Archive for the ‘The SFWA Blog’ Category

THE INDIE FILES: Productivity That Fits You

by Marie Andreas New year, new you, new stories! And, as always, new ways to increase your productivity. Every January, writers look at ways to increase their output. Whether you’re a casual writer or one making a living at it—we always want to be more effective with what writing time we have. But how to […]

The LGBTQ+ Speculative Experience: Part 4

(Kind of like the Star Trek Experience—lots of diversity that some accept, some fight, and others never see) by Elle Ire   Concluding Mission Our exploration of the experiences of various members within the LGBTQ+ spec-fic community concludes by examining the professional writing organizations our interviewees have had experience with and how welcoming or inclusive […]

SFWA Market Report – January 2024

Welcome to the January edition of the SFWA Market Report. Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by SFWA. Those markets included on this list pay at least $0.08/word USD in at least one category of fiction. This compilation is not exhaustive of all publication opportunities that pay […]

How Writing Challenges Made Me a Better Writer

By Rachel Craft I’ve recently gotten hooked on writing “challenges,” multi-round contests that give participants a creative prompt and a tight deadline to write a short story. Sometimes it’s a week, sometimes it’s as little as 24 hours. If that sounds stressful and even somewhat insane, it is—but it’s also incredibly fun, and a valuable […]

Sharing the Spotlight: 6 Tips for Collaborative Storytelling

By Hildy Silverman Sharing story creation and developmental duties with a writing partner might seem daunting, given that we authors tend to invest a certain amount of ego (to put it mildly) into our work. Writing alone, we can be possessive of our characters and staunch in our plans for their adventures. Yet co-authors must […]

THE INDIE FILES: 5 Ways to Sell Your Books Directly

Is Using Direct Sales the Right New Channel for Your Books? by Kelly McClymer Direct sales are a hot topic for indie authors right now and will only get hotter in 2024. The two main reasons are: Readers spoiled by the wide range of books available for purchase online are no longer hesitant to buy […]

Choose Your Own Dr. Scientist Adventure 

by Jason P. Burnham Did you know that the human body has fewer human cells than it does microorganisms? Fortuitously, Dr. Scientist knew that—and they will be your teacher on this journey to incorporate microbiomes into your fiction. How can you portray Dr. Scientist’s very important microbiome research in your next story? Is our scientist […]

SFWA Market Report – December 2023

Welcome to the December edition of the SFWA Market Report. Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by SFWA. Those markets included on this list pay at least $0.08/word USD in at least one category of fiction. This compilation is not exhaustive of all publication opportunities that pay […]

Cooperative Publishing: Writers Taking Charge of Their Publishing Careers

By Diana Pharaoh Francis Writers can have great success when indie publishing, but many feel underqualified or underprepared to handle all the dimensions of self-publishing. I did. While there are numerous specialists available to help you navigate the journey, they can get expensive, and the process can be overwhelming. Enter another option: A publishing co-op. […]