Monthly Archives: February 2017

Announcements, Science Fiction, Silver Empire

Open Submissions – Science Fiction Novel

Posted on by Russell Newquist

Silver Empire is accepting submissions for a Science Fiction novel. Submissions will remain open through August 1, 2017. We’re looking for one novel from a new-to-Silver-Empire author to publish, hopefully by the end of this year. We’ll be announcing the chosen novel by September.

Submission guidelines are as follows:

  • The work should be 60,000-150,000 words (our current publication process makes it prohibitive to publish longer works than this).
  • It should be either hard science fiction, military science fiction or pulpy space opera.
  • It should be a previously unpublished work.
  • Submissions should be in a format readable by Microsoft Word, and they should open in a way that’s actually readable. Beyond that, I don’t care. I’m not your high school English teacher and it doesn’t matter to me which font you use. We’ll change it anyway if we publish it, and I can change it in two seconds if I can’t read it. But don’t do anything silly.
  • You must include contact information.
  • Submissions should be sent to submissions@silverempire.org
  • Existing Silver Empire authors with other novels to publish should talk to us separately.
Announcements, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Silver Empire, Superheroes

Superversive Superheroes – Submissions Still Open!

Posted on by Russell Newquist

Silver Empire is still accepting submissions for our upcoming Superversive Superheroes anthology! We’re still a few submissions short of where we want to be for this project, although the stories we have so far are quite exciting.

Submission guidelines are as follows:

  • It should be a short story of roughly 3,000 to 15,000 words. These are loose guidelines. If the story is strong, we’ll accept stuff outside of it. And I’m not going to quibble over a few words if it’s 2,998 or 15,011 words or something like that. But that’s about the size we’re shooting for.
  • It should be a science fiction or fantasy story.
  • We are looking for exclusive publication rights, and also the rights to republish the story in our upcoming Lyonesse project (republication will only make you more money, so don’t fear!)
  • Submissions are due by April 30th, 2017.
  • The theme of this anthology is “superheroes.”
  • The anthology is deliberately superversive. Thus, we’re looking for serious submissions. Satire and Parody are ok *IF* they take the theme seriously.
  • The superheroes should be heroic – or if they aren’t, the story should showcase this as a failing. We will not accept any “Captain America was actually Hydra all along” stories.
  • You must have the rights to the characters you use and be able to legally transfer them to us for the purposes of this anthology. Unless by some miracle you actually are DC or Marvel and want to let us use your characters, we can’t use them. Trust me – we want to use them as badly as you do. This is just how the world works.
  • Payment will be in royalties – no advances. The royalty rates will be relatively high, but our sales volumes will likely be relatively low. Exact rates will depend on how many stories end up in the anthology but will follow a simple formula based on word count (50% of sales sent to authors, prorated to each author based on the word count of the story compared to the word count of the anthology as a whole).
  • Stories that are part of a larger world or series that you’re developing are perfectly fine – even if previous or later stories are not published through us.
  • Submissions should be in Word format (doc or docx is fine).
  • Submissions can be e-mailed to submissions@silverempire.org.
Navel Gazing, Technology

Server Migration Complete

Posted on by Russell Newquist

I have completed the server migration should all five sites (this blog, Morgon’s blog, Spirit Made Steel, Silver Empire, and Lyonesse). It’s possible that due to the vagaries of DNS you might still see one of the old sites on your end through tomorrow, but that should be it.

I’ve also spent a lot of time working with various caching and optimization plugins for WordPress. I’m not quite done with everything yet. However, the dojo site has achieved the Holy Grail: a 100 score on Google’s PageSpeed Insights test. I’ve read guides that have said that’s nearly impossible with WordPress and that it’s a waste of time to try. In fact, it’s all just a matter of getting the right caching and optimization plugins and tuning them correctly. I’ll have a guide up for how to do it within the next few weeks.

I’ve replicated some of that on the other sites already – they should be loading MUCH faster than before. I’ll be finishing that up over the next few days.

Navel Gazing, Technology

Server Migration in Progress

Posted on by Russell Newquist

I currently run five web sites: my blog, my wife’s blog, my dojo web page, Silver Empire, and Lyonesse. My old hosting provider had one gigantic advantage when I first signed with them: they were cheap. Nowadays, there are lots of other providers in a similar price range, and some of them provide far better service. I’ve been eyeballing a server migration for some time now. The preparation for launching Lyonesse didn’t quite force me to go ahead and migrate, but migrating now does have some major technical and logistical advantages.

In any event, all four sites will be migrating over the next few days. Silver Empire and the Lyonesse placeholder have already moved, although due to the vagaries of DNS you might still be getting the old server for another day or so. If this is the newest message you see, then you’re still seeing the old server for this blog. The others will move at various times, but the entire process should be finished by Monday.

Side note for my various authors and other folks: my Spirit Made Steel and Silver Empire e-mail addresses may have minor hiccups over the next few days as part of the transfer. I should still get everything, but there might be a mild delay. If you have my straight gmail address, that one should work fine throughout the transition.