Issue #14 - Suspense & Decision PBM magazine

[GrimFinger]

I am surprised that #14 is locked up as well.  But having a motivated editor and a community of contributors pumping out content is, if anything, a HAPPY problem to have.  Like "too many customers" or "extra doughnuts".  I myself haven't got anything in shape for publication yet!

So first, I will have to up my game and get at least one article written and sent to you (Grim) for consideration, should you decide you want it for #14.  Editor's discretion and all that.

Second, I will speed up development of my mini-zine idea.  It might not make this issue, so into 15 it may go.

Third, I will need to get in the habit of keeping up a pipeline of content, rather than a monthly pulse.  That's probably what, er, "successful" writers do.

Regardless, I am glad to see things humming again, and will do my best to contribute!

Your article is already accounted for, so you don't get off quite that easy, Bernd.

As to what successful writers probably do, I wouldn't know. Bob probably would, though.

Issue #14 is only 'locked up,' as you characterize it, because the consensus was for smaller issues. Of course, several of those individuals who have committed to an article for Issue #14 haven't actually submitted their respective articles, yet - although they have increased their time spent in the forum. That's good for the forum, but Issue #14 still awaits your articles.

Issue #14 won't publish before September 20th at the earliest. I don't intend to go past the last day in September, at the latest, without publishing it, though.

[ExoticV8]

I'm excited to see issue #14. I am glad that Suspense & Decision is available, whether monthly or quarterly or sporadically. Thanks for pulling everything together for us!

[Rick McDowell]

What can I say, Picasso?  It's your thing, do what you want to do.  Anything is better than nothing and you are picking up the gauntlet unlike anyone else and you are entitled to your, perhaps, peculiar, way to go about it.  Yeah, you aren't making any money, likely losing some to do this as a benefit to the players that like this style of games.  

Just keep doing it.  Make your choices.  But if I miss a promised article submission because the deadline was 10 days after the last issue was published, just understand. 

As just a reader opinion, along the lines of this discussion, I would like about 50 pages bi-monthly.  And you should charge for advertising.  I think you should edit out some of the stuff submitted, although I realize in this time its probably more time consuming than just keeping everything in.  It's just, if everything gets in, doesn't that make it closer to junk mail?

I am putting together an Alamaze article, more in what I think is missing for players trying to discover new games: just explaining the basics, not way deep into some specifics in games players don't know.  So I want to show a couple maps, an extract from a turn or two results, and let that do most of the talking. 

Anyway, I want to be encouraging.  I think I am engaged in what you are doing, Grim.  It's just most of us are accustomed to deadlines, and, editing for stuff that is not too good. 


On a completely different note, I have been asked several times lately who are the remaining major PBEM companies?  I can't give a good answer, all I can give is a guess.  Another reason for S&D to try to define the hobby a bit more.  Alamaze has started more than 200 games in the last three years.  It seems like lots of PBEM standards have started about 10 games in that time, but I don't really know, not really trying to start a fight, I just think people would like to know. 

Rick

[BobMcLain]

If this were 1980, having started "more than 200 games in the last three years" would be terrible. Schubel & Son, in 1980, probably made more money during a single month than you made in the last three years. But in 2016, it's really, really good. New games of Starweb start on the average of every two or three months.

I agree that each issue of S&D (which, admittedly, I only skim) seems to have stuff in there that shouldn't be in there, and that gives the publication a strong fanzine vibe. I'd rather have the more amateurish stuff cut out. That would lower the editor's workload and deliver an all-around better experience. I also agree that you should charge for advertising, even if it's a nominal amount. Maybe make it "subscription-based": $100 per year gets you x amount of space in each issue of S&D published during the next year. If a moderator can't come up with $100 per year, even if he knows deep-down the money is being spent more to support the only PBM publication in existence than it is to attract new players, then who needs him, anyway?

I'd also consider making use of turn reports as "cover art". I'd be interested in seeing turn reports from different games, even vintage turn reports from games no longer in existence. The cover art now in use reinforces that fanzine vibe.

Nobody asked for it, but that's my two cents.

[GrimFinger]

What can I say, Picasso?  It's your thing, do what you want to do.  Anything is better than nothing and you are picking up the gauntlet unlike anyone else and you are entitled to your, perhaps, peculiar, way to go about it.  Yeah, you aren't making any money, likely losing some to do this as a benefit to the players that like this style of games.  

Just keep doing it.  Make your choices.  But if I miss a promised article submission because the deadline was 10 days after the last issue was published, just understand. 

As just a reader opinion, along the lines of this discussion, I would like about 50 pages bi-monthly.  And you should charge for advertising.  I think you should edit out some of the stuff submitted, although I realize in this time its probably more time consuming than just keeping everything in.  It's just, if everything gets in, doesn't that make it closer to junk mail?

I am putting together an Alamaze article, more in what I think is missing for players trying to discover new games: just explaining the basics, not way deep into some specifics in games players don't know.  So I want to show a couple maps, an extract from a turn or two results, and let that do most of the talking. 

Anyway, I want to be encouraging.  I think I am engaged in what you are doing, Grim.  It's just most of us are accustomed to deadlines, and, editing for stuff that is not too good. 


On a completely different note, I have been asked several times lately who are the remaining major PBEM companies?  I can't give a good answer, all I can give is a guess.  Another reason for S&D to try to define the hobby a bit more.  Alamaze has started more than 200 games in the last three years.  It seems like lots of PBEM standards have started about 10 games in that time, but I don't really know, not really trying to start a fight, I just think people would like to know. 

Rick

1. It was never designed - nor intended - to make money.

2. If you miss a promised article submission because the deadline was 10 days after the last issue was published, I will understand. You can't miss a deadline that doesn't exist, though. Additionally, you've had several weeks, and your article hasn't arrived. So, when future issues published, and no articles or ads for your games are included, understand that it is because they never arrived. I can't publish things that don't actually get submitted.

3. If you feel that the magazine becomes closer to junk mail, because it contains things that you, yourself, don't care for, then it always remains your choice as to whether to download it or not. Not everyone likes the same things. The articles and other materials that you, yourself, might prefer appear in the magazine cannot be included, if they are never submitted in the first place. I give priority to stuff actually submitted, rather than to hypothetical stuff that may or may never materialize.

4. As for editing, when I edit, some complain. When I don't edit, some complain. When I go for a compromise, and don't publish at all, some complain. As I have often said down through the years, and over the course of the magazine's life span, we live in an imperfect world. If you have some spare time just lying around, and would like to spend that time editing material submitted to the magazine, then I'll be happy to do so.

5. I can and do appreciate the fact that you are accustomed to deadlines. I, on the other hand, am accustomed to trying to give individuals time - even extra time - to get articles submitted, before publishing particular issues. I've done that for you, in fact, previously, ending extra reminders, from time to time.

6. As for material that is "not too good," as you call it. Personal taste is largely a matter of opinion. One man's junk is another man's treasure. One man's lyric is another man's vulgarity. To the best of my recollection, reading requires an affirmative act. Thus, I leave it to each individual reader to decide for themselves which articles to read, and which ones to skim through, and which ones to skip over altogether.

7. As to who the remaining major PBEM companies are, it has been my experience over that last long while that game companies and game moderators frequently demonstrate little interest in actually communicating in a timely basis, if at all. Most PBEM games are not run by companies. As for PBM companies, notably commercial ones that use the actual postal service for turn delivery and turn results, there are very few of those left. If there weren't any, then Suspense & Decision magazine would never have come into existence, at all, and I likely wouldn't bother investing any time or effort of note into trying to publish a magazine, at all. PBEM games, web games, and other games with Internet delivery of some sort or other are able to make use of Suspense & Decision, if the individuals or game companies behind them want to. No one has to make use of it. Many don't. Some do. I tend to give priority to those that do.

Additionally, I created the PBM Wiki. Game companies, former game companies, and game moderators apparently do not consider it to be worthy of their time or effort, to a large degree. As I stated around five and a half years ago, "I'm not here to save the play by mail industry from a final death, nor am I here as a harbinger of a revival of the hobby of postal gaming. From time to time, I will post, when I take a notion, and hopefully, a few others will join in, whenever the mood strikes them." (See this posting:  http://playbymail.net/mybb/showthread.ph...pid=8#pid8 ) 

8. I don't consider you to be starting a fight.  I understand that you are trying to be encouraging. 

9. Defining the hobby requires time, effort, and energy. Suspense & Decision magazine is an extension of a hobby interest of mine. A lot of my previous efforts to define the hobby more have been met with silence. Additionally, not everyone is equally receptive to the way that I define things, be it the hobby or other things.

10. If you dislike particular articles, then send in letters to the editor. If articles that you don't like keep appearing, then keep on writing in. Readers are free to disagree. It tends to make the magazine more interesting to read, I think. Others may feel differently, of course.

[GrimFinger]

I agree that each issue of S&D (which, admittedly, I only skim) seems to have stuff in there that shouldn't be in there, and that gives the publication a strong fanzine vibe. I'd rather have the more amateurish stuff cut out. That would lower the editor's workload and deliver an all-around better experience. I also agree that you should charge for advertising, even if it's a nominal amount. Maybe make it "subscription-based": $100 per year gets you x amount of space in each issue of S&D published during the next year. If a moderator can't come up with $100 per year, even if he knows deep-down the money is being spent more to support the only PBM publication in existence than it is to attract new players, then who needs him, anyway?

I'd also consider making use of turn reports as "cover art". I'd be interested in seeing turn reports from different games, even vintage turn reports from games no longer in existence. The cover art now in use reinforces that fanzine vibe.

Nobody asked for it, but that's my two cents.

1. Specifically, which 'amateurish' stuff do you want cut out?

2. With regards to the editor's 'workload,' the real issue is time allocated to the magazine, not an actual workload, per se. None of it is like work, to me. As to the all-around better experience, that's overly broad and overly vague. What, specifically, does that mean, from your perspective, Bob?

3. Why would I want to make it subscription-based? To me, that would be wholly counter-productive. Those game companies and game moderators who can afford to advertise would likely advertise elsewhere, anyway. Because the magazine is an extension of a hobby interest of mine, the original objective was never to generate revenue/money. Furthermore, free advertising is geared towards trying to help small game companies/individual game moderators out, by facilitating them being able to get the word out about their games. Since the 'only PBM publication in existence' doesn't really cost much of anything to publish, why would it need revenue from subscription-based advertising?

4. I appreciate your two cents, Bob. If only everyone who reads it would give their two cents, from time to time.

[BobMcLain]

I keep forgetting this, as it's totally different from the projects that I've done (and do):

"None of it is like work, to me."
"Since the 'only PBM publication in existence' doesn't really cost much of anything to publish, why would it need revenue from subscription-based advertising?"

As it truly is *your* publication, independent of the commercial realities of advertiser revenue and editorial workload and paid circulation, then of course you're doing it right. In fact, your way likely is the *only* way to do it, as there isn't enough of a market to make S&D even remotely profitable, and you're not worried about recouping the investment of your time and effort.

Let me make a suggestion not based on my bottom-line approach to everything: why not contact some of the gaming podcasts and ask whether they're interested in having you on the show to talk about play-by-mail? They may not have heard of play-by-mail, or just heard of it vaguely, but most podcasters are always looking for new content, and I think play-by-mail could be pitched as one of those historical, quirky topics that you often find at the end of traditional newscasts.

[ixnay]

With regard to editing down content, I think Grim has been doing just fine. There is a good variety of stuff, lots of different writers (a feat in itself, given how small our hobby is), and the whole mishmash presents a vibrant, if discordant, fan space.

I recognize that some of the writing is amateur, wordy, or whatever, but it covers content I absolutely can't read anywhere else. It's plenty good enough. And every amateur writer who gets an article published here becomes a super fan who invites all his gaming buddies to download. Just like me.

Personally I would adopt a slightly more strenuous editing policy, only to tighten up some of the more obvious flaws, and this could include sending annotated articles back for revision and resubmission. But I'd want very much to preserve each writers stylistic voice, and especially preserve the diversity of content. I might also consider soliciting specific articles or reviews that might particularly flesh out an issue or boost the hobby. But on the whole I'd give Grim an A for the whole magazine.

[BobMcLain]

I have it on good authority that issue 14 will include one of the best articles EVER printed in S&D.

[Rick McDowell]

I started a new article for Alamaze.  I think to make it a bit different, I will mainly include extracts from the game itself such as the maps, a couple battle reports, some other excerpts from the results of a turn, as I don't think you'd want to occupy 30 pages to print a full turn, but perhaps I can have a link to a sample turn.