It’s always fascinating to learn how the big name authors got their start. As a fan, it pulls back the mystique a bit and makes those authors more relatable, and as a writer, it’s enormously encouraging to learn that even the big names had to pay their dues too. I wonder what Dune would have… Continue reading Extra Sci-Fi S3E5: Dune – Origins
Tag: traditional publishing
New short story goals
In the last few months, as I’ve reworked my business plan, I’ve put a lot of thought into what I want to do with short stories. I’ve written about two dozen of them so far, and while I don’t expect to be known as a short story writer, I do expect that short stories will… Continue reading New short story goals
Why money should not flow to the writer
Yog’s law states that money should flow to the writer. It’s an old aphorism in the publishing industry, from a time when self-publishing was synonymous with vanity publishing. According to this 2003 post by Theresa Nielsen-Hayden: For years now, we’ve been dinning Yog’s Law into young writers’ heads: Money always flows toward the writer. Alternate… Continue reading Why money should not flow to the writer
So you’ve written a short story…
So you’ve written a short story, and you’re wondering what to do with it. You think it’s pretty good and you want to see it published, but you’re wondering what’s the best way to do that. I can’t guarantee that this is the best way, but it is the way that I do it. Let’s… Continue reading So you’ve written a short story…
A short rant about simultaneous submissions
TL;DR: If you run a short story magazine and it takes you longer than six weeks to respond to submissions, you should allow simultaneous submissions as a courtesy to your writers. A simultaneous submission is when the writer sends the same story to multiple markets at the same time, instead of going down the list one-by-one and… Continue reading A short rant about simultaneous submissions
On Amazon, Hachette, and the future of books
I sincerely believe that this is the best time in the history of this planet to be a reader. There are so many great books coming out now–so many new authors who are writing stuff that is new and different and exciting. Because of the internet, it’s so much easier to find the book that… Continue reading On Amazon, Hachette, and the future of books
Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress
I finished last week’s book a couple of days late, but I’m still going to count it. It’s a book on writing by Hug0-award winning science fiction author Nancy Kress, and for anyone interested in writing stories in any genre, I’d highly recommend it. Kress wrote this book back in the early 90s, after publishing… Continue reading Beginnings, Middles, and Ends by Nancy Kress
Climbing the 10k mountain
I recently read an amazing blog post by Rachel Aaron, in which she explains how she went from writing about 2k words per day (about what I’m doing) to routinely breaking 10k. This is something I really want to do with my own writing. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, I need to… Continue reading Climbing the 10k mountain