The Secret Lair

Everything you need to know about Angry Robot is in their stated mission, which “is to publish the best in brand new genre fiction – SF, F and WTF?!” From the launch of their print book line in 2009, the folks at Angry Robot have expanded into e-books, short stories, the AR TV media portal, a monthly audio podcast, and their newest project: WorldBuilder. Today, I catch up with Angry Robot editor Lee Harris and author/podcaster Mur Lafferty about the WorldBuilder project and all things Angry Robot. First, a bit of explanation as to what WorldBuilder is:

WorldBuilder is our way of reaching out to the fan creator communities, to invite you to come play in our yard.

We’re not new to the concept, of course. We once ran a short story competition based in the world of Moxyland by Lauren Beukes, and the best three stories were featured at the back of Lauren’s award-winning Zoo City.

WorldBuilder takes that idea and moves it forward a billion or so steps (note: might not be a billion).

In January, when we publish Adam Christopher’s uber-cool prohibition-superhero-noir novel, Empire State, we’ll be inviting fan creators everywhere to visit the world of Empire State and create their own works of art based in the Empire State universe. These creations can then be uploaded to a dedicated website, and distributed under a Creative Commons license.

The best of these will be featured in a number of “Best of” anthologies (with most of the proceeds going to the creators).

Additionally, we’re commissioning some short stories from some rather well-known writers, as well as other cool things from creators in other fields. WorldBuilder will be managed for us by the mighty Mur Lafferty.

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Now, we strap Lee Harris into The Lair’s Interrogation Chamber for questioning. For the interview, he insisted on wearing the black tuxedo he sported at the Hugo Awards last week, and we were only happy to indulge this Bond-like request. When he’s released, you can find him at his personal website as well as on Twitter:

How did you come to to be involved with Angry Robot to begin with?

I had founded a short fiction magazine called Hub, which started life as a professional-quality print zine that paid pro rates. When – somewhat inevitably – it proved not to be financially viable, I moved it to a weekly electronic format, instead. Marc Gascoigne, who was in the process of setting up Angry Robot, and actively seeking an all-rounder to assist him with the new imprint, was aware of Hub, and approached me at FantasyCon to see if I’d be interested in applying for the role. The rest is history.

What excites you the most about what the company is doing right now?

It sounds like a bit of an exaggeration to say “just about everything”, but it’s true. We’ve so many new and cool projects either underway, or in the planning stages, that I’m in constant danger of exploding. Not literally, you understand – that would be quite a serious medical condition for which I’d seek immediate attention. WorldBuilder is one of the existing projects that has me excited – so many possibilities, so much potential.

The Worldbuilder project is, to my knowledge, something that no publisher has attempted before. What was the genesis of the idea, and what do you think is the biggest draw for people to participate?

Well, it has existed as an idea before – Baen’s Grantville Gazette is the obvious parallel – but we’re expanding the idea, somewhat. The project was born in two different places. In the summer of last year, a bunch of us at Angry Robot and Osprey had an afternoon away from the office to chew the fat, and brainstorm some random ideas. The theme of the talk was “What if we didn’t have to do things the way the industry expects us to?” And one of the cool ideas that came out of that was WorldBuilder. It went through a number of different variations, but was always focused on fan-driven content – the idea of actively encouraging fan participation, rather than forbidding it. The idea sat on our hard drives for almost a year, though. It was always something we wanted to do, but with a relatively small team, and two novels to produce every month, it was too easy to keep it simmering away on the back burner.

Then I received an email from the mighty Mur Lafferty. She’d come up with this fabulous new idea, and was all set to run with it, herself, but wondered if Angry Robot – as a cool and happening new outfit – would be interested in it, with Mur at the helm. Her idea overlapped our WorldBuilder idea by about 80%, so we combined the best of both, and WorldBuilder was born. And of course, Mur is the perfect choice to run it for us.

As for the second part of your question – I think the fact that we’re legitimizing the fan-created content is a big draw, and not only allowing fans to create and post their works on their own blogs, but providing a central resource where their work can be seen in the context of the original novel. Also, we intend to publish the best of the fan creations alongside professional commissions – and pay them for their work. That’s currently getting a few people excited, too.

I know that Mur Lafferty has been doing the Angry Robot podcast for you to spotlight individual authors and novels in your stable. How has that project been going, and what do you see as it’s biggest benefit?

Mur is one of the world’s greatest podcasters, and just having her work as part of the Angry Robot family is a benefit, but it’s always interesting to hear authors talking about their work, and Mur understands how to get the best out of her interview subjects. We’ll be mixing up the formula a little in the months ahead, so stay tuned!

It’s been mentioned that Angry Robot will be working on releasing audio versions of their fiction. Do you have any update on that endeavour?

We’ve team up with Brilliance Audio – one of the biggest producers of audio fiction in the world; as far as we’re concerned, Brilliance have the best quality productions, too. From this fall they’ll be releasing two Angry Robot titles a month as unabridged audio, available in CD format, physical mp3 format (on CD) and as downloads. I’ve heard a bunch of their audiobooks, and these are going to rock! Keep an eye on our website – we’ll be telling everyone about these as soon as they’re available!

And is there anything new coming down the pike beyond Worldbuilder you’d like to tease us with?

Is WorldBuilder not enough for you? Well, we have quite a few cool new things on the horizon, but I’m going to have to be careful how much I say. WorldBuilder properly starts in January, of course. Before that, in December we have something new happening with our eBook subscription service, and then we have [Content Censored]; oh, and [Content Censored]; not forgetting, of course the uber-cool [Content Censored]. And then… then… we’re going to be [Content Really Censored This Time]. So, you see – plenty to look forward to!

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We tried to lure Mur Lafferty into the Interrogation Chamber, but she handily evaded us and locked us in. She is not without pity, and so answered our questions anyway. Among her numerous and outstanding projects, she hosts and produces the Angry Robot podcast, and will be the manager for WorldBuilder. You can find her at her website and on Twitter:

You’ve been heading up the Angry Robot podcast for over a year now. What’s been the most interesting part of that experience for you, and what are the future plans for the podcast?

This is not me sucking up to my boss, Lee Harris, but honestly I think that Angry Robot is the only publisher who is constantly putting out amazing, thought provoking, awesome books. Doing the interviews exposes me to those books, and the fascinating people behind them. I’m so glad to have met Kaaron Warren and 2011 Clarke-Award-Winner Lauren Beukes (who was my roommate at WorldCon!), and was glad to say I got to interview Colin Harvey, an AR author who died suddenly of a stroke two weeks ago.

Lee and I talked at WorldCon and have decided to change the format of the podcast. Before it was just me doing a short intro, rattling off any news items AR had going on, doing the interview, and then a short sign-off, but we’re looking to include more from Lee and Marco, the AR home office, more news, more contests, and some other stuff I am not at liberty to talk about, so lay off with the questions, man! I’m not under arrest, I can leave at ANY TIME.

The Worldbuilder project is quite exciting. What was the genesis of the idea, and what will your role be in it going ahead?

The concept of the WorldBuilder came to me in 2008 when I was thinking about Creative Commons and how amazingly flexible it is, and how no one seemed to be experimenting with it. So I thought of soliciting stories from pros, getting some other pros to make derivative works – and I wanted all sorts of stuff: music, stories, art, webcomics, performance art, whatever – and then post them, and encourage the fans to contribute as well. Considering I wanted this to attract and be able to pay pro writers, I sat on this idea for a while. Then this year I discovered Kickstarter, and thought that would be the perfect way to fund this. But before I did that, I contacted Lee Harris. Angry Robot is a publisher that is eagerly embracing the changes in publishing and they have a very open mind to weird ideas. “What the hell,” I thought. “The worst they can say is no.” I was frankly shocked when they loved the idea.

See, it turns out Lee had been kicking around a similar idea! We talked a bit about it, and modified my plan to fit with his plan, and then Lee chose a book (Adam Christopher’s Empire State) to center the project around. Now my job is to hire pro authors to write stories attached to the Empire State universe, and then hire other creative people to make… other creative things. We don’t have anyone under contract yet, so I am not comfortable saying who we have signed on to do what, but we have verbal agreements from several people to create some pretty freaking amazing things.

When the project launches, it will also be my job to, in tandem with Lee and Adam, to filter through the fan submissions to choose the best stories, and then we’re launching four anthologies of the pro story, the other works we commissioned, and the best of the fan stuff. (The fan-created stories we choose for the anthologies will be paid for, naturally.)

But currently my role is to get very familiar with the universe and sit around going, “I seriously can’t believe I actually got this awesomely cool project off the ground!”

You’ve fielded questions on the I Should Be Writing podcast about fanfic many times, in terms of advising people not to try and sell themselves to agents and publishers based on fanfic they’ve written. Is Worldbuilder going to be one of those projects that’s an exception that proves the rule? And with Angry Robot officially publishing the fan fiction, does that somehow make it no longer “fanfic” and turn it into “canon”?

“Fanfic” by definition is unlicensed and unapproved. I suppose what WorldBuilder is doing is not encouraging fanfic, but encouraging people to submit stories (or other creative work, come on, people!) in this specific world, and all will be posted online, and the best will be paid for and published in an anthology.

It’s a weird line to draw. But if you look in your book store and see all the Star Wars and Starcraft and World of Warcraft novels – those aren’t fanfic. Pro writers got paid good money to write in that world. I got my start in RPGs where I had to learn about an existing world and then write in it – no one called that fanfic.

The start of the project is around Adam Christopher’s Empire State. What factors led to his world being chosen for the launch of Worldbuilder?

Lee chose Empire State for a number of reasons; the biggest one was that it seemed best to loan itself to a world-sharing situation. The story is about a hero battle ripping a hole in reality, which births the Empire State – a young, twisted parallel prohibition-era New York. With the power to create other NYC universes, the options for fanfic are limitless – even the genre or time period of the story itself could be flexible.

The fact that the author, Adam Christopher, was enthusiastic about the idea also doesn’t hurt. Many people are uncomfortable with fanfic, others “playing in their sandbox,” but Adam was not. He’s brilliant and a pleasure to work with, and really helping out the project.

Where do you see Worldbuilder going in the future, in terms of other media like podcasts, or other novels?

I would love to see WorldBuilder get attached to other Angry Robot novels, there are a couple I would love to explore. But a lot of it depends on the success of WorldBuilder, so everyone go pre-order Empire State and play in our sandbox come January!

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Many thanks to Lee and Mur for fielding our questions! Our interview with Empire State author Adam Christopher is here. WorldBuilder will be launching at WorldBuilderOnline.com in the autumn.