So what is a GUD? - Writers Forum

lin · 08-14-2007, 12:13 PM

I don't know if it's appropriate to do this, or to do it here. (Readers have noticed my deep concern for appropriate behavior)

But I think it might be rewarding to have a discussion of GUD. Otherwise known as Greater Uncommon Denominator.

For one thing, it's an interesting literary market. For another thing, one of the editors is a WF member.

Anybody feel like discussing goals, impressions, experiences, subtle nuances, secret dirt about this publication?

Like a dumbass, I forgot to put a link to GUD.

It's Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine: home

Drzava · 08-14-2007, 01:36 PM

Gud is Swedish for God.

lin · 08-14-2007, 04:53 PM

Dots gud to know. All posts thinking it's a birth control device have been deleted.

mammamaia · 08-14-2007, 10:49 PM

Quote:

secret dirt about this publication

is that what you're really after?...

lin · 08-15-2007, 12:00 AM

Don't judge others' motivations by the measure of your own, would be a good piece of advice.

I thought this would be a helpful thread, but maybe it wasn't such a good idea. We'll see.

mammamaia · 08-15-2007, 03:32 AM

Quote:

Don't judge others' motivations by the measure of your own, would be a good piece of advice.

yup!... and you should follow it... i'm not the one who constantly disses another member, remember?... or do you have DID and not know you do it?

Mike C · 08-15-2007, 03:58 AM

Uh, hey kiddies, let's not turn this into a flame thread, OK?

One point of clarification: I'm no longer an editor. I helped found the magazine, and there may still be a few of my words on the site somewhere, but I lacked the stamina and depth of pocket to remain on staff. In short, I find reading slush on a regular basis mentally crippling, and it costs more to put the magazine out than the guys get in from selling copies. The launch of issue 0 coincided with some domestic disturbances, my money ran out, and I pulled out. Since then the other staff (plus a couple of very talented new faces) have taken the mag to another level.

Lin, I know you in particular are very critical of 'editors' as if they were one homogenous group of demons out to confound and confuse the poor writer. This generally ain't so (there are a few rogues) and GUD's ethos was always to champion writers. We're all writers ourselves, and we know what it's like. The submission system was designed by Kaolin to be as easy as possible, with the aim of response times being as short as possible.

If you look at the stats page (how's that for transparency?) you'll see the shortest response was 0 days (rejected on day of submission) and the average is 7.7 days.

Where is gets sticky (and the bit that makes writers moan) is when a story's maybe good enough. It doesn't get rejected right away, and sits in a holding area where it is evaluated and compared against others as they hit the 'maybe' pile. These are beaten into order as more stories are added to the mix and the ones that weren't quite up to snuff get rejected, finally.

This isn't easy - stats say average 83.3 days for an acceptance or 5.6 days for rejection, with 97.3% of work being rejected.

Criticise all you like, but those guys between them have ploughed through nearly 4,000 short stories, most of which will have been read by all the editors. How many short stories have you read in the last 12 months?

Finally, simsubs: You know what I think about them, but when GUD was set up we decided to accept them. Not necessarily because we like them, but because we knew there'd be an element who'd do it anyway, and we'd had past experience of wanting to buy a story only to find the author had shopped it elsewhere (so yes, you will get caught), so decided that if we accepted simsubs at least we'd know about it.

Any questions?

Kaolin, GUD's web guru and head honcho, sticks his head in here from time to time, and I'm sure will answer any questions I can't. Like I said, GUD was set up by writers and designed to be transparent.

lin · 08-15-2007, 11:57 AM

Quote:

i'm not the one who constantly disses another member, remember?

What would you call coming into this thread, which is about the publication another member edits and implying ulterior motives for no particular reason, while adding nothing to the discussion?

This is about this publication..why don't you take your little nastiness to someplace that IS all about you?

lin · 08-15-2007, 12:01 PM

That all sounds great Mike. I thought you could add dimension to what is already a pretty impressive view of this effort.

And I'd encourage anybody interested in getting quality stuff published, seeing a good example of what can be done with the online medium, and seeing that a publication doesn't have to follow the pack in content of policies...to take a look at GUD.

http://www.gudmagazine.com/

Mike C · 08-16-2007, 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

What would you call coming into this thread, which is about the publication another member edits and implying ulterior motives for no particular reason, while adding nothing to the discussion?

This is about this publication..

I'm starting to wonder.

jamesdemann · 08-20-2007, 04:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drzava

Gud is Swedish for God.

and in icelandic, well in the english spelling of the icelandic word it means god.....i have a friend in iceland who is called gudni with the funny d and his msn nickname is gud.....

mind you i also have a friend who is called msn messenger....wierd to see msn messenger has signed in.