# Legitimacy of furry publications



## TakeWalker (Jul 13, 2008)

I don't think this is relevant to the 'getting published' thread, so new thread it is.

Currently, aside from coffee-table columes that publish anyone willing to pay them 10 bucks, my only published work is in a furry publication of some sort. This was back in 2000, I believe, as I recall meeting the publisher at MFM2k and getting a copy of the magazine. Of course, I don't actually remember what the publication was, nor what story was published, but I'm getting off topic already.

My question is, how 'legitimate' are these publications in regards to the real market? Would you want to list a furry publication in your publication history? Maybe it's obvious by my tone, but my own answers to these questions are "not at all" and "no". It's not just that the publications are furry in nature, but that they're, well, independent? Unimportant? No one's clamoring at their gates wanting to see the next best thing furry has to offer, it's just a bunch of people on the internet who want to have fun doing what they like.

I want to hear what other people have to say, though.


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## TÃ¦farÃ³s (Jul 13, 2008)

Hmm, great question. I wonder if, since furry fiction is considered independent, publishers would even catagorize the story as furry. Are they even aware of the term outside of "talking animal" or "fantasy"? I'm not sure if Brian Jacques and his Redwall series are labled as "furry"; to the literary world, they're just fantasy books with animals in place of humans. Of course, if you replaced said animals with humans, there wouldn't be much of a difference. Still, all the _Fire Bringer_s, _Watership Down_s, and Mrs. Brisbys fall under fantasy.

I wouldn't mind having a furry story published if it went the way of the books listed above. They're all well-respected. Guess it just depends on how you go about creating your animal characters, as in actually having a reason for them being there. I already mentioned how you could replace Jacques's chraracters. 

Then again, I'm working on a hyooman-based fantastical novel at the moment. Kinda betrayed the thread.


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## Poetigress (Jul 13, 2008)

Take, just out of curiosity, have you read either of the two issues of _New Fables_?  Or any of the issues of _Renard's Menagerie_?

Yes, some are legitimate, and yes, I would (and do) list them in my bio with my other non-furry publications.  In the case of those two, I can say from personal experience that they have real editors who make real decisions (i.e., they don't take everything that's sent their way), the publications are of good quality (both in terms of the writing they publish and the physical quality of the magazine itself), the publications have ISSN numbers (or ISBN, in the case of NF), indicating that they can be sold outside of convention tables and the like, and unlike many other sf/f zines and ezines, they actually pay a per-word rate for published stories.

Now, are there plenty of furry fanzines out there that don't meet those criteria, and that I probably wouldn't list because of that?  Sure.  (For example, no one outside the fandom is going to care that I had stories in a conbook.)  And I wouldn't generally list credits like _Heat_ or other adult markets in a regular mainstream bio.  But NF and RM in particular are at least as valid as the other literary and sf publications I've been accepted in--and probably more valid than some of them, to be perfectly honest.  This may be influenced by the fact that I still consider anthropomorphics a sf/f subgenre, but I don't see why a well-edited furry market couldn't be just as legit as any other niche or speciality periodical.

Independent doesn't matter.  (I'm not even sure how to define "independent" in terms of periodicals.)  Quality does matter.  But go to Ralan.com and browse the markets listed there, and you'll see that there's far more to sf/f periodicals than the big well-known pro mags like F&SF and Asmiov's.  There are plenty of "little" markets publishing good stuff, and some of them, even ones you've never heard of, can be darned tough to get into.

Now, if we're talking about publishing novels within the furry fandom, that gets a little more limiting, as I'm only aware of a couple of true publishers (basically Sofawolf Press and Bad Dog Books, although if someone knows of another, please let me know), as opposed to subsidy or POD-type publishers (where they pretty much just print the book for you however it was submitted to them).

In short, it's all a niche market, yes, but if someone else is putting out their time and money to publish your work with at least a modest amount of care and attention, particularly if you're offered some reasonable amount of compensation, then that's perfectly legit in my book.  (Are all legit markets always given the same amount of respect?  *shrug*  Probably not, but to me, that's their problem, not mine as the writer.)


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## TakeWalker (Jul 13, 2008)

Hey look, it's the exact person I wanted to hear from. :3



Poetigress said:


> Take, just out of curiosity, have you read either of the two issues of _New Fables_?  Or any of the issues of _Renard's Menagerie_?



If you're referring to anything in particular, the answer is no, because I honestly am not sure what you're talking about. :|

The impetus for this thread was a lingering sense of doom, shall we say, or maybe despair, over the idea that someone as talented as you might be 'wasting their time' writing for furry markets when you could have so much success submitting to more mainstream publications. (Of course, I'm pretty sure you do; still...) Until this point, my vision of furry publications was some bespectacled guy slapping together pages of writing from anyone who happened to stumble upon his website, and selling it for a few bucks at a con. I suppose it was only a matter of time before they actually began to work like real publications. Okay, concerns alleviated, thank you.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 14, 2008)

Not to give you anything else to worry about, but I shy away from these kinds of publications simply because of the stigma attached to the genre 'furry' as it is these days.  Granted, most people've never heard of it and thus would have no opinion one way or the other about 'furry writing' aside from the mainstream stuff they've read, but I'm paranoid.  For some reason, I have it in my head that 'furry' is more volatile a subject matter than other forms of science fiction or fantasy.
But in the end, I guess you're still getting paid, so who cares, right?  Something tells me some agent isn't going to see "Renard's Menagerie" on your list of published works in your query letter and decide to go on a three-day internet cruise just to research the furry fandom, so it's probably nothing at all to concern yourself with.  I just happen to be neurotic enough to have that thought always at the back of my mind when I write things, is all, logic be damned.


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## Poetigress (Jul 14, 2008)

To answer both posts with one -- I see both concerns (Take's rather flattering one about wasting one's time, and MLR's about stigma) as... well, not as illegitimate concerns, necessarily, but just as things that I'm personally not going to spend a lot of time or energy worrying about anytime soon.    And the main reason I'm not worried is this: I'm writing stories that typically involve talking animals or some kind of animal characters; therefore, at least a big chunk of my audience as a writer is always going to be within the fandom.  This doesn't mean that I want to limit myself just to that audience -- or just to any niche audience -- I do also write 'mainstream' sf/f, and sometimes I can cross an anthro-based story over to a mainstream market (like "Princess Angelina and the Dragon" in MZB's Fantasy Magazine, or "Moon, June, Raccoon" in The Summerset Review, or a sort-of-werewolf story that I have making the rounds right now) -- but hey, let's face it, I write about a lot of fantasy-type animal characters in one way or another, and people in the fandom are likely to enjoy that, and frankly, so far, I've gotten paid at least as well or better from the "furry" publications than from the mainstream ones (at least in the past few years, not counting some of my older and more lucrative publications).

If an agent or editor looks at my bio and surfs to RM's website to check it out, and then goes "ew! furry!", well, that's probably not someone who would have been interested in representing my work in the first place, because ten to one there's a talking animal or a fantasy creature or something like that somewhere in the book anyway.  It's just the way I roll.  >^_^<  They might, in fact, be more interested to know that I do have a ready-made audience that I understand (at least to some degree) how to market to, and that I have an established online presence with that audience.

If I were trying to write literary fiction and win the Pulitzer or whatever, I would be concerned about these things.  But I'm not.  I like to write weird stuff that a lot of people don't even see as "serious" writing to begin with -- there is still a lingering stigma, particularly in some corners of academia, against science fiction and fantasy, for heaven's sake.  And in the world of sf/f publishing, there are a lot of funky little genre publications out there as it is, so I don't think the reputable anthro ones are really that odd when you step back from them.  (Then again, maybe I'm just used to being published in odd-sounding places because of having poems years ago in journals and zines called things like "Bellowing Ark," "Nanny Fanny," "Pink Cadillac," and "Medicinal Purposes.")  

And again, speaking just for myself, the only thing I've had to guard myself against so far (and actually, FA being down has helped give me more perspective on this) is becoming complacent about sending anything out for publication, particularly beyond the fandom.  I admit, it can spoil you a bit when you get used to just posting all your work to a website and waiting for the comments to roll in, putting all your eggs in that one basket.  Don't get me wrong, it's great to get feedback from the same readers, knowing that you have dedicated people who get what you're trying to do, but it's also good to try to reach out to new readers in other places.  I've recently sent out three new stories to mainstream markets, and I forgot how good it feels to be back in that cycle again.  >^_^<

ETA links for more info about the publications I mentioned:

New Fables (published by Sofawolf Press)
http://www.newfables.com

Renard's Menagerie
http://www.renardsmenagerie.com


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