science fiction can feel like science fiction sometimes

I just sold a story to Thaumatrope, a Twitter science-fiction magazine.  I heard about it from a commenter on my 3 Quarks Daily piece, who was responding to the idea that new digital technologies could/should/might create new kinds of literature.

That's right:  it's on Twitter.  So the story can only be 140 characters long, which only gets us as far as the word "was" in the paragraph above.  Can't resist a challenge like that ...

I've already been paid - $1.20.  They call themselves "the highest paying magazine on twitter," and they're probably right.  My story came out to 26 words, making their rate just under five cents per word.  (See the editor's clarification in comments.)  A lot of SF mags and lit journals pay that.  It was transferred within minutes to my PayPal account, where I can immediately use it to call associates in Africa or London through my laptop for about $.03 cents per minute on Skype. 

It's pretty interesting, this living in the future business.

Comments

[Nathan E. Lilly]

Hi Richard,

Just wanted to let you know that we're going by editorial word count (1 word = 6 characters) making the *minimum* payment 5¢/word.