Diary of a Mad Editor

Archive for December 29th, 2006

Ride Them Electronic Waves into a Vast New Ocean

Although I was vaguely aware that there was such an invention as the Internet, I had no experience with it until December 25, 1998. I didn’t have a computer of my own then. I had just put out the second issue of my literary magazine, Devil Blossoms, published using a sharp electronic word process typewriter, and was looking ahead to doing a third issue. I knew that if I was to continue as a small press publisher, I would need a computer. I also thought it would be a good idea to have some kind of website. So, that Christmas, while visiting my sister, I took the opportunity to explore the Internet literary scene on her new PC. What I discovered was something of a revelation. At that time, the online literary scene was coming to the end of what I call the first wave. This era was dominated by a lot of badly done literary magazines with some pretty bad writing by amateurs and posers who were all but unknown to us in the print world. Oh, there were exceptions, of course, but webpage after webpage bore out the truth — so much crap, but what potential! Any writer with even a little bit of a pedigree could set up shop online and rock the house. The publications which were exceptional were hungry for decent writing. And before the bubble burst, Internet companies were handing out electronic real estate like candy to children on Halloween.

I came to the Internet at the end of this era. I threw myself into the process of shopping for and buying a PC. Realizing I had a limited budget and that PCs weren’t quite as cheap as they are today, I settled on a PC put out by the now-defunct CyberMax I’d seen in a ad in Computer Shopper. The first thing I did was teach myself some basic HTML (hypertext markup language). My first two efforts were a personal webpage and a poetry ezine called New World Poetry . I started to submit poetry to online zines and accepting poetry for NWP. By this time the first wave was winding-down. More and more small press writers were getting online to join their brethren in Cyberspace. I certainly did my share of strongarming and persuading to get some writers I knew to get their asses over here. A lot of the lesser publications started to disappear. Only a handful of the betters ezines survived.

First Wave: (1994-1999 R.I.P.)

A second wave had already begun to emerge prior to this however. Ezines like Pif, Gravity, and The Alsop Review were already established by the time the first wave had ended. The second wave publications were hellbent on being taken seriously. It was also a time when ezines started to get publicity in the mainstream press and prestige publications like the Pushcart Anthology started to allow nominations from electronic publications. Things seemed to be on a roll. Still, there was much happening that detracted from the steady evolution of the Internet lit scene. Too many publications relied on visual eye candy, gimmicks and just plain bad web design. There were still too many amateur writers existing on the fringes, hanging out in chatroom, Usenet, and on other forums, making noise. There was also the problem of Internet publishers simply not knowing how to integrate the print world with the electronic as most of the electronic publishers had zero experience with print publishing.

Second wave (1997-2000 R.I.P.)

Welcome to the third wave!

Everyone was riding high and resting on their laurels, convinced that everything was everything Then the Internet bubble burst followed on its heels by 9/11. The landscape changed and the old electronic ocean began to dry-up. Anyone still publishing ezines on free webspace found that more and more webspace was no longer free. So too, many other “free” services started to dry up. Those publications which couldn’t adapt simply vanished. Just before the bubble burst, I was publishing five ezines: New World Poetry, The Doomed City, Gnome, The 13th Warrior Review, and The Labyrinth. By the time the third wave was winding-down, I had just three. At the beginning of the present fourth wave, I had two ezines which had survived.

Third wave: (2000-2003 R.I.P.) The end of a Golden Digital Age.

The fourth wave has been influenced by a dramatic leap in technology — everything from Cascading Style Sheets to Blogs and Google Adsense. Newer and more efficient means of delivering and presenting information has trickled down to the Internet lit scene.

Fourth Wave: (2003-???)

What’s next? Who knows? But I do predict that all of us who publish online will have to bring our game up, that what once seemed like a vast electronic land of milk and honey is now a dwindling frontier surrounded by a vast and dangerous new ocean.