I wouldn't, however, say that Shadowed Realms' death was surprising. Speaking broadly, there are a lot of signs in the independent press that you can watch for, and which speak of the slowly rising corpse of a project, or a publisher. There's a lack of critical success. A lack of popular success. A fall in issue regularity, or an inability to hit the deadlines proposed by huge amounts of time (most independents are behind a little). Then there's the long response times to contributors. Closing to submissions out of season. Editors not replying to email where they once did. The editor/publisher moving on to other projects. A switch in focus from print to media or online. Public conversations about money. The list goes on. Get enough of these coming out of an independent publisher, and I reckon you might as well start picking out a pretty plot, though the actual announcement of death can take a long time coming. I, personally, figured that Shadowed Realms had another year in it, but I guess my prophetic powers aren't always right--and to be honest, it's not that much of a death. Brimstone still exists. A lot of publishers have gone completely into the ground.
At any rate, I mentioned this at first on a comment on Martin Livings' (
martinlivings) blog, but he has now locked the entry so that no one can leave comments, the comment has been deleted. Whatever. I have my own blog and can talk about it here, and deleted commentary always gets me thinking a bit more. I figure if people know of any other signs of Independent Death, they should drop a comment. Get enough and I'll do a funny checklist. 