Archive for the ‘Advice for New Writers’ Category

The Do’s and Don’ts of Asking for Reviews

by Carien Ubink It’s important to get reviews, but if you ask in the wrong way, your request might be deleted right away. So here are some do’s and don’ts when asking a blogger or fellow author for a review. Do your research. This means you need to have a good look at the blog/site/profile […]

Breaking Into Publishing Isn’t Easy, but if You’re Not in America, It’s Even Harder

By Sascha Stronach Note: This article first appeared in The Bulletin #216 in October 2021. Publishing (verb): the act of smashing your head against a wall until you see daylight. Publishing From Outside America (verb): as above, at long range. In the aftermath of CoNZealand, the 78th Worldcon, there was a palpable feeling of betrayal […]

What Speculative Fiction Writers Can Learn from the Origins and Evolution of the Wuxia Genre

by Yilin Wang Note: This article first appeared in The Bulletin #216 in October 2021. When I tell other writers who are not familiar with Sinophone literature that I am writing short stories and a novel that play with the wuxia fiction genre in English, I am often met with one or more of the […]

Author Advances: An Update for Your Expectations

by Alice Speilburg Nearly every summer, I bring on an intern for the agency, and each week we cover a different publishing topic, focusing on traditional publishing paths in the US. When we get to author payment structures—advances and royalties—I start with a theoretical explanation. An advance is intended to cover an author’s expenses while […]

Submission Tetris: An Analytic Approach

by Laurence Raphael Brothers Introduction Short fiction submissions can be challenging. There are many factors to juggle in deciding what to submit, and where. “Submission Tetris” is the game of matching your available stories with magazine and anthology slush calls. Markets and Market Lists The two leading short fiction market and submission trackers are The […]