In the original “Welcome to Claw & Quill” article from a year ago I said, with unintentional foresight,
Part of what’s made Claw & Quill tough to get off the ground is that it’s hard to describe just what it is. It’s a magazine for furries—but not a fiction magazine or a news magazine, not art or comics. It’s not about furry-as-a-noun, in the sense of lifestyle and identity. It’s not necessarily even a “magazine for furries” the way most people might take that phrase.
You may not be shocked to learn that this kind of nebulousness makes it tough to write for.
So, after a lot of behind-the-scenes shuffling, C&Q is relaunching using WordPress rather than its own custom back end. The rationale for this is two-fold, both relating to making it easier to generate new content.
- As much as I like the notion of issues, it’s going to be easier to get new articles up if I don’t have to wait to collect four or five in batches.
- It’s also going to be easier if I don’t personally represent a single point of failure, bluntly. WordPress allows me to give contributors their own accounts at various access levels. As much as a control freak as I may be, this isn’t going to be sustainable unless I let other people into the control room.
Also, it’s pretty clear the main focus is going to be reviews; that’s what a lot of people have indicated they wanted, and it’s one of the things furry really does need.
I have a few now long-overdue articles to return to and get up within the next few weeks, and new people to start bringing on. I promise there will be more here shortly—and that it won’t be a year between reviews.
I just noticed – this is great news. Looking forward to see more.
DO send updates over to my furry news blog if you want to spread the word about plans, or if you have a particular article to share more!
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I currently have a dozen reviews going back to September “in the queue” awaiting publication on Flayrah, which has practically ceased updating. Should I try to get them back and send them to you? Or should I just start sending C&Q my new furry book reviews?
Hey Fred, If you don’t work out an arrangement with a place asking for furry reviews like this one, I could offer an outlet. Preferred approach would fit with the list of other topics on my “about” page. I prefer some curation or “notability” to what’s covered. (I can be picky because I run a book business, ha.) If there’s random items that were just sent in, I’d prefer to see it like a column with a collection of titles covered at once. I hope C&Q helps.
Dear Patch;
You can see all of my reviews for the past three years on Flayrah. I’m very happy with this presentation; I’m only unhappy about Flayrah’s current slowdown to the point of stopping updating. Many of the books that I review are sent to me by their authors for the promise of a quick review, and it’s embarrassing to send in a review and have it unposted after more than two months.
If I send you reviews, will you publish their covers? Will you have any word limits? Will the reviews stay online? I’ve been lucky in having all of my reviews on Anthro and Flayrah still online after almost ten years.
Watts, the same question goes for any reviews sent to C&Q. I sent you a few reviews for the first iteration of C&Q ten years ago, which you did not publish with their covers. Are they still available today; or will you put them back online?
Best wishes;
Fred
I’m less concerned about word limits, than amounts of articles that could crowd other content. I put out around 3 articles per week (and should probably spend less time on this hobby, but it’s so fun.) One review per week or one post covering multiple items would suit me pretty well… and if there was one other topical guest post too, that would make a neat schedule of one article per weekday.
The more graphics, the better – yes to covers. They would stay online for as long as WordPress hosts them (unlimited.)
Dear Patch;
Yarst! I’m just in the midst of writing up some furry news for you. But to get back to this …
I’m not sure that I can manage a review every week. Right now, yes; I’m backlogged at the moment with new furry books coming in faster than I can read them. I would prefer to just send you new reviews as I write them, and let you space them out in Dogpatch Press as you see fit. If they get delayed for two or three weeks, that’s no worse than Flayrah was doing at its best.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to writing up that furry news for you.
Best wishes;
Fred
I’m pretty sure I don’t have any data from the original incarnation of C&Q unless it’s on a backup drive somewhere, sorry. IIRC at least one of those made it to Flayrah, though, didn’t it?
At any rate, I’d prefer to include covers these days (the very first C&Q may not have been able to handle inline graphics gracefully). At the very top of the web page here you’ll see “Guidelines” and “FAQ” which talk a lot more about specifics, word lengths, what I’m looking for, etc. And my review of Malcolm Cross’s two ebooks is also a relatively good style example — basically, I’m looking for a pretty concrete recommendation (or recommendation to avoid) and a discussion of style and ideas. I’d want fewer excerpts from the text than you tend to have in many Flayrah reviews and more discussion from you about what you liked and why people should read the book under consideration.
Since it’s the web you can never guarantee existence in perpetuity (I have to have $25 a month to keep this running, at least at the current host, for instance) but I do want to see if I can build something that can stay online for years this time around. That’s part of why I’m lurching toward a system that will allow me to not only give contributors their own accounts to upload text in, but eventually allow other editors. Basically, I want to get to a point where I personally represent as few single points of failure as possible. 🙂
Dear Watts;
I like to include lots of excerpts so the readers can see the author’s style for themselves, rather than just taking my lengthy word for it. But I’ll see what I can do.
Best wishes;
Fred
Look forward to it – that schedule would suit us both. P