Notices by Clarkesworld (clarkesworld@mastodon.online)

If the subscription numbers can be kept up, we will be increasing our fiction pay rate to 14 cents/word by the end of the year. Would have happened sooner, if a certain bookseller hadn't screwed us. We're working to pay everyone here better. No one left behind.
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

Our August 2024 issue is now online at:
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_215
and features stories by Alice Towey, Thomas Ha, Rich Larson, Timothy Mudie, Rajeev Prasad, David McGillveray, Emily Taylor, and Marisca Pichette.
Subscribe at: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

Only 159 subscribers to go before we've restored what Amazon took away when they ended their subscription program.
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

My Locus Award for Best Editor has arrived. Not an easy thing to take a picture of. Thank you to everyone that voted for me. This means a lot, particularly after everything that happened last year ("AI" and Amazon).

We're 344 subscribers away from where we were before Amazon pulled the rug out from under their traditional subscription program. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but still much work to do.

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

So... I apparently won the Locus Award for Best Editor. Stunned. Thank you to all the voters, readers, and everyone I worked with in 2023. Wow!

We're still rebuilding subscriptions (since Amazon abandoned them) and pushing back against the generated submissions on a daily basis. We'd like to keep doing so. The path forward requires us to keep shouting from the rooftops, so...
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/
Thank you!

I'm dying reading one of the more recent "make money with Clarkesworld" articles. Clearly generated, but maybe in another language and machine translated to English.
"While prior composing experiences can be valuable, it’s not in a general sense required to surrender to Clarkesworld Magazine."

If you used to subscribe to Clarkesworld on the Kindle and today you are wondering why Amazon hasn't sent you our 17th anniversary issue yet, it's not our fault. Amazon has ended that service, but we're still here.
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/amazon-subscribers/

I've been helping some friends and colleagues block some of the site scraping bots that are feeding "AI" models. Decided to take some of my notes and make something others could use too. It's a work-in-progress. Happy to add to or correct things.
https://neil-clarke.com/block-the-bots-that-feed-ai-models-by-scraping-your-website/

"AI" companies think that we should have to opt-out of data-scraping bots that take our work to train their products. There isn't even a required no-scraping period between the announcement and when they start. Too late? Tough.
Not acceptable.
#RequireOptIn

I'm tired of waiting for industry organizations to respond to AI issues. Working draft of my own is here: http://neil-clarke.com/ai-statement/

We have removed the cover to our current issue while we investigate claims that it was created with AI tools. This is unacceptable to us and against policy. Our art contracts even include a requirement that the artist vouch that the work is their own and not created or assisted by AI. We regret the distress this has caused and trust that I too am very unhappy.

We just quietly reopened submissions to see what would happen. Two quick submissions. One AI, one not.

In an absolutely devastating announcement (right before the holidays) Amazon has informed us that they are ending their Kindle Subscription program in Sept. 2023 and trying to get magazines to switch to Kindle Unlimited. Asking for more details, but this is bad. Magazine subscriptions are guaranteed revenue from each subscriber. KU is not like that. It will effectively cancel thousands of subscriptions since there's no migration path.