Douglas Smith's blog

I've just posted an update to the Foreign Market List. Science Fiction Magazine in Denmark no longer accepts submissions in English (or any language other than Danish), citing difficulties in working with freelance translators.

Part 23 of my series on selling short fiction is up now at Amazing Stories. Well, actually it's been up since Saturday, but I'm a tad late in posting about it here.  This week, I deal with a good news / bad news aspect of publishing your first story…the ever anticipated, ever dreaded reviews. I cover what reviews really are, a safe way for beginners to deal with reviews of their first published story, how to do pull quotes, and why writers should never be reviewers. Check it out!

Kobo has my two collections, IMPOSSIBILIA and CHIMERASCOPE, for 30% off this weekend. Use the coupon code SUMMER30. Here are the links to the two books if you're interested:

Chimerascope

Impossibilia

Enjoy!

This response by Stephen Fry to grammar police is wonderfully entertaining to listen to (and to watch for the animation), but more importantly, the message is one that all writers need to hear. Language is a living creature--it evolves, it grows, it changes, and we as writers, and especially fiction writers, should be the catalyst, the impetus, the drivers for that change.

Part 22 of my continuing series on selling short fiction is up now at Amazing Stories. This week I talk about what to expect after you've finally made your first sale. Much to the surprise of many new writers, your first sale doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to sell the next story to the next market where you submit. It doesn’t even guarantee that the market that just published your first sale will buy the next story that you send them. Or any story you ever send them again. Read more about what your first sale really means here.

Part 21 in my ongoing series on marketing and selling short fiction just went up on the Amazing Stories site. This week's post completes the two-part discussion I began in Part 20 of working with an editor on getting your story ready for publication. In Part 20, I talk about why having an editor to work with is a good thing and discuss the different types of edits a story can receive. This week, in part 21, I finish off the editing topic with some tips on handling the editing process, and on deciding when to agree to suggested changes and when to politely say no. I also deal with the special situation of editing suggestions for a previously published story that’s about to be reprinted. Feel free to leave questions and comments at the Amazing Stories site. A complete list of my posts in this series is available here. Next week, I’ll talk about what to expect the next time you submit a story to a market that has just published you.