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Table of Contents

Editor’s Preface Eric Flint

Fiction

1. A Taste of Home Chris Racciato

2. Federico and Ginger Iver Cooper

3. Recycling Philip C. Schillawski and John Rigby

4. Old Folks’ Music Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

5. Mightier Than the Sword Jay Robison

6. Grantville is Different Russ Rittgers

7. The Woman Shall Not Wear That Virginia DeMarce

8. Live Free Karen Bergstrahl

9. The Dalai Llama’s Electric Buddha Victor Klimov

Continuing Serials

10. The Doctor Gribbleflotz Chronicles, Part 1: Calling Dr. Phil Kerryn Offord

11. Dr. Phil’s Amazing Lightning Crystal Kerryn Offord

12. Dr. Phil’s Aeolian Transformers Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatright

Non-Fiction

13. Exegesis and Interpretation of Up-timer Printed Matter Francis Turner

14. Bouncing Back: Bringing Rubber to Grantville Iver P. Cooper

15. On the Design, Construction and Maintenance of Wooden Aircraft Jerry Hollcombe

16. The Jews of 1632 Douglas W. Jones

EDITOR’S PREFACE
Eric Flint

Volume 6 of the Gazette is coming out three months later than we’d projected. There are three reasons for that, which are closely connected. The first reason is that our copy editor fell behind, for various reasons including some health problems. The second reason is that she’s also one of the copy editors for Baen Books, with many other assignment. And the final reason is that the launch of the new online magazine, Jim Baen’s UNIVERSE, further complicated the situation because the Gazette‘s copy editor is now also one of JBU‘s copy editors.

To put it another way, the Gazette was the runt of the litter.

On the bright side, the long delay due to production problems also means that the editorial staff of the magazine is way ahead of the game. We’ve pretty much got the next volume already put together, and most of the one that comes thereafter. From a purely editorial standpoint, therefore, we could publish Volume 7 very quickly, and Volume 8 soon thereafter.

However…

We’d likely run into the same bottleneck and logjam with the process of copy-editing and proof-reading. The tie-up with Volume 6 was not the first time that’s happened, and it’s very likely to happen again. Being the runt of the litter is never any fun, and, alas, the runt is what the magazine shall remain.

Facts are stubborn things, and it’s just a fact that while the paper editions of the Gazette generate a significant income for Baen Books, this electronic magazine does not. Yes, yes, granted—it’s the root source. But publishers are no different from you or me or anyone else, when they are faced with that nastiest of all nasty eight-letter words:

Cash flow.

Okay, it’s two words. But, as everyone knows, they roll right into each other, like a mudslide approaching a town of people who have their budgets neatly in order. Abstractly.

In a pinch—and there’s always a pinch in publishing—the work of copy-editing the electronic edition of the Gazette keeps getting pushed aside in favor of other, more financial pressing projects. So it has been, and so it will continue to be.

There’s only one way to solve this problem, and that is to boldly go where…

Well, actually, where Baen Books has been going for years now. Henceforth—beginning with Volume 7, not this one—we are going to start publishing the electronic edition of the Gazette the same way Baen publishes e-books through Webscriptions. Using the same basic approach, at least.

We’ll simply put up the volume for sale as soon as the editorial staff has it ready—except we’ll put it up all at once, not serialized across three months the way Webscriptions does. But, like Webscriptions, we will produce the final copy-edited version after the volume goes up for sale.

How soon thereafter? I don’t know. Unlike Webscriptions, we can’t guarantee that we’ll have it ready within three months. But it shouldn’t generally be much longer than that—and, as with Webscriptions, anyone who has paid for the magazine will automatically get the later, copy-edited version free of charge.

Mind you, the text will have been proof-read, at least once, before we put it up for sale. We’re not going to be putting up raw text. But “proofing it once” is not the same thing as the normal, time-consuming, and very laborious process of copy-editing, querying authors, and two rounds of proof-reading that is standard practice in commercial publishing for paper books.

But that’s really the key: paper books. Publishers have to put the time and money into copy-editing and extensive proof-reading before they produce a paper edition, for the good and simple and obvious reason that once tens of thousands of printed and bound volumes have appeared on the shelves of bookstores, it is effectively impossible to call them back.

That is not true, however, with an electronic edition. Molecules are not electrons—and electrons respond just fine to a recall notice. With electronic publishing, the difference between “in production” and “in print” is a continuum, it’s not the Chinese Wall that it is in paper publishing. It is perfectly possible to keep making corrections in a text after it’s been made available for public sale. With the proviso, of course, that you have to make sure your customers are informed of that.

You are hereby informed—and we will repeat the information regularly.

If any reader spots a typo or what they think is an error, and has the desire to do so, you can inform us in any one of three ways:

1) Send an email to Paula Goodlett, at: paula@1632.org

2) Post a notice to that effect in the 1632 Tech Manual conference in Baen’s Bar.

3) Post a notice to that effect in the 1632 section of the discussion area in my own web site: http://www.ericflint.net/forum/

On a periodic basis, we will incorporate the corrections. (Assuming the reader is right, anyway. Not all “errors” are actually errors.) And, of course, we will replace the existing edition with the copy-edited edition when that finally becomes available.

Granted, it’s not an ideal solution. But it seems a far better one to us than continuing to have the magazine delayed for long stretches of time by purely production problems.

* * *

One final note. In terms of the editorial work, this volume 6 is a transitional volume. Paula Goodlett and I co-edited it, essentially. Beginning with Volume 7, however, Paula has become for all practical purposes the editor of the magazine, not me. I say “has become” rather than “will become” because the transition has already happened. When I said toward the beginning of this preface that “we’ve pretty much got the next volume already put together,” I could just as easily—and considerably more accurately—have said that Paula has pretty much got the next volume put together.

Henceforth, starting with Volume 7, she will select the stories, she will edit them, she will make all final decisions regarding the magazine except whatever few decisions might need my overall input. My own position with the magazine will no longer be “editor” in any real sense of 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 up—as the first three now have—being 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 edition—one of which is the commissions I pay Webscriptions and Baen Books to use their existing electronic outlet—but 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 terms—but 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 words—albeit not as brilliantly—could have been penned by any marketing department in the world since the advent of generalized commodity production, lo these many centuries ago.

IMAGES

Note from Editor:

There are various images, mostly portraits from the time, which illustrate different aspects of the 1632 universe. In the first issue of the Grantville Gazette, I included those with the volume itself. Since that created downloading problems for some people, however, I’ve separated all the images and they will be maintained and expanded on their own schedule.

If you’re interested, you can look at the images and my accompanying commentary at no extra cost. They are set up in the Baen Free Library. You can find them as follows:

1) Go to www.baen.com
2) Select “Free Library” from the blue menu at the top.
3) Once in the Library, select “The Authors” from the yellow menu on the left.
4) Once in “The Authors,” select “Eric Flint.”
5) Then select “Images from the Grantville Gazette.”
 

Submissions to the magazine

If anyone is interested in submitting stories or articles for future issues of the Grantville Gazette, you are welcome to do so. But you must follow a certain procedure:

1) All stories and articles must first be posted in a conference in Baen’s Bar set aside for the purpose, called “1632 Slush.” Do not send them to me directly, because I won’t read them. It’s good idea to submit a sketch of your story to the conference first, since people there will likely spot any major problems that you overlooked. That can wind up saving you a lot of wasted work.

You can get to that conference by going to Baen Books’ web site www.baen.com. Then select “Baen’s Bar.” If it’s your first visit, you will need to register. (That’s quick and easy.) Once you’re in the Bar, the three conferences devoted to the 1632 universe are “1632 Slush,” “1632 Slush Comments,” and “1632 Tech Manual.” You should post your sketch, outline or story in “1632 Slush.” Any discussion of it should take place in “1632 Slush Comments.” The “1632 Tech Manual” is for any general discussion not specifically related to a specific story.

2) Your story/article will then be subjected to discussion and commentary by participants in the 1632 discussion. In essence, it will get chewed on by what amounts to a very large, virtual writers’ group.

You do not need to wait until you’ve finished the story to start posting it in “1632 Slush.” In fact, it’s a good idea not to wait, because you will often find that problems can be spotted early in the game, before you’ve put all the work into completing the piece.

3) While this is happening, the assistant editor of the Grantville Gazette, Paula Goodlett, will be keeping an eye on the discussion. She will alert me whenever a story or article seems to be gaining general approval from the participants in the discussion. There’s also an editorial board to which Paula and I belong, which does much the same thing. The other members of the board are Karen Bergstralh, Rick Boatright, and Laura Runkle. In addition, authors who publish regularly in the 1632 setting participate on the board as ex officio members. My point is that plenty of people will be looking over the various stories being submitted, so you needn’t worry that your story will just get lost in the shuffle.

4) At that point—and only at that point—do I take a look at a story or article.

I insist that people follow this procedure, for two reasons:

First, as I said, I’m very busy and I just don’t have time to read everything submitted until I have some reason to think it’s gotten past a certain preliminary screening.

Secondly, and even more importantly, the setting and “established canon” in this series is quite extensive by now. If anyone tries to write a story without first taking the time to become familiar with the setting, they will almost invariably write something which—even if it’s otherwise well written—I simply can’t accept.

In short, the procedure outlined above will save you a lot of wasted time and effort also.

One point in particular: I have gotten extremely hardnosed about the way in which people use American characters in their stories (so-called “up-timers”). That’s because I began discovering that my small and realistically portrayed coal mining town of 3500 people was being willy-nilly transformed into a “town” with a population of something like 20,000 people—half of whom were Navy SEALs who just happened to be in town at the Ring of Fire, half of whom were rocket scientists (ibid), half of whom were brain surgeons (ibid), half of whom had a personal library the size of the Library of Congress, half of whom . . .

Not to mention the F-16s which “just happened” to be flying through the area, the Army convoys (ibid), the trains full of vital industrial supplies (ibid), the FBI agents in hot pursuit of master criminals (ibid), the . . .

NOT A CHANCE. If you want to use an up-time character, you must use one of the “authorized” characters. Those are the characters created by Virginia DeMarce using genealogical software and embodied in what is called “the grid.”

You can obtain a copy of the grid from the web site which collects and presents the by-now voluminous material concerning the series, www.1632.org. Look on the right for the link to “Virginia’s Up-timer Grid.” While you’re at it, you should also look further down at the links under the title “Authors’ Manual.”

You will be paid for any story or factual article which is published. The rates that I can afford for the magazine at the moment fall into the category of “semi-pro.” I hope to be able to raise those rates in the future to make them fall clearly within professional rates, but . . . That will obviously depend on whether the magazine starts selling enough copies to generate the needed income. In the meantime, the rates and terms which I can offer are posted below in the standard letter of agreement accepted by all the contributors to this issue.

Standard letter of agreement

Below are the terms for the purchase of a story or factual article (hereafter “the work”) to be included in an issue of the online magazine Grantville Gazette, edited by Eric Flint and published by Baen Books.

Payment will be sent upon acceptance of the work at the following rates:

1) a rate of 2.5 cents per word for any story or article up to 15,000 words;

2) a rate of 2 cents a word for any story or article after 15,000 words but before 30,000 words;

3) a rate of 1.5 cents a word for any story or article after 30,000 words.

The rates are cumulative, not retroactive to the beginning of the story or article. (E.g., a story 40,000 words long would earn the higher rates for the first 30,000 words.) Word counts will be rounded to the nearest hundred and calculated by Word for Windows XP.

In the event a story has a payment that exceeds $200, the money will be paid in two installments: half on acceptance, and the remaining half two months after publication of the story.

You agree to sell exclusive first world rights for the story, including exclusive first electronic rights for five years following publication, and subsequent nonexclusive world rights. Should Baen Books select your story for a paper edition, you will not receive a second advance but will be paid whatever the differential might be between what you originally received and the advance for different length stories established for the paper edition. You will also be entitled to a proportionate share of any royalties earned by the authors of a paper edition. If the work is reissued in a paper edition, then the standard reversion rights as stipulated in the Baen contract would supercede the reversion rights contained here.

Eric Flint retains the rights to the 1632 universe setting, as well as the characters in it, so you will need to obtain his permission if you wish to publish the story or use the setting and characters through anyone other than Baen Books even after the rights have reverted to you. You, the author, will retain copyright and all other rights except as listed above. Baen will copyright the story on first publication.

You warrant and represent that you have the right to grant the rights above; that these rights are free and clear; that your story will not violate any copyright or any other right of a third party, nor be contrary to law. You agree to indemnify Baen for any loss, damage, or expense arising out of any claim inconsistent with any of the above warranties and representations.

THE END

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