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   13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 22:25:10 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

   I appreciate how Discord is non-corporate publishing culture's answer to Slack, and just as ubiquitous, but it's a little exhausting seeing interesting new micropublications crop up which require Discord as part of the submission process.

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 22:26:51 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     I used to just email stuff to editors and they'd print it if it didn't suck, you know?

     (Interestingly, a lot of professional publishing has gone back to that, as no one wants to pay for the extra Slack seats for all the contributors.)

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     𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e (enkiv2@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 22:42:21 JST 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear

     I definitely agree with the sentiment, though I've noticed that a lot of the small presses with discords that I've encountered have basically developed an artistic community of writers via the discord, which could be very productive.

     On the whole, I compare them favorably to the discords for open source projects, basically because while open source had previously had a good, accessible ecosystem for project communities (irc+listservs+forums+bug trackers, etc), having a small press develop a community (versus being established to serve an existing scene) seems to be a new development. What's more, people are using discord features in an interesting way (Tenebrous uses voice chat to do pitch party / brainstorming events, for instance).

     It's kind of stupid *not* to take email submissions, but I guess it gets rid of the need for a slushpile if you're basically socially vetting every author & getting involved with prospective authors before they even start writing.

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 22:57:47 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     @enkiv2 Oh yeah, that's exactly why the ones I've encountered have used Discord, and I've even participated in some.

     It's entirely valid, but it's unfortunately a means of communication that I personally find anxiety-inducing, even compared to other instant messaging systems. (No idea why - I don't exactly love Matrix or Slack, but I have nowhere near as much trouble with them.)

     Although, predictably, my most comfortable milieux for zine production have been e-mail lists and message boards, I recognise that that era has rather passed.

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     𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e (enkiv2@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 23:03:24 JST 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     in reply to

     @HauntedOwlbear

     Absolutely. There are places I've avoided submitting to because I'd have to functionally join their club and I don't have the spoons. (Particularly, voice & video chat is something that's stressful for me & so I try to limit it to groups I'm already comfortable with.)

     Well, we've got a lot of small presses with discords because we've got a lot of small presses, right? Basically, the economics of self-publishing has gotten good enough that it doesn't take much capital to run an imprint. So we should expect some to pop up with completely different styles, as well.

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     13 barn owls in a trenchcoat (hauntedowlbear@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 23:23:00 JST 13 barn owls in a trenchcoat

     in reply to

     • 𒀭𒂗𒆠 ENKI ][e

     @enkiv2 It's a reassuring thought. :)