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The SFWA Blog
Quick Updates for 2012-01-12
Member News for Matthew Johnson, Allan Cole, and Ferrett Steinmetz.
BookStoreMarketing.net: Beware Spam PR Services
Recently I’ve gotten a number of questions about BookStoreMarketing.net, a service that promises to promote authors’ books to bookstores via a printed catalog, a promotional…
Guest Post: Book Publicity: Working with Bookstores
If you do set up an event at a store, it may sound obvious, but an author promoting their event on their own Facebook and…
Guest Post: Debut Author Lessons–How to deal with self-promotion and award season
Let’s talk about self-promotion and how it feels icky.
Yes, self-promotion is awkward to do the first time. Yes, it is very easy to do badly….
2011: A Writer Beware Retrospective
As we begin the new year (Writer Beware’s fourteenth!), here’s a look back at some of Writer Beware’s most notable posts and warnings from 2011.
Happy Holidays From Writer Beware
Because even watchdogs have to rest sometimes, the Writer Beware blog will be taking a break over the holiday season.
Nebula Awards Interview: Jack McDevitt
The research is simple. I pick up phone and call a physicist. Or whomever. I don’t trust myself to do my own research because I…
Guest Post: RamboCon – Proposed Sessions for an Imaginary Spec-Fic Convention
Some panel ideas, which any convention organizer is welcome to grab.
Publisher Alert: Arvo Basim Yayin of Turkey
A couple of weeks ago, I began hearing from self-published and small press authors who’d been approached over the summer by a Turkish publisher called…
D Publishing: Dymocks’ New Self-Pub Service
Like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, Dymocks is a major book vendor. Unlike Amazon and Barnes and Noble, it doesn’t have its own ereading device–so…
Quick Updates for 2011-12-16
Member News for Ian Creasey, Paul Cook, Ed Greenwood, Robert Lowell Russell, Eric James Stone, David D. Levine, Eugie Foster, Ferrett Steinmetz, Karen Azinger, Brit…
Guest Post: How I Went From Writing
2,000 Words a Day to 10,000 Words a Day
When I told people at ConCarolinas that I’d gone from writing 2k to 10k per day, I got a huge response. Everyone wanted to know…
Pearson Education Extends Scope of Permissions Licenses
Writer Beware has learned that Pearson Education, a major education services company (and the parent company of trade publisher Penguin), is currently requesting vastly extended…
Nebula Awards Interview: Pearl North
Gender issues are an abiding interest of mine. I’m fascinated with how gender is constructed and how different people negotiate the spaces in between societal…
Subject: Hello from your Publicist
Today, when the dominant form of communication is email, it’s easy to go through your publicity campaign without ever hearing your publicist’s voice. This would…
The Fine Print of Amazon’s New KDP Select Program
KDP Select goes much farther: it makes Amazon, in effect, your publisher while your book is included in the program, and potentially has an impact…
NIU Libraries acquires papers of Fred Saberhagen
The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections has acquired the first installment of the papers of Chicago-born author Fred Saberhagen, a best-selling science fiction writer whose works…
Guest Blog Post: A Blast From the Past–Thieving "Literary Agent" Uwe Luserke Re-Surfaces
It seems clear that Luserke is active again–even if only sporadically. Given how few reminders of his perfidy survive on the Internet, I and…
Nebula Awards Interview: James Patrick Kelly
In my opinion the best way to learn to write stories is to write them as well as you can and then take them apart…
Guest Post: Novels – the expression of the human condition
Literature is what distinguishes us from every species that has gone before. It’s what makes it possible for seven billion of us to breathe the…
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: How Relying on Numbers Can Get You Into Trouble
It’s unfortunately very easy for writers to buy into these faux numbers–whether out of fear, or inexperience, or simply because they vindicate writers’ own frustration…
Nebula Awards Interview: Barry Deutsch
What’s special about the Norton shortlist is the company I’m in! I’m a lifelong reader of sf and fantasy, so seeing my work on the…
MLM for Writers: The Best Authors Lounge
Writers: Forget about that boring day job. Forget about tedious book promotion. Heck, forget about writing books! There’s another way to make money–and it was…
In Memoriam: Anne McCaffrey
SFWA Grandmaster Anne McCaffrey has passed away at the age of 85.