Surprise Delay, and a Favor

By Holly Lisle

Editor Incest

A question came up in a previous post on whether Rebel Tales editors could publish stories by other Rebel Tales editors.

Frankly, I thought the answer so obvious that it didn’t occur to me to mention it—and now that it’s been asked, I have proof that it wasn’t obvious after all.

I’m going to invent a term here—Editor Incest. And I’m going to define editor incest as “Editors competing for limited publishing space in the same market with the authors whose careers they are supposed to be trying to help build by buying their own or each other’s stories.”

And now I’ll state the policy that I thought too obvious to state before:

No.

Rebel Tales will not permit editor incest, either by editors publishing under their own name or by pseudonym.

The integrity of any publication is dependent upon writers being able to trust that their editors are on their side. Permitting even the possibility that an editor might grant a prize story slot to himself or an editor friend will destroy that trust.

What about me? I’m a pretty well-known writer, and my story in a season could ostensibly sell more issues and make more money for the other writers in that season than if my story wasn’t there.

I may in fact publish some of my own work in Rebel Tales. If I do, I’ll publish in a separate, unpaid slot. I’ll only get paid as the publisher, not as one of the writers, in order to avoid cutting the percentage other writers make on their stories, and to avoid taking up a paying slot.

And if this policy causes some of my prospective editors to drop out?

I’ll go through existing applications and contact those people I wanted to say “YES” to and couldn’t because of space restrictions. As noted in an earlier post, I still have a huge number of qualified applicants waiting.

Yesterday’s Surprise

…is on hold because I’ve run into a problem finding appropriate software. It make take me a few days, or even a week. Watch here for updates.

And a Favor

Craig Campbell and I have a new version of HollyLisle.com up in beta.

If you could click around it (excluding the writing diary and shop, which are unchanged) and give us feedback here on what works, what doesn’t, what you love, and what you hate, I’d really appreciate it.

Here’s the test site.

It’s not in final form—we’re looking for input and a chance to fix what doesn’t work for you before we take it live. Thank you.

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