I’d read lots of junk during the year-and-change since I’d begun K&T Publishers’ open-door policy on submissions. It was a simple enough policy, if unique on Christea and the other colony worlds. We would review any booktext sent to us, from anyone.
Actually, every ’text that came in was personally read by yours truly, Del Bradden, searching for a winner. I was only an assistant editor, working for Mr. Cyril Burke, our executive editor, but I had found a terrific one just a year before “Dr.” Aly’wanshus sent me his message: Jeremy Raschon’s Starseeker. The fifth best-selling novel on ColNet that year, and the best-selling novel in K&T’s seventy-two-year history. If I hadn’t found Starseeker, I doubt we would have retained the policy so long.
There were, at the time, only the original eight colony worlds: Christea (though we weren’t the first), Almedia, Kuron, Wales, Jerral, New Rome, Beacon, and Hurst. Broadbent and Leeside had only just been discovered, and were not yet settled.
And among these worlds, there were seven colonial publishers: two on Christea; none on Wales or Beacon. Competition was fierce. A small number of Earth academics took notice of our literary output, but not in significant numbers. Colonial publications just didn’t show good sales on SolNet. We were basically limited to ColNet.
We had a total potential audience of approximately seventeen million. Most of those were on the heavily populated worlds of Kuron, Christea, and Almedia (“heavily” is a relative term, as Kuron, the most crowded, had just under five million people). The rest were on the more recently settled worlds—”provincials” with little interest in general fiction (erotica and tech manuals were the top sellers on Beacon, Wales, and Jerral).
The other publishers required writers to send their ’texts through a licensed Mediator. Earth’s government was smart when it started licensing mediators… “agents” as they used to be known. Since almost every human ever born probably fancies himself a writer at some time in his life, the population explosion on Earth in the late 2000s also caused an explosion in would-be authors. Agents already had a lock on the market, as any file submitted to a publisher that didn’t come from a recognized agent would be automatically rejected by the comp system.
So agents started proliferating. And the government noticed. “Hey,” someone in the Hague said, “these literary agents are becoming as powerful as the lawyers used to be. Time for them to be licensed.” Vote-stamp-sign: Agents with licenses become government-sanctioned mediators. Unlicensed agents find other jobs. And the government starts getting a cut of the mediator’s third of the author’s earnings.
“A third?” you ask. Of course they’re entitled to a third. They’re licensed mediators, so they must be worth it. After all, they perform the mysterious task of popping the book-text into NetMail. It wasn’t as if just anyone could do it for themselves—remember, only a recognized mediator could get a ’text through the system. Personally, I think if Shakespeare had an agent/mediator, that line about the lawyers would have read differently.
Despite the absurdity of such procedures, I am still glad to have discovered this profession, of which few colonists are even aware. I owe it all to my unique family and education. The colonies only have a handful of small collegia, which just don’t rate with the big Earth universities. However, everyone in the colonies has a degree or two, since it’s easy to advance one’s education by completing coursework on EdNet. No need to even physically attend a collegium, though that gives a deeper experience to the education.
My father always hated that the colonies are so far from Earth, making true interactive Net services almost impossible— time lag, you know. Despite the fact that we could get large transport ships jumped up faster-than-light, no one had managed to get the nets to clear that hurdle. Homers had the option of using EdNet in realtime, or actually attending one of their prestigious universities.
Thankfully, Dad is a brilliant man. One day, while teaching his physics class at the collegium, and using a NetPedia reference on screen, he had a Eureka! moment. Well… it actually took him a few more years to make Packet-Comm a reality. But, when he’d finished, it was possible to communicate with Earth, or other far-flung locations, instantly. Okay, so there’s a three-second lag to Earth.
Suddenly EdNet, BuyNet, and the other NetServs were practical for the colonists. And Dad was (and still is) collecting licensing and royalty chits nonstop; a good portion of which go back into public works, On the colonies, the name Randall Bradden is always spoken in admiring tones.
When I came of age, he told me: “Del, you’re going to Earth to attend university in person. Let all those EdNet grads pay for a real education for you.”
So off I went. I studied Literature as my Primary, with a Secondary in Business and Finance, and a Tertiary in the Sciences (Dad needed to get his chits’ worth.) But I have the best implants money can buy, so it wasn’t too difficult.
While there, I took an internship at a venerable old publishing house. They actually maintained offices with staff. No telecommutes for them, except one executive editor.
During my time at Holburn House, I learned a lot. And really fell in love with the business. I knew I’d be applying to one of the colonial publishers when I went home. There was no question of my staying on Earth—my student permit would expire, and they’d be sending me back to the colonies. Besides, Christea was home.
So… how did that internship lead to K&T deciding to shrug at the system and become so writer-friendly?
Well, I take full credit for it. There is even an archive recording of the moment I got the idea, though I wasn’t the center of the cams’ attention that day.
During my internship, there was a retirement party for Mr. Malcolm Ramos. All 234 years’ worth of him. One of the most distinguished editors in the business. He could easily have become a mediator at any time in his career, but he just loved editing.
At the party, he gave a talk about how the industry had changed during his career.
“When I came to this house in 2047,” Mr. Ramos recounted, “we had an open-door policy on booktexts. The last year of it, mind you, but anyone could submit to us.
“The Web, as SolNet was called then, led to so many would-be authors finding us and submitting, we just couldn’t keep on top of it.” He chuckled. “Eight billion people on Earth in those days, and most of them submitted to us that year.”
My instincts told me he was exaggerating, but I had little personal experience with bicentenarians. We colonials shy away from age-defying treatments—a normal 125 always seemed a sufficiently lengthy life to most of us. But I was intrigued.
As he sipped from his water glass, I called up to the dais, “Did you find anything worthwhile?”
“Oh, yes. We developed two eTimes Bestsellers out of that batch. One of them only made it to number fifty on the list, but that was high enough for bragging rights.” Mr. Ramos raised his forefinger with a smile. “And we found a handful of midlist titles—the stuff you call ‘fill’ these days.