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Beware Zombies: Franklin-Madison Literary Agency
…today’s post is about zombie literary agencies… agencies that die only to rise again and lurch out onto the Internet in search of writers’ brains.
Guest Post: Should Writers Blog, and Why?
This is why I started blogging more than ten years ago. I wanted to connect with and learn from writers who knew what the heck they were doing. I found those people online. I read their journals, commented in their…
2011 World Fantasy Awards Announced
This year’s judges were Andrew Hook, Sacha Mamczak, Mark Rich, Sean Wallace, and Kim Wilkins.
Guest Post: Science Fiction and
the Scientifically Inclined Hero
I remember being impressed with Star Trek’s Captain Kirk as a kid. Not because he could karate chop unsuspecting alien guards into unconsciousness with one blow, but because he could think his way to victory as often as not.
Guest Blog Post: Copyright Is People
Recently, a consortium of university libraries called HathiTrust decided to make more than one hundred digitized books available as e-books to the universities’ communities because the books were “orphans,” works for whom the rightsholders could not be located after a…
A Small Press Implodes: The Inside Story of Aspen Mountain Press
Small press publishing is inherently risky–for publishers as well as for authors–and while the situation at AMP is uglier than many, it’s also far from unusual.
Guest Post: A Writer’s Crash Guide to
Recent Social Media Changes–Google+
A couple of days ago I covered Facebook’s new direction, including both the potential large upside for writers and the accompanying privacy concerns. But what about Google+?
Guest Post: A Writer’s Crash Guide to
Recent Social Media Changes—Facebook
Honestly, it is difficult (although not impossible) to avoid strategies that don’t incorporate Facebook in some way, either through a personal account or through Facebook Pages, at least not for writers who have at least one novel published. Once you…
Guest Blog Post: Fitzhenry and Whiteside–Writer Beware
Today’s guest post by multi-published author Doranna Durgin is about a publisher behaving badly.
More than that, however, it highlights something that every writer signing a publishing contract needs to be aware of: the importance of reversion clauses…
Guest Post: Beyond the First Two Pages
The logistics of slush piles demand ruthlessness, and stories that don’t intrigue the reader early on won’t get a second chance later. So, you’ve got your hook. It’s dramatic, it’s ingenious, and it’s free of typos. Your first two pages…
Guest Post: Submission Statistics and Revision Habits
If I’m unsure about a story, I put it on probation, and take another look 6 months later before I either lock it up, set it free, or possibly keep it on probation.
Alerts: Lobster Press and Dailey Swan Publishing
For some time, there’ve been rumors of financial trouble at Canadian children’s publisher Lobster Press. Those rumors were recently confirmed in articles from Publishers Weekly and Quill and Quire.
Writers Against Plagiarism: A Call to Action
It’s been a year since I first blogged about serial plagiarist “Iron” Dave Boyer (among many other names), whose prolific pilfering of other writers’ words has become something of an Internet legend, especially in the horror community, where he concentrates…
Nebula Awards Interview: Amal El-Mohtar
I am often fascinated by the process of bodies becoming things which they were not initially; The Honey Month is full of stories and poems where the colour of people’s skin and the scent of their hair becomes food for…
Guest Post: Submission Statistics — An Inside Look
I’ve published about three dozen short stories, and perhaps 1/3 are SFWA-qualifying. I thought I’d open my submission history in case it would help a new writer see what the submission process looks like.
Guest Post: In Praise of the Thesaurus
Few reference books are as fun to roam around in as thesauri. They demonstrate the marvelous connections possible with language.
Nebula Awards Interview: Eric James Stone
Because I could not recall reading a story in which the main character was a faithful Mormon in a high-tech far future, I decided to use my religion (and my singleness) for the main character.
The Agenda of "The Write Agenda"
Some of you may be aware that for the past few months, a group calling itself The Write Agenda has been attempting to wage a disinformation campaign against Writer Beware and other anti-scam activists.
Quick Updates for 2011-10-04
Member News for Eugie Foster, John Joseph Adams, David D. Levine, Tobias Buckell, Karin Low, and Ferrett Steinmetz.
Guest Post: Writing SF for Young Readers
A machine that creates gourmet meals-on-the-go in exchange for credits is still just a vending machine.
Video Pick of the Week: Steal Like an Artist
We can pick our teachers and we can pick our friends and we can pick the books we read and the music we listen to and the movies we see, et cetera. You are a mash-up of what you let…
Bad Publishing Contract Clauses, Part 1
I get a lot of questions about publishing contracts, and many requests to review them. I’m not a lawyer, but I do have a fair knowledge of publishing contract boilerplate, as well as a good grasp of the issues that…
Trouble at Aspen Mountain Press
To all appearances, Colorado-based Aspen Mountain Press is an active and problem-free publisher. According to its Submissions page, it is currently seeking new fiction, and it recently launched a SF/fantasy imprint.
Guest Post: The Habitable Zone
Recent astronomy news gave us word of a planet around a double star system. This is the first ever planet around a binary star that has been positively identified (outside of Tatooine – but that was in a galaxy far,…