Page 2 of posts published in: 2009/11

Call for discussion: ads on the blog.

Posted on 2009-11-11 at 13:58 by montsamu

We don't think we'll need to do ads, and don't particularly want to and may not anyway, but what do our communities think of some minimal ads on the blog (only: never in e-books or audiobooks) to help make sure we can break even and keep going as long as we can? We would treat any ad revenue for the site as if it were a direct donation to the site as described in the "UPDATE" portion of "The BULL SPEC dollar."

Posted in meta

Contact information.

Posted on 2009-11-10 at 19:0 by montsamu

General:

Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, Editor & Publisher, sam at bullspec dot com

Mail: (advise querying first before sending ARCs, etc. but fun loot is always welcome)

Bull Spec
PO Box 13146
Durham, NC 27709

Posted in contact

Closed for reprint submissions.

Posted on 2009-11-10 at 18:2 by montsamu

We are now closed for reprint submissions. Our capacity for reprint production work is full for 6 months, and we'll post an update when we re-open for reprints in about three months. Original submissions are still open and welcome.

Posted in meta, status

Insanity, we has it.

Posted on 2009-11-10 at 15:19 by montsamu

We would have liked to have this lined up for our "coming out party" last Friday, and it may be a tiny bit premature, but we're in talks to provide video versions of some stories in American Sign Language, accept incoming video stories in American Sign Language, accept incoming stories in text or audio in Hindi, and provide text and audio versions of some stories in Hindi. There's other bits we won't mention yet as they would be even more premature, but things are COOKING, folks, and we couldn't be more

Posted in meta

Two more days of reading.

Posted on 2009-11-10 at 3:20 by montsamu

Another little update on progress on the submissions inbox. There were 2 more stories which trickled in late Saturday, and a nice little stream continued Sunday and Monday. Everybody should have at least received an acknowledgement by now, so if you haven't, please give submissions at bullspec dot com a ping. It's hard rejecting any of these stories and our "short list" is starting to grow. Thanks so much for trusting your stories to a new market.

Posted in meta

We're pleased to announce that BULL SPEC BENEFIT NOVELLA #1 will be: William Shunn's Hugo and Nebula Award-nominated "Inclination."

Posted on 2009-11-09 at 18:41 by montsamu

The Manual tells us that in the beginning the Builder decreed six fundamental Machines. These are his six aspects, and all we do we must do with the Six. We need no other machines.


I believe this with all my heart. I do. And yet sometimes I seem to intuit the existence of a seventh Machine, hovering like a blasphemous ghost just beyond apprehension.


There is something wrong with me, and I don’t know what it is.

Posted in announcements, benefit-announcements, benefit-novella-announcements, bull spec benefit novella #1, inclination, novella-announcements, william shunn

We're pleased to announce that BULL SPEC BENEFIT SHORT #1 will be: Joe Meno's "The Architecture of the Moon."

Posted on 2009-11-09 at 17:58 by montsamu

By Monday the moon has stopped glowing. One moment it is the singularly most important shape in the nighttime sky and then it is gone...

Posted in announcements, benefit-announcements, benefit-short-announcements, bull spec benefit short #1, joe meno, the architecture of the moon

The BULL SPEC dollar.

Posted on 2009-11-08 at 12:8 by montsamu

We've been getting some questions about our "donate what you like" model. So let's walk through a $10 donation to a typical BULL SPEC story:

1. If it's on SMASHWORDS, they take their cut (their servers host the files and their software makes multiple e-book versions possible for us) and the rest goes on to step 4.
2. If it's on our audiobook host (now TBD), they take their cut (their servers host the (large!) files) and the rest goes on to step 4.
3. If it's on the BULL SPEC site itself (through the story's dedicated

Posted in meta

Attachments, thanks, and stats.

Posted on 2009-11-08 at 3:3 by montsamu

Based on some feedback to our guidelines, we're considering accepting attachments. (We aren't yet but we're thinking about it.) The most likely ones for us are (1) .txt (2) .pdf (most likely to render the same for you and us) and (3) .odc (our internal document format). We have had problems with both .doc and .rtf rendering sanely across operating systems and client software in the past and aren't that interesting in putting our precious pennies into the latest and greatest commercial editors which use .doc

Posted in meta

Updated guidelines: open for works in Spanish and Chinese; longer form reprints.

Posted on 2009-11-07 at 18:14 by montsamu

We've made a few minor updates to our guidelines, clarifying some language around our publishing schedule and rights, and adding two fairly (we feel) important bits of information:

1. We are open to Spanish and Chinese (Mandarin) language submissions.
2. We are open to longer works of reprint fiction.

Posted in meta