The basic approach of anthologies up till now, it seems to me, has been to announce a call for submissions, and then when the deadline passes maybe post a table of contents, and then have a launch party. Many people are still working to this model, where the first sign that an anthology is happening is the call for submissions, and then there's a long silence until it appears on the shelves.
However, nowadays editors have blogs, and a number of them have been blogging about the process of producing an anthology. This has the effect of making an anthology into an ongoing 'happening' rather than a book that just appears a year after the call for submissions. Not only is this a good marketing idea, building anticipation for the anthology before it is released, but it makes the anthology into a datasource from which we can learn things about who is writing, what is being written, and what the process of producing an anthology is like. Perhaps most importantly, it can be used to feedback to writers to tell them what they should, or should not, be submitting. How many editors in times gone by must have lamented "If only I had some way to tell people to stop submitting stories set in (?) where a (?) has to (??) in order to (?) their (??), if I see one more like that, I'll scream!" Well, now you can, you can use a blog to report story types or features that you are just seeing too much of. Suddenly, you've got a tool for making a better, more diversified anthology.
Not only does this new approach help writers and assist in marketing the anthology, but it also assists other editors who are coming into the 'anthology game' for the first time. Blogging about the process of making an anthology leaves a footprint that allows other anthologists to see what they are letting themselves in for, and what pitfalls they might face.
So, the anthology editors who are doing this new thing, from what I've seen so far, are:
Silvia Moreno-Garcia for 'Historical Lovecraft' and 'Future Lovecraft'
Ryan North Matthew Bennardo and David Malki for 'Machine of Death'
Ian Sales for 'Rocket Science'
Now, before you think that I'm just promoting editors who are going to publish my work, I can tell you that only one of these anthologies has accepted work from me. Silvia Moreno-Garcia rejected my genre-changing-work-of-utter-brilliance (so one can't be a visionary in all things!) and I don't expect to get anywhere with 'Machine of Death', which has received almost two-thousand submissions. Only Ian Sales has accepted my work (clearly recognizing me as an upcoming genius, or perhaps just as a potentially vengeful lunatic who lives on the same small island as him). Furthermore there are other anthologies that have accepted work from me, but which I don't feel are quite doing this 'new thing' that I'm seeing.
So, what do the 'New Anthologizing' look like?
Silvia Moreno-Garcia simply used her own blog to post status reports about her anthologies, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO WHAT SHE WAS GETTING IN THE SLUSH. I say 'simply', but I don't see a lot of other anthologies doing this, and it's groundbreaking.
http://silviamoreno-garcia.com/blog/2010/10/historical-lovecraft-an-update/
That post might not look groundbreaking, but it's real-time feedback to writers thinking of submitting to the anthology telling them "We've got too much of this, and not enough of that. You can maximise your chances of acceptance by doing the other". This is important because no-one can be utterly sure what the slush is going to consist of. Imagine you were, for instance, like Ian Sales, building an anthology of hard-SF set in space. What do you think most of the submissions will be? Well I'd have thought 'Space war' might be a common one, but from what I can see he's getting little of that. Perhaps this is because many people are trying to avoid the obvious, but they wind up all going for the same idea as a result. How many people might be thinking "Hey, I bet no-one else will send a heist story!"? Suddenly the editor finds themselves unexpectedly drowning in heist stories, but they can now do something about this, they can blog-post saying 'Enough of the Ocean's Eleven knock-offs!'
However, the real game-changer for me was this post:
http://silviamoreno-garcia.com/blog/2010/12/slush-stats-crunching-numbers/
Yes, everything's better with pies.
This allows people to see what's really going on with submissions, and it just looks cool. Graphs illustrate things in a way that simply saying "we've only had 20% submissions from women" doesn't really achieve.
The Machine of Death anthology is trying all kinds of things, (podcasting, side-competitions, etc), to promote the book. They are really trying every way they can think of to leverage the web for marketing. That alone, however, wouldn't really count as being part of this 'new wave' I'm seeing. But, they published a very important graph:
This graph is important because it shows an aspect of the submissions process, and one that other anthologists might want to know about. If you're working on your first anthology, then it's very useful to know that you're going to see submissions rates pick up SHARPLY towards the end of the reading period. This tells editors not to panic too much if the submissions rate is low at the start of the period, and to not get too complacent about the work load through the early to middle run of submissions, and to gird their loins for a major uphill struggle towards the end.
Finally, and for me so far the ultimate expression of this 'new wave' (probably just because it's the most recent, and it's still ongoing) is Ian Sales' "Rocket Science" anthology. Like 'Machine of Death' Ian has created a dedicated website for rocket science, but unlike the other members of the 'New Anthologists' he's posting every week on what he's seeing in the slushpile so far. For my money the most important graph he's produced is this one:
Why this one? Well, this is real-time feedback to writers concerning an important aspect of the slush: What type of stories are coming in. From this one can instantly see that 'First Contact', 'Family Drama' and 'Fix problem or die' are overdone, and that you'd probably be wise in trying something else.
I personally used these graphs of Ian's, as I described in a previous post, to write a story that got accepted at 'Rocket Science'. The method I used was simply 'Try to put a new slice on every pie-chart', i.e., try to contribute something new in every aspect of the stories that Ian is charting.
Ian is going way beyond anything that I've seen anyone else doing in terms of analyzing the slushpile. Just look at:
And all of this is accompanied by his commentary on what he's seeing, what he's seeing too much of, what he'd like to see more of, etc, etc.
But, even though Ian is doing the most I've ever seen anyone do, I think there is more that could be done. There are so many different datapoints that people can use to guide the submissions process. What about antagonists, for instance? If, for instance, everyone is writing stories featuring Asian antagonists, then we might want to know that, because it's more than a little creepy if one group of people are always getting put into the antagonist role. Now, I don't want to imply that writers are doing anything 'wrong' if that's the result that comes out (though you'll find there are lots of people who will) it's entirely possible that you've got 'accidental' trends, where everyone unintentionally winds up doing similar things (any writer knows just how often they discover that others have thought of an idea that they thought was unique to them). However, even if such trends are unintentional, they will tend to look kinda bad if all lumped together in an anthology, so it's good for the anthology to spot such things early on and guide people away from making the same choices as everyone else.
So, what does all this amount to, and why is it important?
I believe that this kind of constant editor feedback to writers will result in BETTER ANTHOLOGIES. The stories in them will be more varied and surprising. It will produce BETTER EDITORS, because new editors will be able to consult the paper-trail left by those who went before, and learn from it. It will mean BETTER MARKETING, because potential readers will be able to see the anthology forming, and get a clear idea whether they want to buy it or not, and because it's just a way of keeping the anthology 'live' in people's minds. Finally each anthology becomes an HISTORICAL DATAPOINT that people will be able to mine about the state of the genre 'x' years ago. The wealth of information about an anthology (presuming that the information continues to be available) makes the anthology into an important historical document.
I think this is just the beginning of what will be something of revolution. Indeed, I think that in future there will be so much information provided by anthologists that people will have to work in 'teams' with members responsible for slush reading, and others for public communications. Fiction anthologies will become something much larger than just a book, and the internet's contribution to the process will be much more than just 'viral marketing'.
I'm eager to see what they think of next.
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