Planetside Full Archives
Planetside: The Online Magazine of SFWA
No post found!
The SFWA Blog
Nebula Awards Interview: Paolo Bacigalupi
I worked for thirteen years, failed to sell four novels, wrote short stories for a while after I gave up on novels, and eventually got up the guts to write more novels. My fifth and sixth novels were the ones that…
Guest Post: Little e, Big B:
Books and EBooks and Love and War
My interest in ebooks is a tiny percentage of my interest in books. I didn’t dream of being a writer so I could spend my time discussing file formats and what Author X (even if X= me) did to sell…
Alert: Light Sword Publishing, a.k.a. LSP Digital, Returns
In July of 2008, I blogged about Light Sword Publishing, a.k.a. LSP Digital, about which Writer Beware had received a substantial number of complaints (delays, nonpayment of royalties, unprofessional behavior, misrepresentation of the company’s expertise and capabilities).
Guest Post: Having a Saleable Novel
Doesn’t Make You a Sell-out
So let’s get back to that whole laughing at work-for-hire authors or trashing popular books or not understanding what a saleable novel is.
The Authors Guild on Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library
Publishers aren’t eager to allow Amazon to undermine the economics of the e-book market, representing the lone bright spot for the industry, by permitting an estimated two to five million Amazon Prime customers to start downloading e-books for free.
Odyssey Writing Workshops Charitable Trust
Announces Winter 2012 Online Classes
Last winter, we had a huge response to the three online courses we offered. Writers from all over the world applied; only fourteen were admitted to each course. Using the latest technology, we were able to interact with…
Introducing Writer Beware’s Small Presses Page
A brand-new page on Small Presses has been added to the Writer Beware website.
Here’s what you’ll find:
An overview of issues to consider if you’re thinking of submitting to a small press. For instance, stability can be a problem–the attrition rate…
The Brit Writers Awards: Questions and Threats
Last December, I blogged about the Brit Writers Awards, an awards program for first-time authors, which was dogged by allegations of loose judging standards and poor communication.
Guest Post: Novelists, Inc., Conference Report
According to Carolyn’s research, aided by Google, there are about 288,355 books published every year by traditional publishers. Current estimates anticipate 800,000 books will be self-published this year. So how do you make your book stand out among…
Policy and Procedure on Harassment in SFWA Venues
Updated 9/21/2018 (A PDF of the following is available for download.) Introduction SFWA® sponsors or hosts discussion boards, communication avenues such as the SFWA Slack Channel, social media presences via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., publications, the SFWA website, Writer Beware®,…
Quick Updates for 2011-11-03
Member News for D. Walters Grintalis, Jennifer Brozek, Allan Cole, Felicity Shoulders, Nancy Kress, and Ferrett Steinmetz.
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…