Shameless Plug: Vote SFSignal for Hugo Award (Best Fanzine)
First, the plug: surf quickly, don’t walk, and vote in the Hugo Awards for SFSignal as Best Fanzine and SFSignal Podcast as Best Fancast. Information on how to vote can be found at the Hugo Awards website and at the Chicon7 web site.
Here’s my personal persuasion for you:
I met John DeNardo (JD, because all of the kool one word monikers were taken) in 2006. I was pimping my novel Dusk Before the Dawn, and knew of this site called SFSignal. I contacted them, and got an email from this John DeNardo guy with an address of where to send a copy.
The address had the same zip code as mine. I had no clue. JD was not only in the same neighborhood, but worked for the same large computer company that I used to work for.
We met in person (rare for any internet relationship) and JD reviewed my novel. His review was characteristic of the site, and of John: fair and insightful.
I’d been reviewing books on my website for a while, and JD asked me to review a novel that was somewhat related to mine. Thus I became an SFSignal Irregular.
Before I took the oath (which included strange disclaimers about bagels) I was told the following:
- there is no pay; the site is supported mainly by some ad and affiliate revenue, just enough to cover the hosting costs (I’m guesstimating here). This is an important point for you voters to realize: JD and his partner in crime, JP, have done the editing and generated most of the content for this site for a decade for the love of the genre;
- there is the opportunity to get free books. Obviously, this sold me; I’d do lots of unnatural acts for free books.
Since then, I’ve gotten the opportunity to not only read books that I would not have read, either because of time or availability, but I’ve interviewed a couple of authors who’ve I’ve built extended relationships with, built a couple of cool primers for Doc Savage and John Carter, and been introduced to an opportunity to do a video primer of John Carter, which was eventually shown at the NY Review of Science Fiction meeting.
I denote these not to blow my own horn, but to show how JD and SFSignal promote the community of science fiction and fantasy. JD encourages creativity during his editorial purview, and by looking at some of the awesome columns on the site, you can see the results.
So…VOTE FOR MY FRIEND JD and SFSIGNAL. It is an honor I believe is well deserved.
Dude. The Sacred Bagel Oath is supposed to be sekkrit. Shhhhhh.
Oops! I think my oath pre-dated the mandatory non-disclosure agreement, Lisa!
Thanks, Larry! The check is in the mail. ;)