Interview: Oliver Brackenbury and New Edge Magazine

Today at Nerds of a Feather, we talk to editor Oliver Brackenbury of New Edge Magazine about two Mongol themed Sword and Sorcery novellas at the center of a crowdfunding campaign.

1. For those not familiar with you or New Edge, please introduce yourself and the magazine.

My name is Oliver Brackenbury, a Canadian author, podcaster, and screenwriter with a deep love of Sword & Sorcery. Recently I've also become an editor and publisher.

New Edge Sword & Sorcery is an illustrated short fiction and non-fiction magazine featuring original stories, interviews, reviews, and articles all centered on the titular genre. Our motto is "Made with love for the classics, and an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling!"

"Made with love for the classics..." means we care deeply about letting readers know what makes classic S&S characters & creators worth exploring. In just two years we've been blessed with the latest Elric story by Michael Moorcock, are on track to publish the first Jirel of Joiry story in 85 years, and have or will soon publish numerous articles introducing new readers to notable figures from the S&S canon like C.L. Moore, Charles Saunders, and Cele Goldsmith Lali.

"...an inclusive, boundary-pushing approach to storytelling!" means we're working hard contributing to there being a broader swath of humanity on the page, behind the keyboard, and in the fandom. We're also hungry to see how we can expand the possibilities of what S&S can do (themes, story structures, prose styles...) while still being clearly recognizable as itself.

Judging by how things have gone so far, people like the results of our efforts!

Barely past our two year anniversary, we have expanded into publishing under the name "Brackenbury Books", and are currently crowdfunding our second book, "Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery", a pair of Mongol-inspired S&S novellas bound in a single paperback akin to the classic Ace Double line.

2) We've seen Mongol-inspired S&S out of New Edge before, but what prompted you to make it the focus of this crowdfunding effort. In short...Why Mongols?

In short, because it's a fascinating culture & period of history, Asian set S&S is almost always rooted in Chinese or Japanese historical inspiration, and because it allowed me to pair two authors I love in one book, writing characters I'd seen people react strongly to in our magazine, each exploring basically the same setting in their own unique way.

In detail, it was an organic product of how the magazine began, and grew into book publishing.

The magazine started with a sweat equity prototype issue #0, available free in digital and priced at cost in soft/hardcover, and the table of contents was drawn almost entirely from a single online community where a bunch of us had strong feelings about how to take Sword & Sorcery into the future.

This included two authors who set their stories in Mongol-rooted settings yet write with totally unique voices: Bryn Hammond writes the nomad Goatskin having adventures in a more fantastic version of our world, while Dariel R.A. Quiogue writes the deposed warlord Orhan the Snow Leopard's adventures in a secondary world heavily rooted in the same setting & time period - that of Genghis Khan.

Bryn is a respected, published scholar of historical non-fiction about that period, while Dariel is an amateur student of the era with over ten years experience writing fiction set in it. Bryn writes in a awe-inspiring, poetic, Weird-with-a-capital-"W" style, while Dariel specializes in pulse-pounding stories that astound with their action. Both can bring the full spectrum of Sword & Sorcery to a tale, but those are some of their specialties.

As part of the crowdfund we actually did a short story panel discussion livestream where we analyzed one Goatskin and one Orhan story, getting deep into what makes them worth reading.

But yes, having organically lucked into working with two knowledgeable, skilled authors - and great people - writing with complementary voices in a similar setting, Mongol S&S made perfect sense to me for this pairing of novellas.

3) I find that interesting, that you have both a fantasy novella, and a historical fantasy novella, and yet both are sword and sorcery. While sword and sorcery goes classically well with fantasy, what do you think the advantages, challenges and opportunities are for sword and sorcery as a genre to tackle more historical fantasy settings and characters?

Brian Murphy's most excellent book, "Flame & Crimson: A History of Sword & Sorcery", cites historical inspiration as one of the seven common aspects of the genre that make up his definition, saying that this lends "a degree of realism". He also rightly points out that S&S was born from Robert E. Howard deciding to add fantastic elements to an historical adventure story he was having trouble selling, thus birthing the genre with "The Shadow Kingdom" in 1929.

I'd agree there's that degree of realism, even when the story is set in a secondary world with giant snakes, sorcery, etc., and since historical adventure was pretty much a co-parent of S&S, it's always worth considering when reading, writing, or reviewing it. But yes, your question!

I think the advantages include inspiration, grounding the story so that the fantastic elements really shine by contrast when they show up, and providing a foundation for your worldbuilding that will help make the setting consistent even if most of that foundation remains below the surface.

The main challenge is, of course, if you really wed your story to historical fact then you may set yourself up for nitpicking; Lovecraft famously advised Fritz Leiber to invent that most influential Fantasy city, Lankhmar, rather then set his Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stories in ancient Alexandria, specifically to avoid getting picked apart by the history nerds. You may also end up being very rigid with yourself, denying your story the ability to go where the narrative would be best suited on account of needing to do something ahistorical to facilitate it.

But I think it's worth it, even if you're fantastic elements are really out there, to consider more historical settings and characters when writing Sword & Sorcery. It gives you the opportunity to justify spending time on all kinds of fun research, to use the fantastic elements to draw in readers who otherwise might not learn the historical details you're including with them, to highlight peoples of historical periods who are often neglected (Bryn Hammond is particularly keen on doing so, which works great in tandem with the subgenre's history of outsider protagonists), make historical subtext brightly legible Fantasy text, and so much more.

4. How do you think Sword and Sorcery reflects the current trends in Fantasy as a whole, today? What place does it occupy in its ecosystem?

I'm wary of defining something I love by what it isn't, however in terms of current Fantasy trends I most often see S&S discussed by fans in terms of how it doesn't follow those trends.

With doorstopper thick, trilogy-or-more high fantasy series the standard right now, Sword & Sorcery can be a refreshing break with its shorter, fast paced, more episodic storytelling. Its more inferred worldbuilding and soft or entirely absent magic systems can provide a breath of fresh air from over-explained settings that so often render the fantastic mundane. Meanwhile, a focus on grounded, outsider heroes just trying to survive a dangerous world can be more relatable than chasing chosen ones around on world-saving quests. And so on.

That said, it may grow in other ways to follow, not buck, publishing trends in the broader SFF sphere. For example, if we get to make our Double-Edge Sword & Sorcery book, the two novellas it contains will become Vol. 1 in what I hope will be only the first of several S&S novella series that we'll publish in the future. In that way S&S will be moving closer to the trend in SFF novellas that Tor has been the main driver behind in recent years.

5) Talking about trends in fantasy, and readership, what ideas do you have for introducing fantasy readers who think S&S is only Conan and bring them to see the potential of reading works such as Bryn and Daniel's?

Oh, lots of things! I'm a very enthusiastic promoter, so I've been working hard getting our authors out there for interviews across blogs, booktube, podcasts and so on. Getting contemporary S&S authors into venues where they can share their own unique take on the genre is a big part.

We also do our own regular short story panel discussion livestreams (here's a playlist) that focus on contemporary Sword & Sorcery tales from a variety of publications, with an eye to showing off the wide range of possibilities. For example we covered "Dara's Tale", by Mark Rigney, to show what S&S can look like with an adolescent protagonist in a story with some overlap with fairy tale tropes.

Naturally there's our magazine, New Edge Sword & Sorcery, which not only features a variety of stories where we aim to show off the full breadth of Sword & Sorcery, there's also non-fiction articles, historical profiles, interviews, and book reviews that help spread fun & interesting knowledge about what S&S can do. My note to our non-fiction authors is always to try and get people excited about the present & future fo the genre, not just the past, when they write pieces like Jon Olfert's article on neurodivergence in S&S, Nathaniel Web's upcoming piece on Heavy Metal's relationship to S&S, or even pieces on past figures because hey if this 20th century author could do X in the genre then what could be done to build on that?

And, honestly, crowdfunds are a great way to get the word out - especially if you make them a kind of community event to take part in, not just a chance to pre-order something. We do our best, mainly through livestreams that have included interviews, panel discussions, TTRPG sessions, and even live music as a way of drawing people in to find out what this S&S thing is all about!

There's always more I could say on this, but that feels like a good answer for now.

6) Is there anything else our readers should know about the campaign, or New Edge, or the two fabulous writers?

Well, the campaign ends at noon EST on Saturday, October 19th so you'll want to back it before then!

Some fun items I haven't mentioned yet include...

• The physical editions are traditionally printed, with the softcover a classic mass-market paperback, and there's a very limited run hardcover of the same dimensions that sports a nice bookmark ribbon. We love the Book As Object and do our best to produce a high quality product.
• There's a crowdfund exclusive bonus short story and, if we hit 300 backers, that will have poetry added to it! Both tie into the novellas, but are not mandatory to enjoy or understand them.
• Other crowdfund exclusives include a bookmark with art from each cover on either side, battle-axe logo stickers, signed author bookplates, and more.
• Our crowdfunds are also the best time to buy New Edge Sword & Sorcery back issues, which we discount only when providing them as Add-Ons for backer pledges.
• We aim to have a Final Friday "Telethon" livestream this Friday at 7pm EST! You can watch it right on the crowdfund page, where the trailer sits at the top. Past crowdfund's Final Friday livestreams have featured TTRPG live play sessions, live music, interviews, and other fun treats; I won't spoil what we have coming for this one!

Our authors can tell you plenty about themselves in the recordings of their recent livestream interviews, so I'll let them speak for themselves.

As for New Edge / Brackenbury Books? As I write this we're a mere $225 from hitting 100% funding on this book and we'd love for you to help take us soaring past that point! We're excited to make the book, naturally, and this crowdfund succeeding will put us in a great place for continuing to produce high quality publications featuring titanic tales paired with awesome art, all coming to you from a diverse array of talented creators.

So go on, check it out!

Thank you so much, Oliver!

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin

Opinion: Crowdfunded Gaming Artifacts

Pillars of Eternity came out recently, and it's good. It's like Baldur's Gate, except with an original setting and roleplaying system. It was funded largely through Kickstarter, and I backed it, and I'm happy I did so. It was a game I wanted to play. I've also recently played through Shadowrun Returns. It's another crowdfunding success story, though one I didn't have any hand in. Both crowdfunding campaigns were wildly successful, in no small part to the many levels at which a backer could contribute and receive a reward. Most of these were in the form of ingame items, but some of the higher levels included such options as having some representation in the game beyond a name in the credits.

However, no matter how well integrated into the game they are, some of these representations are pretty obvious. In Pillars, I noticed an abundance of NPCs that are as well dressed as my characters, and having their own backstories. There was also some backer-created text that made it into the final game that wasn't well-reviewed and caused a commotion. In Shadowrun Returns, I noticed some NPC characters with dialog bearing recognizable names, and the ability to hire additional runners from a separate 'Nephilim Network' pool that all appeared to be backer-created. The Nephilim Network were more or less a representation of a certain backer level that allowed them to create their own Shadowrun character that could be used interchangably within the game's missions. They're presented as "higher quality" alternatives to the stock NPCs presumably created by the developers.

The common theme of these is that they were obvious enough to be noticed, and noticing them pulled me out of the game for a minute. It makes a distinct connection between the fictional world the developers have created, and the real world that made the fictional world a possibility. In roleplaying games, this seems like a serious faux pas. It's difficult for me to reconcile the existance of a small hamlet where half of the citizens are garishly dressed real people, but the other half are just cardboard cutouts. In most games, these nameless NPCs would be simply ignored and fade into the background. They don't offer anything to the game. In the case of Pillars of Eternity, these would-be background decorations stand out. They disrupt the illusion.

Don't get me wrong; I'm very happy that these two games in particular were made, and the contributions of the backers were clearly rewarded. I just can't help but wonder if these games would've been better, at least from a game immersiveness point of view, if they had been funded in a more traditional manner, or if the reward levels that inserted backer content into the game did not exist. It's not that the backer-created content isn't well disguised, but it exists and it nags at me that maybe this stuff is skippable, or maybe it's better than what the developers intended because it got extra attention.

I haven't checked in on Shadorun Returns: Dragonfall. I'm pretty sure it is free of backer contributions and that might make it a more immersive game. Intrepid modders have already created mods that remove backer created content in Pillars of Eternity, so I am not the only one who might be bothered by it. Surely, these are not the only crowdfunded games with backer-created content, and they won't be the last. My hope is that future crowdfunded games will recognize that allowing just anyone with a fat enough wallet to insert themselves into their game is incongruous with creating an organic and believable world.

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POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Adventures in Indie Publishing: Is Crowdfunding the Future of Publishing?

In the last couple years, crowdfunding has become one of the premier ways of funding projects. Across the board, there are some great advantages to this. The project might not have a place being funded by traditional investors or companies, or too risky for them to consider it. It might just be small, a one-off thing, or something else beneath the notice of larger, monied entities.

As pertains to this glorious site, there are a multitude of projects worthy of your time and attention- comics, tabletop and video games, movies and books. I could talk ramble for days about any, but (predictably) I want to address books (and, quite frankly, it’s the more interesting crowdfunding subject).

For reference, on Kickstarter, a publishing project is far less likely to be funded than almost any other category (thanks to Bart Leib for calculating the % funded/odds of success for publishing). Given the success a lot of projects see in the other areas (comics and games leap to mind), why is this?

Goals are set too high: Last month I broke down how much it costs to publish a book. If the goal is $15,000, where exactly is that money going? Funding physical printing, perhaps, but even that raises questions. Start with an epub and go from there.

Your book isn’t worth $50: While there are a lot of cool rewards I have seen associated with books (cover art prints, signed copies, shirts, stickers, etc), in the end you’re paying for a book. If those additional rewards raise the pledge amount, the dollars won’t flow.

Just who are you, anyway? The majority of projects on Kickstarter have no name recognition behind them (which is why they’re on Kickstarter in the first place). But in light of the above, it makes it a little hard to throw money at a no-name author, especially if it seems overpriced or suspect.

Over-marketing. Or under marketing, for that matter. Some creators put their project up and expect it to be an instant sensation (Kickstarter does not put as many eyes on a project as you might think). Others spam their social media to the point where no one wants to hear about it. There’s not a magic bullet for it, but marketing probably makes a huge difference.

Saturation: It’s harder to stand out from the crowd on a page full of books. There are less pictures to catch the eye and set a project apart. Within games, for example, you have a myriad of choices- board game, card game, RPG, tiles, the list goes on. A book is, well, a book. The description will virtually always follow the same formula- plot, with a little background. There is almost no way to tell if it will be good when stretched over 50,000+ words. You are, in essence, asked to judge a book by its cover- which may not even be completed yet.

So while numerous novels have fallen victim to the above problems, one area that has seemed to do well are short story collections and anthologies. Unidentified Funny Stories jumps to mind, as does Crossed Genres, which raised nearly four times its goal. Short collections and anthologies address most of the problems above- the authors will have some reputation behind them, or at least you can sample the writing. The goals are far easier to tie into the book, and saturation is less of a problem, since you’re paying for a bunch of stories anyway.

So is it the future? Probably not, but it's definitely a part of it.

Brian White runs Fireside Magazine, a monthly multi-genre magazine, which is in the midst of a Kickstarter to fund it’s second year, and has already seen a trio of successful campaigns for its first three issues. He was kind enough to play along for...

Five Questions with Brian White

1. With crowdfunding short story collections, how do you handle submissions?

For our first three issues, most of our stories were from writers who we invited to be in Fireside. It made sense to have writers lined up ahead of time so that potential backers could see who they would be getting stories from. It also made sense, since we were starting the magazine from scratch, to have the writers lined up rather than first going through submissions.

After we funded our second issue, we felt like we were in a place to start taking submissions. We were open for a month and picked up eight stories, one of which we used in Issue Three. The other seven will be appearing during Year Two, if our Kickstarter is funded.

Also, if the Kickstarter is funded, we plan on opening to submissions for flash fiction on March 15. We will be running two pieces of flash in each monthly issue, and all of those slots are open.


2. With your recent shift from crowdfunding each issue to now funding an entire year, where do you see Fireside after that year- and even further down the road?

After funding three issues one at a time last year, we hope funding an entire year at once will put us on a more stable footing and create certainty for both our readers and for the magazine. We also hope to use this breathing room to give us time to shift from crowdfunding to subscriptions as our main source of cash.

3. What do you feel the key factors are for a crowdfunding campaign to be successful?

I think the main thing goes back to something Amanda Palmer said last year: if you want to crowdfund, first you need a crowd. Kickstarters and other crowdfunding projects live and die by word of mouth. You have to at least have a core group of people interested in what you are doing. They become your base, and they support you both with pledges and by spreading the word to their friends and on their social networks. Besides the logistics, that is another reason we have had writers lined up before a Kickstarter: they each bring their own crowds. It's a lot easier to sell a magazine if you have a built-in audience of the writers' fans to sell it to.

It's also important to stay on top of the campaign and not be afraid to market it heavily during whatever time period it is up. I know some people hesitate to flog their Kickstarter or whatever too much, but you have to keep it out there in front of people because it can take more than one exposure to it to generate a pledge. You can of course do too much and people will tune you out; but there is a balance.

Finally, having a good range of rewards, starting with your basic product, and the working up through a variety of premium extras that give people lots of entry points, pledge-wise. If you have big gaps in the reward prices, say from $25 to $100, you might end up just getting that $25 when someone would be interested in pledging $50 or $75.

4. How do you think crowdfunding will affect publishing in general in the coming years?

I think that crowdfunding, which has really exploded in the past year, will settle into being one of many ways for people to try to make a living creatively, along with traditional paths and things like self-publishing on Amazon. I don't know if the volume of projects will keep increasing, but I think it's here to stay. People like connecting directly with projects that interest them, and they like being a part of bringing them to life.

5. As someone who has ran multiple successful campaigns ad backs a lot of projects, any advice for the creators in the audience?

You have to have a clear, well-thought-out presentation of your idea. I've passed on backing a lot of projects that, when I look at their pitch, it is either unclear, or muddled, or has wildly unrealistic goals (either high or low) that show the creator hasn't thought through the fulfillment of the project. Tell people what you are doing, why it is important to you, and what they get out of it, and get out of the way. And, please, make sure you've thought through every dollar you need, and don't ask for a dollar more or less.

(Many thanks to Brian for taking the time to answer those- I have thoroughly enjoyed the first few issues and highly recommend backing the second year. Brain is also one of the more entertaining people on Twitter and you can catch back issues of Fireside on the website for free)

What I’m doing, in case you care:

Work on the Sprocket Books site rolls merrily along, and should be fully functional by the end of the week. I am already plotting next month's AiIP, which will talk about the rise of hybrid publishers, and not just my own plan to take over the world.

I am also taking next weekend, and hiding myself away in a cabin with a bottle of gin and my laptop to finish editing on the first 3024AD collection. So by the end of next week, there will be a firm release date and even more good news about what is to come.

As to that first collection, I struggle a little with how to describe it. It’s not a serial novel in the traditional sense, although is most certainly is a serial novel. But it has other stories there that only relate to the main story, or rather, cross paths with it. But they tie into other stories that are yet to come, so maybe the whole thing is one big serial. Take from that what you will. In any case, if you like hard science fiction, drama, intrigue and interstellar gentleman thieves, stay tuned.

What I’m reading, in case you care:

I just picked up Seven Wonders, by Adam Christopher on the recommendation of my friend Matt, and while I just started it, it is already scratching several itches. Superheroes are woefully under-explored in novel format and Adam seems to have done a great job. In fact, there is quite the list of books from Angry Robot in my (digital) to-be-read pile.

I mentioned awhile back I am working through Worlds Other Than These, I am still working on it, but it has my recommendation based purely on Moon Six, a clever take on time/dimension travel. Steven Baxter does a fantastic job of capturing the feelings in the story, mostly of isolation and loneliness. If you’re into that.

In case you missed it Friday, I want to read your stuff. Rather, I want to showcase quality indie/self-published books. So if you have one, send an email that meets the criteria (if you don’t read I will also assume you can’t write) and I will do my very best to check it out.