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Why turn our backs on progress?

Even ten years ago, the idea that one person could launch their own publishing house would have been laughable. A good friend of mine has been in traditional publishing forever and she’s always worked her tush off. I, on the other hand, am nothing if not thoroughly lazy — or, to put it more kindly, efficient. I prefer to use AI where it makes my job easier, but never at the expense of authors or readers.

1. Why this, why now

Writers tend to fall into a few camps when it comes to AI. Some reject it entirely; others embrace it a bit too much. The time has come for a middle ground. I mean, we’re all adults here. We can tell a “legitimate” use from an “exploitative” one.

Here are some examples:

• Fred decides that AI is the devil and throws his computer out the window.

• Sophie uses ChatGPT to hash out ideas and look over her drafts to spot typos or nonsense.

• George uses Claude to write for her, pumping out up to fifty books a week and flooding Amazon Unlimited with low quality but occasionally popular genre fiction.

• Alex doesn’t use AI and they don’t particularly care one way or the other.

Surely, we can all see the one problem person here. It’s George. Don’t be like George.

In my opinion, Fred’s missing out, but his reaction is understandable. Sophie and Alex represent the reasonable middle ground that this publication seeks.

2. What kind of community are we

Sun Studio Mag will be an online publication in the vein of Strange Pilgrims: a reader-supported publication that pays authors for their contributions. We are not in competition, we are complementary. There is more than enough room for all. Voracious readers and prolific authors, we’re looking for you!

3. Specifics

Submitting to Sun Studio Mag will be free. About ten stories / articles will be published per week. If your work is accepted, we’ll pay a flat rate per word, up to a total of $200 for 5,000 words. That works out to $0.04 each word.

We will use AI in the initial submission triage phase as well as for editing. Submissions will be ranked according to sensible metrics (e.g., tone, content, energy, etc.), and automatically summarized. Our editors will read the top twenty submissions.

However, to ensure fairness, our editors will also read twenty additional randomly selected submissions.

Out of these forty, we expect to find (at least) ten gems, but we do reserve the right to publish more or less in a given week depending on the quality and number of submissions.

Detailed submission instructions coming soon.

4. Gratuitous SEO image

Here’s one of the interesting ones that Midjourney popped out recently. The prompt was, simply, “magazine.”

5. Our commitment to you

We commit to:

• Finding needles in haystacks so that our magazine always has a great mix of fresh and veteran talent.

• Using AI responsibly, ethically, and openly.

• A consistent, free, and open submission process that enables authors to submit their best work to an up-and-coming publication.

• Always improving, based on experience and feedback.

We won’t get to perfection at the outset, but we will get there.

Subscribe now to follow our launch and be one of the first to see our official call for submissions!