DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

Part 7 in my ongoing series of posts at Amazing Stories on marketing and selling short fiction is now up. This week's topic is on how to decide where to send your story first. Hint: start at the top. Next week, I'll be discussing how to find available markets and how to understand submission guidelines. 

I missed a couple of weeks of posting for this series, but I plan to be back on a regular weekly schedule again now. The gap was due to an extended vacation and business trip to New Zealand and Australia. I did a 6-day cycling tour on the south island in New Zealand and fell in love with that country. The photo at the left is pretty typical of the scenery that we were cycling through. We went from Queenstown, over the mountains to the west coast, up the coast, and then inland again, finishing with a beautiful train trip through the mountains to Christchurch. Fantastic trip, and I can't wait to get back there again.

Back to the writing topic, if you haven't been able to follow my Amazing Stories blog series, you can catch up on all of the past posts here.

Lynda Williams has an interview with me up now on her Reality Skimming blog on her Okal Rel Saga website. I talk about selling to foreign language markets and the Foreign Market List.

The next post in my series at Amazing Stories on marketing and selling short fiction is now up (well, actually, it's been up for a while, but I've been travelling). This week's entry deals with submission fear and knowing when it's time to stop rewriting, editing, and tweaking that story, and to send it out into the world. Check out this week's post here. I'll be skipping a post this week, but hope to have part 7 up next week and be back on a regular weekly posting schedule.

The next post in my series at Amazing Stories on marketing and selling short fiction is now up. This week's entry is the second of a 2-week discussion on why you never "sell" a short story. Check out this week's post here.

The next post in my series at Amazing Stories on marketing and selling short fiction is now up. This week's entry is the first of a 2-week discussion on why you never "sell" a short story. These two posts contain information on how licensing of fiction rights work, information that is critical for every short story writer to understand. Check out this week's post here.

I blogged recently about the upcoming relaunch of Amazing Stories Magazine. Well, the official opening of the new site to the public was yesterday, January 21. See below for the press release from Steve Davidson, the new publisher for Amazing Stories.

For my part, I'm writing a blog series on the site on how to market and sell your short fiction, entitled "Playing the Short Game." I now have three posts in the series up on the Amazing Stories site:

Part 1: Introduction - Who I am and what this series will cover

Part 2: Why are you writing? - Deciding on the writing career that you want

Part 3: Why short fiction? - The benefits of the short game to a writing career

The series is aimed at the beginning writer. If that's you, I hope you'll drop by each week. I'll be posting weekly, and my posts (I think) will be going up each Monday. If you're an experienced writer, please drop by as well and add your comments based on your own experience and knowledge. 

And while you're there, check out the new site. There are over fifty bloggers that cover not just fiction topics, but all aspects of fandom. Look around and I'll bet that you'll find something that interests you. Hope to see you there! Here's a page that will list all of my posts in the "Playing the Short Game" series on the Amazing Stories site.

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL MONDAY, JANUARY 21ST

Amazing Stories, the world's first science fiction magazine, is now open to the public.

Social Magazine Website Offers Nearly Sixty Writers and Social Networking For Fans!