Okay folks, we had more than 100 responses, approximately 20% of TSA-Talk. This is a very good response rate for a survey and so we should be able to assume the information here is representative of the list as a whole. More of you may yet respond, but as of the new year we froze the numbers for the purposes of figuring out what everyone said. The full topic of this, our first survey, was what kind of stories would you like to see in TSAT. Let's see what people said...

1: What type of transformation do you like best

Okay, we admit it, the last choice was a trick. You wouldn't be here if you didn't like transformations. The clear favorite was physical transformation where the mind is unaffected, at least by the transformation. Is everyone surprised?

The first runner-up was both physical and mental with just under 30 % of the vote. Looks like we need some mind control and other mental change stories. Writers, are you listening?

2: What method of transformation do you like best?

What can we say, so far it's effectively a tie. We didn't ask about hormones because we expected anyone interested in them to respond with the answer "science." We interpret the data to mean that folks don't really care too much as long as there's a transformation somewhere. I admit that I wonder about the apparent preference for "magic" in most of the stories we present in TSAT. As a writer I recognize that it is easier to write about magic-induced transformations than it is to write about scientifically induced transformations as it takes more effort to make the science seem plausible. We'll have to seek more scientifically based stories for your enjoyment.

3: What would you like to transform into?

This is, by far, the most difficult set of data to analyze for several reasons. First, between conceptualization and implementation we lost several categories, most notably equine, feline, and of course, lemur. For this we apologize, as it was not our intent to slight any interest group. It also may have inadvertently inflated the responses in other areas as people tried to accommodate their personal preferences within the limits of this survey. For example, some people may have answered "Mythical" for a preference for centaurs while others may have selected "Other" if they prefer their equines "straight rather than stirred," to badly misquote Ian Fleming's James Bond. We may decide to redo this portion of the survey again in the near future, but for now, looking at the data we have, it seems that we need to encourage more stories about dragons, humans and dogs like An Assassin in the Crowd by Dan D'Alimonte and my The Lady or the Monster.

Another possible problem that was pointed out after the survey was released, was the wording of the instructions. We asked people "what would you like to transform into," which could be interpreted differently from "what would type of transformations would you like to read about." I'm not sure how much difference that might have made in people's answers, but certainly we should consider this when interpreting the results.

One surprise was the smaller than expected number of people interested in gender changes, only 13.9%. Possibly this is due to the structure of the survey, only allowing people to list their first choice for a transformation. Possibly few of our readers were willing to specify such a preference given the fear of having that information used against them; given public response in that area, this seems a reasonable assumption. Or possibly, given the first issue's predominance of TF material, those interested in TG material didn't wait around long enough to complete the survey. Regardless, we will provide some stories including gender changes, but based upon the survey results, they will not be our primary focus. Maybe the results might have been different if we had allowed for multiple transformations.

For those of you who ended up answering "Other," please feel free to drop us a line and we'll see what we can do to provide for your preferences also.

4: What is your favorite gender transformation?

This one's easy. It might have been a bit more difficult if we included options like she-male, but my guess is that it would not have made that much difference. Those who like human transformations prefer transformations from male to female (even if it is only a partial transformation). Unsurprisingly, there is also a sizable group who do not see sexual change as important as some other kind of change.

5: What's the most important part of the plot of a TF story?

It looks like folks aren't very interested in waiting too long to get to the transformation. Given our readership it is only to be expected that the impact of the change would be most important. Comforting to me as a writer, is the importance of plot, even over the change itself.

6: What story length do you prefer?

Short stories it is by an overwhelming majority. We'll still try to obtain stories of other lengths, remember we said in our author instructions that we would not take a lot of time to count the number of words, but short stories will be the bulk of the material we present.

7: What sort of story presentation do you like best?

How many people are surprised here? We know we hate to read a story knowing that it may not be complete and we won't find out how it ends. It seems that we're not alone here. TSAT may yet have some serialized material due to length and time constraints, but we'll make a promise right now that we will not print anything unless we can provide a complete serialization. That means we'll make sure we have the entire story before we start serializing it for you our readers.

In case anyone's wondering, the topic for this issue is "What is your favorite transformation-based website?" We're doing this survey in two parts. Part one, running from January 31 through February 1 will take nominations for favorite sites and in the next issue (March 31) we'll take votes for each site nominated.