Baen’s Bar

Going back even before there was a Grantville Gazette, the way to submit new stories for the 1632verse is to post them to the 1632 Slush conference at Baen’s bar. Starting with Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond, if you don’t want to post there, you can email your story to submissions@1632andbeyond.com and the editor-in-chief will post it for you.

Why?

This is a pretty unique approach, but it means that authors who would otherwise be overlooked have a great chance of getting published. Over 170 authors had their first professional publication in The Grantville Gazette! Several of them went on to have novels published by Baen.

This method also means that there are a lot of different people looking at the stories. If there were only one or two gatekeepers deciding which stories would be accepted, that would obviously rule out some stories just because they don’t appeal to those folks. The barflies love to give suggestions! Some of them are helpful, some of them aren’t, but they are all generally well-intentioned. Even when they are grumpy or negative, the intention is to help make the story better and keep things realistic and consistent within the universe.

The fairly long-standing record for submissions is 17 versions of one story before it was accepted. But it was accepted! The cold, hard, financial reality is that the only way a story will get that many rounds of comments and critiques to help it improve is exactly what the Bar does: provides a place for volunteers who care and know a lot to comment.

So, why are submissions on Baen’s Bar? To give the best possible chance to new writers, off-beat stories, and unusual takes on the 1632verse.

How?

The critical thing to understand is that you have to make two separate posts to Baen’s bar.  You post your story in the 1632 Slush conference. Then, you post a request for comments on your story in the 1632 Slush Comments conference. Do not post comments on a story in the 1632 Slush conference.

There are a couple of ways to post to Slush. Posting directly onto the bar is very easy. As of 2023, the limit is 65,536 characters per post. This usually works out to somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 words.  If your story is longer, post the additional parts as a comment on the first post.  (The comment will automatically quote the first post.  Remember to delete that part.)  The other way is to email it to the editor, as mentioned above.

  • Write your story in whatever word processing program you use.
    • See the sample manuscript page and manuscript guideline page for more specifics.
    • Make a copy of your document for posting. Take out the personal stuff like your contact information from the top. You cannot edit posts on the Bar. If you post a document with your address and contact information, it will stay up there indefinitely.
    • Edit the document with search and replace.
      • Do a search and replace to replace all the single returns with a double return to put a blank line between paragraphs. It’s hard to read a story on the Bar if you don’t.  (Find:  ^p^p  Replace with:  ^p)
      • “Stupefy” quotes. (You want straight quotes and apostrophes, not typographers’ quotes) In Word, do a search for quotes in the help menu or check out Microsoft’s help page on turning off smart quotes.
      • There are two acceptable tab options for normal paragraphs:  1) Use the Tab key and don’t adjust anything.  2) Or don’t tab or indent at all.
    • Select all of it. To do that, for the very inexperienced, hit <Ctrl>A. Then put it on the clip board by hitting <Ctrl>C. It won’t look like anything happened, but that’s okay.
  • Sign on to the bar, go to the 1632 Slush conference and start a new topic. Put the title of your story in the subject line (“My Story v01.”), tab down to the body, and hit <Ctrl>V. Your story will appear. Then hit the post button.
  • Now go to the 1632 Slush Comments conference and start a new topic with the title of your story (“My Story v01.”) in the subject line, ask for comments and post.
  • You’re done! Now you wait for comments.
    • Bar members live all over the world.
    • Bar members have jobs and lives.
    • Expect it to take a few days (at least) to get comments.
    • Wait a minimum of one week before posting a new version to give the Bar members time to respond. (See first two bullet points.)
  • If you make sure you’re on the mailing list for slush comments, you can reply via email to answer comments.
  • Respond to comments and make changes as needed. Possible outcomes are:
    • You receive an offer. The editor says, “Send me the file.” Yeah!
    • You decide the story needs too much work or a fatal flaw is revealed. (No, you cannot have Navy SEALS, not even one—story idea has to be dropped or massively reworked.)
    • You take in the comments and make enough changes to have a new version.
  • If you create a new version, upload it as “My Story v02.“

That’s it! Your story is online and you are getting feedback and critiques from other writers, editors, and fans of the 1632verse. Hopefully soon you’ll have your first sale. Good luck!