"Eric Flint - Grantville Gazette - Vol 6" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

the term. I will simply be what amounts to the publisher. Yes, I retain final control over the
magazine and, yes, I'm the one who writes the checks. But, like any sensible publisher, I will
leave the regular operation of the magazine in the editor's hands. If I didn't have confidence in
Paula, I wouldn't have asked her to do the work in the first place.
Mind you, that reality might not be reflected in the official titles in the masthead. I don't want
to use the term "publisher" officially, because it's a complicated situation, in that the magazine is
distributed through Baen Books even though it's independently financed. That doesn't matter
much with regard to the electronic edition, but it would become an obvious problem if any
electronic edition of the Gazette wound upтАФas the first three now haveтАФbeing produced in a
paper edition by Baen Books.
Jim is the publisher of those editions, not me, because what ultimately defines a "publisher" is
that he or she is the one who pays the bills to get a volume produced. I pay the bills for the
electronic editionтАФone of which is the commissions I pay Webscriptions and Baen Books to use
their existing electronic outletтАФbut Jim pays the bills for the paper editions.
It would be more accurate to label my position with the magazine from now on as something
like "chairman of the editorial board" or "editorial director" or... whatever. In practice, I suspect
we'll just keep using the term "editor" for me and "assistant editor" for Paula.
Why?
Well, because it's time to introduce you to the nastiest nine-letter word in the English
language:
Marketing.
If you didn't know already, producing Immortal Prose, from the commercial standpoint, is not
much different from producing sausages or 1/4-20 nuts and bolts. It's just a fact that the names
that get plastered on a cover make a difference in terms of how many copies distributors and
major retailers order to begin with.
No, that's not a big problem with an electronic edition. But we always have to keep an eye out
for a possible later paper edition.
That said, "marketing" is what it is. A nine-letter word that you take seriously enough, in its
own termsтАФbut nothing more than that. The best depiction of marketing in the English language,
that I know of, are the following words of wisdom from "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll, the
author of the Alice in Wonderland stories:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe

Those same wordsтАФalbeit not as brilliantlyтАФcould have been penned by any marketing
department in the world since the advent of generalized commodity production, lo these many
centuries ago.
Eric Flint
March, 2006
 STORIES

A Taste of Home
by Chris Racciato
It was raining. Daphne Pridmore was getting thoroughly sick of the rain. It meant that she
had to stay inside for the most part. Going out to check on the hives was pointless. If they could
use the truck, it might be worthwhile, but they'd decided to save the wear and tear on their only
truck for emergencies. As much as she hated to admit it, cabin fever wasn't a real emergency. If