Bewildering Stories Editorial

by Jerry Wright

The End (of the Year)

2006 is ending soon, and I still want to know... Where's my flying car?

Other than that, this has been a very strange year. We started out near the beginning of the year putting together the first Bewildering Stories Anthology. Due to some editorial conflicts, and very different viewpoints of story accessability, Bewildering Stories and Adventure Books came to an amicable parting of the ways. We both had things to teach the other, and we both hope for success in further ventures. But, boy how things change.

That was the impetus that caused Don and me to create Bewildering Press, and actually set up a real company (I know it's real, I have the tax forms in front of me...) named "Bewildering Stories". And things keep growing. We now have our first book out, with our second to come shortly. Thanks to the things we learned with the publication of the first book, the second should be much smoother, as well as cheaper. It isn't cheap to publish a book, even with Print On Demand.

And people came out of the woodwork to offer us novels to publish. It seems that there are quite a number of unpublished novelists even here in the hinterlands we call Moses Lake, and they are waving their manuscripts in front of me. Bizarre.

Also, our book is now available through the major websites as well as through our own Bewildering Press website, soon to move to a new home with a built-in store front. Sigh. All it takes is time and money.

If you had told me even two years ago that there would be a publishing house called Bewildering Press running out of my back bedroom, and that various newspapers are e-mailing us for interviews, I'd have thought you were all crazy. (Not that you aren't... I think it is one of your cuter features...) And our story quality... Wow! It is getting better and better. People with substantial publishing credentials are sending us stories. And we're making them re-write them to meet our standards. Now THAT is bewildering. Is the short story market dying?? No! It's just moved to the Internet. And come to think of it, that is a good place for it. Short stories and the Internet seem made for each other. Reading a novel online still isn't much fun, but spending 15 to 20 minutes reading a good short story? Just the thing.

So what do we see for 2007? I haven't a clue. Welcome to the future. "Live it, or live with it." (A quote from I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus by the Firesign Theatre.)