I'm curious what some of the editorial thinking is about reprints - is it a safer bet? Is the slush pile not varied enough? Do you just stumble across a great story and decide to use it?
Our official policy is that we don't discriminate one way or the other. We're just as happy with either one, and will consider the story purely on its prose. A few of our favorite stories have been EP originals -- all the Union Dues stories, for instance, and Mur's and Scott Sigler's stories.
In practice, if a writer asks me for advice first I usually tell them "Try all the pro markets, at least, before you send it to us. And if you sell to one of them, you can still send it to us later for the audio rights." This is in the writer's best interest, not ours: the pro markets pay higher rates than Escape Pod, and if it's that good, why not get two checks for the same story? The worst it does for me is add a time delay, and I'm rarely in a particular hurry to run any particular story. We'll be here long enough to get to plenty of good ones. >8->