09-03-2016, 08:43 PM
(09-03-2016, 06:46 PM)Rick McDowell Wrote: Well, this is a surprise, Grim. Wasn't issue #13 just out a week ago, after a year or so between issues?
As a contributor, potential contributor, I think some notice as to a deadline would be appreciated / appropriate. But it's your thing.
Actually, notice was given - right here in this forum. I have highlighted it in red text for your convenience, Rick.
(06-29-2016, 03:40 AM)GrimFinger Wrote: Everyone is free to think what they want to, of course, but the monthly rate of publication played no role in why it ceased publication. Quite to the contrary, in fact. The monthly rate of publication was, whether you or others realize it or not, one of the primary reasons that the magazine published with regularity, when I first created it.
That said, one of the changes going forward that I will be implementing will be the elimination of an actual publication deadline, monthly or otherwise. The focus will be issue-specific. There may well still be submission deadlines, but I will intentionally make the publication time frame more flexible and less rigid.
Also, it isn't accurate to describe the monthly rate of publication, under which most of the past issues of Suspense & Decision were published, as a grueling task. While that is certainly a colorful way to characterize it, personally speaking and from my vantage point in the process, it just isn't even remotely accurate. Grueling is a pretty harsh term. What David Webber and Elaine Webber faced in the old days, where the publication in print format of Paper Mayhem magazine was concerned, or what Carol Mulholland faced in more recent years with her publication of Flagship magazine in print format, was vastly closer to a grueling task than anything that Suspense & Decision magazine has faced since day one.
SOURCE: http://playbymail.net/mybb/showthread.ph...#pid136006
As I recall, you're also one of the ones who advocated in favor of shorter issues.
Per your e-mail to me of August 23rd, 2016, you committed to submitting an article for Issue #14, so that's already accounted for, even if I haven't received the actual article, yet.
Again, the grand object isn't to screw anybody out of a chance to submit anything. Rather, it's to try and keep issues smaller than they otherwise might be, in keeping with the consensus for smaller issues.
Before, issues didn't just get bigger and bigger, simply because I favored larger issues - which I, personally, do tend to favor. Rather, people send stuff, and historically speaking, I would try to go ahead and publish it.
One thing that I experimented with for Issue #12, the missing issue, was to not bother so much with 'beating the bushes' for articles. I can tell you that that approach tends to result in a noticeably reduced amount of submissions, comparatively speaking.
Ultimately, I will include something if I want to include it in a certain issue. My discretion always remains intact, insofar as what to include. Just because I try to set a few parameters within which to operate doesn't mean that my discretion to publish suddenly dissolves, Rick. Of course, if I want to amass material ahead of time for future issues, then I do have to select some point at which to stop packing stuff into the current issue, that I might be able to begin compiling the next issue ahead of time. I do believe that is the direction which consensus preferred that I move the magazine in.