I received a note from Simon Owens, who heads up Bloggasm.com, concerning the upcoming revamp of Tor’s website and the free ebooks they are offering to draw people’s attention to said event. Apparently, there’s something else lurking behind the scenes, preparing to jump out and bite your head off. Through a couple of sources, including Patrick Hayden, a senior editor at Tor, Owens learned that Tor’s new website is part of a bigger plan they have to unroll an online science fiction and fantasy community, not only for the networking of fans of the genres, but to also encourage publication of original short fiction and nonfiction.
At the moment, only certain authors have been solicited to contribute to this not-as-yet-launched portal, and it remains to be seen whether the writing side of this effort will open to public submission or remain an in-house effort to draw people to the website through new stories by author favorites.
The main focus of this effort will be “a platform for original short SF and fantasy, by both Tor authors and non-Tor authors,” and will also feature “lightweight ’social networking’ features,” though Hayden points out that they will certainly not be trying to compete with web presences like Facebook and otherwise. And it looks to all be set up as free content, so there’s a bonus.
Sounds intriguing. With Tor as big a player in the industry as they are, I doubt they’ll have any issues drawing attention to this endeavor, and I hope it meets the potential they’re building it up to have.
I see that smile.