Sci-Fi & Scary in 2020

Happy New Year, everyone! We here at Sci-FI & Scary hope that everyone’s 2020 is better than their 2019 was. (And that you don’t crack too many hindsight is 20/20 jokes at the end of this year. Just kidding. Lilyn loves all the dad jokes. Bring them!)

2019 was one hell of a year for us. We hit 400,000 views which is phenomenal given that amount of time we’ve been open. I know it could be higher, but I’m fine with what we accomplished so far because:

1. We have a kick-ass team that work to support each other and have fun together. It gets in the way of us being business-driven in the best way possible.
2. None of us are afraid to take a stand on things we believe in and that means we piss at least some people off on a fairly regular basis.
3. We almost all suck at advertising and self-promotion and are happy with slow growth that is good, honest growth.

…but also gotta thank a certain author for being such a colossal ass that I actually to enact my “I will tell the world you’re a shit” policy for the first time ever. Don’t know what I’m talking about? See here.

2020 CHANGES

We have a few changes coming this year. You might have gotten a feel for what’s coming from our Sci-Fi & Scary’s Favorite Reads of 2019.

Lifting Up Marginalized Voices

We’ve discovered over the last year that what we want to do is focus more on promoting the work of diverse voices. As some of you know, I was a founding member of Ladies of Horror Fiction and Tracy joined the crew there shortly after we got things rolling and is the voice for their Twitter social media. We both love it, but we (as a whole group) also want to do more, especially after V. Castro and Sammy joined the crew and we got a better understanding of just how necessary representation for diverse voices is, and that is why Sci-Fi & Scary is officially switching its focus from being just another book and movie review site to being one that actively looks to work on lifting up marginalized voices from all groups. So look for regular reviews from us covering works from authors that are either: people of color, persons with disabilities, and people who identify as LGBTQ+ (or some mix of the aforementioned). Straight white dudes get enough attention from everyone else.

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Starred Reviews

We are moving away from the 1-5 star rating system! From now on, books will either earn a starred ( formerly 4*, 5*) or an unstarred (formerly 1*,2*,3*) rating from us. While our team members will still rate books as they see fit wherever else they choose to post their reviews, from now on, on the site, if you see a STARRED REVIEW, you know it’s something to pay attention to.

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Content Warnings

Most of us have been through shit that make us realize that it is better for some people’s mental health if they know that something they’re about to read or seen has specific disturbing imagery that may affect them. Or we have some basic shred of empathy for people who have been through said shit. We don’t believe in gatekeeping. (Fuck you and your “just don’t read then”. Yes, you. Fuck YOU if you believe that. Also if you believe that we shouldn’t offer people the option on books, see the previous sentence. It takes a few minutes to consider people’s mental health. )

We have offered, basically since the beginning, ‘trigger warnings’ for books and movies that we review on the site. All genres. We are going to continue to do so, but with one small change. We do appreciate that some people that are lucky enough not to need content/trigger warnings would rather not have certain elements of the plot spoiled for them. For this reason, we are moving our content warnings down to the bottom of the post, after the buy links, and whenever possible we will hide them behind a spoiler tag so that you have to click on them to read them.

It takes us a minute to do, and no one has to read them that doesn’t want to. Imagine that.

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Taking Time to Relax

Since inception almost five years ago, Sci-Fi & Scary has had new content posted every single day, often two to three times a day. It is a hectic pace to keep up, even with a large team, and we would rather focus on quality over quantity. That is why starting this year, Sci-Fi & Scary is taking a few days off. Unless we have specials, such as release day posts or things that we especially want to highlight, you will no longer see new posts from us on Sundays or Wednesdays.

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Our Team

Our team is big and getting bigger every few months as we look for people with similar ideals, senses of humor, and serious book- or movie-nerdiness.
Currently, we have:

• Myself (@scifiandscary)
• Gracie (@graciekat13)
• Nico (@nicobellfiction) – She started a prestigious MFA program this year!!
• Olly (@whatmeworry)
• Tracy (@tracy_reads79)
• Sam (@literaryhooker)
• V. Castro (@vlatinalondon)
• Sian (@sianplummer)
• Sammy (@___SAMO)
• JB Rockwell (@jb_rockwell)
• Mitch (@mnsebourn)
• Shawn (@still_like_this)
  and regular contributors:
• Michael (@michael_morar)
• Gemma (@manylittlewords)
• Rudolfo (@rudolfoaserna)
  We are also hoping to welcome to the team shortly:
• Noel Rivera (@classicanoel)
• Suz Jay (@SuzJay11)
• Madeleine Swann (@MadeleineSwann)
• Coro ‘Tomo’ Mason (@thebesttomo)
• Bill Mangione-Smith (@realbillms)
• Amanda Rock (@amanda_reads)
• Tabby Wood (@meringutang)

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Sci-Fi & Scary has made a lot of close connections over the past few years, and we want to take a minute to recognize just a few of the truly fantastic people that we love to work with.

Michael Patrick Hicks – a talented author that runs High Fever Books. He is unafraid to tell you to take a flying leap if need be, and we respect that.

Rosie Amber and the Book Review Team – Rosie’s Book Review Team provides valuable reviews to authors and they are such a supportive group. (Special shout outs to Olga and Terry!)

William Meikle – another talented writer, Wiliam won our affection over the past year for his absolute intolerance of bullshit. It’s a special bond, it is. Check him out at WilliamMeikle.com.

Jessica – A kids librarian and blogger that runs StorytimeintheStacks, Jess is a wonderful person to talk to, a great advocate, and she bought the Monster and I pancakes one day so we’ll be best friends forever. ‘Cause pancakes. (Also we got lost in a museum exhibit together that Jess had been to at least ten times.)

Sandra Ruttan – Sandra is the acquiring editor for The Bronzeville Bee. She takes zero shit, welcomes everyone to the table as long as they’re not assholes, and is one of the most generous sounding boards ever. We’ve only known her a few months, but we already adore her.

There are lots more people that we interact with that we adore, of course. Gabino Iglesias, Brian Bixby, Cina Pelayo, Gwendolyn Kiste, Brian (Brian’s Book Blog), E, King Diamond just to name a few, but…there’s just not enough time to name everyone off. So we see you, we think you’re awesome, and thank you for interacting with us!

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We hope that 2020 is, globally, less of a dumpster-fire than 2019 was. (We’re not hoping for miracles. Normal-sized trash fire would still be a welcome improvement!) We want to see more growth in the sci-fi & horror communities. We want to be better people than we were in 2019 and I am bragging on my team but we were a damned fine group in 2019!

Let us do 2020 the way it should be done when we can look back at the end of the year and go “Damn…we did good.”