Podcastle editorial announcement (split from PC345)

[TrishEM]

I, too, am a bit worried about the quarterly themes, since part of what I cherish about Podcastle is its immense variety. A theme month is one thing, but all themes all the time seems a bit much.
However, I want to give the editors a chance to run with their ideas, so I guess we should probably just see (or hear) what happens for a while, and weigh in again after a couple-few quarters.

I also don't know if this is the place to offer feedback to the new editorial team.  If it is not, then please delete or move this.  I noted in your initial announcement that y'all are planning to run quarterly themes on PodCastle.  Is there any danger of the tail wagging the dog with that?  From my perspective, I like the best possible stories being run.  Do y'all see a danger in choosing stories that might not be the strongest because they fit better with the theme?  If so, what might you do to help counteract that danger?

Oh, and thanks for taking the reigns and welcome aboard.

I've honestly wondered about that too.  Particularly with the combination of limited duration themed windows in combination with preferring reprints.  When a window is announced there's not enough time to write a new story, find another home for it to get published, for rights to revert, to submit here.  Which means that a submitting writer can either write something new and submit here despite the preference for reprints or to hope that something in their published backlog fits the bill.  It seems like the slushpile would be a trickle compared to what it normally would be.  As opposed to, say, Crossed Genres which has limited time themes but they only take unpublished works so that's an ongoing challenge to write things to fit the themes before the windows start. 

Generally I would just prefer that the best stories can be found be published, it seems needlessly limiting to draw a boundary around the possibilities with the themes.

But I'll reserve opinion until after the stories start coming out.  I hope that our new editors will give it an honest try and if it doesn't work out will consider cancelling the theme structure.  There's no shame in trying something new and going a different direction if the results aren't what they hoped.

[UnfulredJohnson]

That'll do editors.


That'll do.

[Unblinking]

Whoa!  Big guidelines update.

For what it's worth, this removes most of my qualms about the themes, because:
--There is no longer language in the guidelines that says reprints are preferred.
--The pro pay for original stories now encourages authors to send new fiction if they have it.
--With the prior two points, I think that authors will be more likely to write something new specifically for the theme.  This seems to work out well for Crossed Genres.