I was once interested in publishing a SF anthology. Formatting and editing was nbd -- I was going to use Amazon's KDP software package for most of it, which can take a .docx and output an ebook in 5 minutes. I've done it before for non-anthology books I've published, and it couldn't be easier, though I understand why people might avoid Amazon in this day and age.
The real trouble was getting the rights to all of the different stories! Though everybody I was able to get in touch with was great -- in particular, Peter Watts, Alan Dean Foster, David Moles, and Walter Jon Williams -- many authors were totally impossible to reach! I ended up scrapping the idea after a few stories I was intent on collecting in the anthology were unobtainable. (And this after I had already paid an initial sum to many of the authors.) Finding alternates and embarking on more contract negotiations just seemed like too much work.
Anyway, I bought your anthology, will review when I'm done reading, and sincerely respect the hard work that went into it!
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darthcloud
Bought the paperback, I really like curated anthology, it's best way to discover new talent.
I would have bought Compelling Science Fiction too but look like its out of print.
ericrosedev
I saw this on amazon the other day and picked it up. As an avid reader of short form science fiction, I was really excited to see an anthology that focused on interesting ideas. I'm three stories in and my only gripe so far is Twenty-Four Hours, I just can't find the outstanding idea in it. I think it is a lovely and touching story, it just lacks the punch I'd expect to find in this type of collection. I'd love to hear more about your selection process and what we can expect from future volumes. A+ for the quality of the books printing and presentation, extremely impressive!
I developed my Markdown editor, KeenWrite[0], to replace the shell scripts described in the Typesetting Markdown series[1]. KeenWrite takes in YAML document metadata (for variables), (R) Markdown documents, and generates XHTML. The XHTML is passed to ConTeXt[2] for PDF typesetting.
A feature matrix[3] compares various text formats and ecosystems for generating PDF files.
This is a lovely example of the value of being a programmer.
The leverage the simple (perhaps messy) scripts and code that these tools gave the author is simply incredible. So satisfying to read and a a really great achievement. Congratulations and thanks for the write up.
I did this 10 or so years ago when I taught an ebook course to elementary students.
We learned about ebooks, HTML, and they each write a short story, which was included in an ebook (and a physical book).
Pretty amazing the tools we have access to. Of course, now I would use typst instead of latex for the physical book part.
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jacquesm
If I could give you one tip it would be this one: make sure that your current production contains enough contact information and appeal to other authors to help you bootstrap the next iteration. That first one is the hardest, and any aspiring writers that have good stories sitting unpublished (of which there are very many) is always on the lookout for new places to get their stories published. This is how almost every successful anthology in the past was published. Typically they had a contest model where if you got published you were awarded some prize money and otherwise you'd be out a couple of stamps.
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wodenokoto
I’d love to see a few pictures of the resulting layout.
I’m surprised handling meta data in several yaml files is easier than one excel workbook, but each to their own I guess.
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m-hodges
Very cool! How does licensing work with the included stories? What tools or systems contributed to the success of managing that?
It's quite an achievement.
I was once interested in publishing a SF anthology. Formatting and editing was nbd -- I was going to use Amazon's KDP software package for most of it, which can take a .docx and output an ebook in 5 minutes. I've done it before for non-anthology books I've published, and it couldn't be easier, though I understand why people might avoid Amazon in this day and age.
The real trouble was getting the rights to all of the different stories! Though everybody I was able to get in touch with was great -- in particular, Peter Watts, Alan Dean Foster, David Moles, and Walter Jon Williams -- many authors were totally impossible to reach! I ended up scrapping the idea after a few stories I was intent on collecting in the anthology were unobtainable. (And this after I had already paid an initial sum to many of the authors.) Finding alternates and embarking on more contract negotiations just seemed like too much work.
Anyway, I bought your anthology, will review when I'm done reading, and sincerely respect the hard work that went into it!
Bought the paperback, I really like curated anthology, it's best way to discover new talent. I would have bought Compelling Science Fiction too but look like its out of print.
I saw this on amazon the other day and picked it up. As an avid reader of short form science fiction, I was really excited to see an anthology that focused on interesting ideas. I'm three stories in and my only gripe so far is Twenty-Four Hours, I just can't find the outstanding idea in it. I think it is a lovely and touching story, it just lacks the punch I'd expect to find in this type of collection. I'd love to hear more about your selection process and what we can expect from future volumes. A+ for the quality of the books printing and presentation, extremely impressive!
edit: just found your article with more info on your process! https://compellingsciencefiction.com/posts/how-i-curate-an-a...
I developed my Markdown editor, KeenWrite[0], to replace the shell scripts described in the Typesetting Markdown series[1]. KeenWrite takes in YAML document metadata (for variables), (R) Markdown documents, and generates XHTML. The XHTML is passed to ConTeXt[2] for PDF typesetting.
A feature matrix[3] compares various text formats and ecosystems for generating PDF files.
[0]: https://keenwrite.com/
[1]: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/05/22/typesetting-markdow...
[2]: https://wiki.contextgarden.net
[3]: https://keenwrite.com/blog/2025/09/08/feature-matrix/
This is a lovely example of the value of being a programmer.
The leverage the simple (perhaps messy) scripts and code that these tools gave the author is simply incredible. So satisfying to read and a a really great achievement. Congratulations and thanks for the write up.
aside, but the link to ralan.com on https://compellingsciencefiction.com/guidelines.html doesn't work since the site doesn't exist anymore.
I did this 10 or so years ago when I taught an ebook course to elementary students.
We learned about ebooks, HTML, and they each write a short story, which was included in an ebook (and a physical book).
Pretty amazing the tools we have access to. Of course, now I would use typst instead of latex for the physical book part.
If I could give you one tip it would be this one: make sure that your current production contains enough contact information and appeal to other authors to help you bootstrap the next iteration. That first one is the hardest, and any aspiring writers that have good stories sitting unpublished (of which there are very many) is always on the lookout for new places to get their stories published. This is how almost every successful anthology in the past was published. Typically they had a contest model where if you got published you were awarded some prize money and otherwise you'd be out a couple of stamps.
I’d love to see a few pictures of the resulting layout.
I’m surprised handling meta data in several yaml files is easier than one excel workbook, but each to their own I guess.
Very cool! How does licensing work with the included stories? What tools or systems contributed to the success of managing that?