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Submissions are currently closed. It shouldn't be hard to guess why.

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6:02 PM · Feb 20, 2023

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Right now this is a crisis in a niche industry. It is growing and spreading exponentially. I don't know what the long-term impact will be, but it won't be limited to SF/F short stories.

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I'm seeing discussion about who is doing this. The scale of growth (and common sense) tells me it's not aspiring writers looking for a shortcut. The process of submitting these stories is being automated like shitcoin mining.

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Clarkesworld got hit early because they are always* open and pay well. Neil noticed early because he is so on top of his submission pile. There are probably other publishers seeing this who haven't gone public. It's not about being a writer, it's about automating income.

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For those who are asking, SF/F is science fiction and fantasy, and in this instance I am talking about short stories.

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Lots of people are suggesting solutions for how publishers can deal with this kind of spam. Some of them would work. All of them are also an increased barrier to aspiring authors. These barriers will affect different demographics differently.

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IMO, the simplest is a nominal reading fee. Make it 50¢ so that it's affordable, but costs more than the return on spam. It's a small barrier that most people can afford. But it disproportionately affects people outside the US, esp. places that can't access US payment systems.

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Something has to happen, but it sucks that stopping the spam still makes things worse.

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Crap, if this gets more engagement than a certain person's Superbowl tweet, am I gonna get kicked off Twitter?

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its really just an inevitability. They will have to adapt, and try focus on a human focused niche or just allow stories by the AI. Who knows, some of them will probably be pretty good.