Not too long ago, these magazines didn't accept electronic submissions. You were required to print it (conforming to a certain format), and mail it. The rationale at the time was that the editors weren't going to read it on a screen, and so you should print it instead of making them do it.
Seems like a simple solution. If a manuscript is accepted, only then request the electronic version.
>We don't have a solution for the problem. We have some ideas for minimizing it, but the problem isn't going away. Detectors are unreliable. Pay-to-submit sacrifices too many legit authors. *Print submissions are not viable for us.* Various third-party tools for identity confirmation are more expensive than magazines can afford and tend to have regional holes. Adopting them would be the same as banning entire countries.
The problem is not the printing - it's the mailing.
Clarkesworld intentionally went to electronic submissions to make it easier for international writers. International mail can be prohibitively expensive, and in a lot of places there's better internet access than there is reliable postage.
Can we stop with the myth that somewhere in the australian bush there is some Hemingway or Chateaubriand waiting to be published, but his old solar panels can just give him enough energy to send his manuscript by email?
Am being sarcastic but I think my point is clear that way : someone not being able / willing to send something by mail is just not the audience for the magazine. *I cannot attend the Boston marathon coz of the distance, then perhaps they should find some equidistant place for it?
This absurd quest for "lowering the accessibility bar" to everything is making everyone jumping through hoops and no one is considering the cost of people who don't bother jumping through them...
I work enough in the developed world to know that there are a lot of people there with things to contribute to the world, and where electronics are more reliable than mail.
I didn't say there is no one worthy in those countries. I am saying it is not the job of a company in country X to make all it can to make it possible for people in country/continent Y to be able to easily do something, even if it makes it unusable for everyone (else).
Maybe decentralization would be a good idea for this. For example, clarksword can have it's "you have to mail it" rule, then there should be an Australian group that does the same thing for locals (including the outback).
The Australian group can sponsor some top local writer's work to the groups in other countries.
I don't follow. What serious writer can't go buy a printer for $49.99 or pay less than $10 to have it printed? I'm assuming they would be writing their story on a phone that costs close to $1k or a laptop at the same price range.
I remember the 90s when my family was poor in a middle income country. Mailing internationally was a huge barrier, we didn’t even think about it as an option. It’s 2 dollars now, but still, there are a few 10 or 100 millions people to whom that’s too much. And of course, there is no post service everywhere in the world.
I mean I get that. My laptop was a Chromebook I got for $35 on eBay and then a MacBook Air I got for $75. But printing is not out of reach for almost anyone writing. Printing at the library is like 10 cents a page.
Seems like a simple solution. If a manuscript is accepted, only then request the electronic version.