behind the scenes production

We're working hard on the awesome August 31, 2017 issue of Electric Spec. Last week we had our production meeting. Things went pretty smoothly; our current group of editors has definitely figured out how to make issue decisions. Editors do advocate for their favorite stories and usually end up editing them if they're successful.
If your story made it into hold-for-voting you should have heard back from an editor with a thumbs-down, if relevant. We're still sending out a few of the thumbs-up. Thumbs-ups get a congratulations email with a contract and a request for a bio and some optional wise words for the blog. Stay tuned for these wise words right here in August.

Once we hear back from authors about the contract, we start the hard work of actually editing the stories. This can be as simple as a few minor grammar/spelling suggestions all the way to a rewrite. Of course we don't ask authors to change story essences. We wouldn't have bought the stories if we didn't think they were good. Editing is all about making the story the best possible version of itself. Editors work with authors to make this happen.

The final stage of production is creating the web pages for the issue. We've gotten a pretty good handle on this as well over the years. All that's left is final author approvals and publication. Yay! We relish the new issue, appreciating and savoring all the great new stories.

Of course, then, the whole process begins again, starting with slush...

Check out the new issue on August 31 2017!