Wanted: New short story editor
Posted: April 16, 2013, 10:35:15 AM
I will be leaving my post as soon as Dan can find a replacement. Anyone interested in the job should contact Dan directly.
Duties:
Review short story submissions and select 8 - 10 per month for publication. I usually do line-editing and get author approval of changes; the new editor may take a less intrusive approach (offering suggestions and waiting for the author to make the fixes), which I gather is more typical. Responses to authors should include notes and suggestions, especially for rejections.
Prepare the stories selected (convert to HTML and add standard template stuff to fit into the Aphelion page layout) and upload.
Prepare and upload the index file listing the current month's stories with descriptive "blurbs" (the screen that comes up when you click on the SHORT STORIES button). (Blurbs are tricky things -- mine sometimes give away too much.)
Other duties (may or may not be required):
Assist other editors by doing HTML template stuff and uploading (long fiction pieces, occasional feature articles, the editorial, long fiction index).
Periodically update the Back Issues index so past months' content is still accessible after a new issue goes online.
I usually spend the equivalent of an eight hour day every month doing this stuff, but that is largely due to the line-by-line editing of stories.
I do NOT recommend using the save-as-HTML function in Microsoft Office to do HTML conversions -- this adds enormous amounts of extraneous code without improving the result and makes adding the template bits at the start and end much harder. Instead, I use Word for editing, inserting most HTML tags (except for <P> paragraph markers) manually, then saving as a .rtf file with a special character ('~' works for me) before each paragraph break. Then I use Wordpad to change the special character into <P> paragraph breaks, and use Notepad to add the template stuff at the start and end of the file (copying from an existing HTML-formatted story file). There is probably an easier and quicker way to get the same results...
I will be continuing to fill the position until Dan awards the job to (or inflicts the job on) someone new, and will provide technical support to the new editor if needed.
Duties:
Review short story submissions and select 8 - 10 per month for publication. I usually do line-editing and get author approval of changes; the new editor may take a less intrusive approach (offering suggestions and waiting for the author to make the fixes), which I gather is more typical. Responses to authors should include notes and suggestions, especially for rejections.
Prepare the stories selected (convert to HTML and add standard template stuff to fit into the Aphelion page layout) and upload.
Prepare and upload the index file listing the current month's stories with descriptive "blurbs" (the screen that comes up when you click on the SHORT STORIES button). (Blurbs are tricky things -- mine sometimes give away too much.)
Other duties (may or may not be required):
Assist other editors by doing HTML template stuff and uploading (long fiction pieces, occasional feature articles, the editorial, long fiction index).
Periodically update the Back Issues index so past months' content is still accessible after a new issue goes online.
I usually spend the equivalent of an eight hour day every month doing this stuff, but that is largely due to the line-by-line editing of stories.
I do NOT recommend using the save-as-HTML function in Microsoft Office to do HTML conversions -- this adds enormous amounts of extraneous code without improving the result and makes adding the template bits at the start and end much harder. Instead, I use Word for editing, inserting most HTML tags (except for <P> paragraph markers) manually, then saving as a .rtf file with a special character ('~' works for me) before each paragraph break. Then I use Wordpad to change the special character into <P> paragraph breaks, and use Notepad to add the template stuff at the start and end of the file (copying from an existing HTML-formatted story file). There is probably an easier and quicker way to get the same results...
I will be continuing to fill the position until Dan awards the job to (or inflicts the job on) someone new, and will provide technical support to the new editor if needed.