The British Fantasy Society Forum

[Stephen Theaker]

I'm not even sure adding new members would help - let's say for the sake of argument that the yearbook costs each paying member £12, and other membership items cost £20 - adding new members just means losing more money.

That's why my first priority has to be finding out exactly how much everything is costing, and has cost, and drawing up a budget for the rest of the year.

[allybird]

How about putting the YEARBOOK out as a paperback then? At least the stories will get out there.

[Stephen Theaker]

It depends how far along this project is, how far along other special publications projects are, what the contractual situations are with all of them, and whether we've got any money at all to do anything.

[iamacanadian]

How about putting the YEARBOOK out as a paperback then? At least the stories will get out there.

The cost of a paper-back edition and a hard-back edition isn't sufficient to make the project a 'go' when a hard-back is a 'no'. Certainly it would help, but the chief mass saving of funds would be 'authors and others involved all donate their fees for the sake of the Society'. Even then I'm not certain it would make much of a difference either. It's the sheer number of copies and postage for the weighty tome to be sent places that might do in the thing.

Why not sell it at an incredibly low price for members, and a reasonable RRP for non-members? Say, five quid or twenty (depending on the purchaser's status), plus P+P? That way the costs get covered better than making it free, plus the non-members get to be encouraged to become members but if resistant they subsidize the project?

It oughtn't merely become a "get the words out there" project, otherwise the perceived worth of the volume, plus the Society publishing it by association, becomes akin to a one of a 'for the love / we publish any old thing'. This cannot be good, can it?

Perhaps I'm being too pessimistic and a nay-sayer, however.

[Stephen Theaker]

Ian's comments are on the nose. Another thing I have to consider is that the idea of the yearbook was to attract new members - we still have 80 copies of it, meaning we don't really need a new volume for that purpose until we've had 80 new members. You might even argue that we'd be just as well keeping that volume in print, as an ongoing enticement for new members, as we would doing a new one every year. But I don't know yet what the contracts say - that may not be possible, though I know it's already on its second printing.

Also, I'm assuming someone will take over as chair at the AGM - I want to leave them with a blank slate to take the society in the direction they want, and not leave them with any big bills to pay. I also have to bear in mind that Martin is planning to step down as stockholder in September - I want to run stock down between now and then, rather than buy in more.

But everything's up in the air till I know where we stand financially. If there's enough money to do it, I'd like to, just because we said that we would. Although Guy's stood down from Special Publications, he's still up for editing the next one if we can afford it.

Ian's Atomic Fez has now joined the ranks of our small press sub-forums.

[allybird]

We could do with a membership drive. I've seen many ideas here and had a few emails behind the scenes with suggestions. Many of the small press would be willing to put a page in the back of their books promoting membership of the BFS.

Another email suggested the membership badge (it was mentioned by someone on this board last year if they could remind us) to put on their site whether they be an author/artist/blogger/reader.....and one person mentioned that it would be good for every author to have BFS member on their books. This is all free publicity and if you want someone to contact the publishers I'll do it. If someone could a design promotional sheet and send it to me (obviously if that was okay) I'd sort that out.

That YEARBOOK is the way to go. It looks professional, the stories are good (I'd never read a story by Suzi Feay or Daniel Mahoney before but am seeking out other work by them) Tim Lebbon, Stephen Volk, Christopher Fowler and Juliet McKenna in there, too, to name but a few - all writing original stories especially FOR the society, and proud to be doing so.

[Stephen Theaker]

Thanks for offering, Allyson. Those are the lines we're thinking along, publicity-wise, but we need to fix the product before trying to sell it.

[Peter Coleborn]

I think that Stephen is right. We need to know the financial position and membership numbers, and then work out a budget for the membership package. There will always be some people who are loyal to the BFS whatever it offers. But to attract new members, and re-attract those who left dellusioned, the society must have a product. Every so often things look so promising and then, alas, something goes wrong. Getting over that hurdle is the big problem.

[Peter Coleborn]

"dellusioned"

What the hell does that mean? With only one 'l' it would at least look like a word.

[iamacanadian]

I took it as a combination of 'disillusioned' and 'delusional', which is quite an in-describable emotional state, but whose experience is wide-spread among both members and former members of the BFS.

Perhaps you can get a Government Grant to study it for the NHS?