By John Wilker Self-publishing. You have choices. One of the best parts of being an indie author/publisher is control. You are the sole decision maker on where and how your book is available. A lot of first-time authors come into this thinking that Amazon is the only place to sell books. Sure they have a […]

 Marketing and Promotion is part of the Indie Pub 101 resource. This section primes authors for the daunting task of driving interested readers to their work. Visit the Indie Pub 101 main page here. Marketing and Promotion Many independently published authors will tell you that marketing is the hardest part. They know how to write a book, […]

This week, SFWA has partnered with Clarion West for Week 4 of their annual summer Write-A-Thon! The Write-A-Thon takes place over the same six weeks as their intensive workshop for emerging writers. Anyone is welcome to register to take part in the Write-A-Thon, and if you haven’t yet, please visit their website to do so: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/clarionwestwriteathon/.  […]

by Gabriel Murray We tend to remember our first brushes with the imaginary vast: when we read our first children’s portal fantasy, were enchanted by the animated world of our first Studio Ghibli film, or got lost in our first strange, endless game map. As writers, we often want to bring our own readers there […]

By Jeffe Kennedy In interviews, I’m often asked how I ended up writing a blend of fantasy and romance. It’s become a more frequent question, in fact, in the year since I’ve been president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). It’s a subject of well-intended curiosity in most cases, why I’m […]

by Marie Brennan Recently, I’ve seen a number of online discussions about stories without conflict, especially stories from outside the Western narrative tradition. I’m not the right person to discuss those specific approaches, but listening to the conversations has made me realize how narrow a definition of conflict my teachers presented to me. If your […]

Page updated/links checked 12/11/23 What Editors Do When Do You Need a Freelance Editor? What Editing Can’t Buy A Note About Beta Readers Literary Consultancies and Manuscript Assessment Services Vetting Editors and Editing Services Caution Signs Links What Editors Do A freelance or independent editor is someone who, for a fee, will undertake to read your manuscript […]

By Nicole Valentine Note: This blog post is not an endorsement by SFWA of the products discussed within it. If you’re anything like me, the pandemic has cut into your ability to focus and write. It’s also changed the way we come together as a community. We’ve celebrated our Nebula Awards online twice now, and […]

By Renan Bernardo In the second century A.D., Lucian of Samosata wrote A True Story, a tale of space trips and alien life-forms. His first language was Syriac, but to reach the people of Athens, he wrote the tale in Attic Greek. Since then (and probably before), speculative fiction has been written by exophonic(1) writers […]

By Kahina Necaise Convincing fiction is about cause and effect.  That’s why, in my work as an editor, the two questions I ask most often while diagnosing an issue with a client’s story are:  Does this come out of nowhere? Does anything ever come of this? Does this come out of nowhere? is about unclear […]