Is book publicity necessary? In my mind: yes. Do you need a publicist? It depends! I’ve long felt that authors are small business owners; what publicity means to an author is going to vary widely depending upon the resources available.
Marketing is, and has been, a hot topic for authors these past few years. This two-part article seeks to remove the mysticism from the subject so you can make better decisions about your career.
Many writers have heard of the “DMCA takedown notice” but not everyone understands what it is. In this post, I’ll try to explain the basics and give you some ideas about how to use the tool to protect your rights and how to respond if you’re on the receiving end of one that you consider to be without merit.
A short story is like a pie because, first, you can do one relatively quickly. Second, everyone likes pie.
Third, with both short stories and pie, you can use the finest ingredients in the world and still come up with an inedible mess.
If you’re selling books on Amazon, you’ll want to set up your page in their Author Central program. Use your Author Central page to provide more information for your readers: upcoming events, a full listing of your books, pictures and videos, and even excerpts from your blog.
Writers are sometimes confused by the “registration” requirement under the US copyright laws. In this post, I hope to clear up the concept and help you decide whether copyright registration makes sense for you.
On February 23rd, at 8PM, the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, located at 3310 East Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21224, will host Scott H. Andrews (Beneath Ceaseless Skies), Damien Walters Grintalis (Electric Velocipede), Rahul Kanakia (formerly of Strange Horizons), Leslie Connors (Apex Magazine) and moderator Sarah Pinsker (published in multiple magazines) for a round table discussion titled, “From Slush to Sale: Behind the Scenes at Science Fiction Magazines.”
For writers who are interested in writing middle grade or young adult fantasy or science fiction, the first step is puzzling out what exactly those categories mean. Science fiction and fantasy, after all, has a long tradition of featuring young protagonists — including such classics as Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey, Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings, and Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey — even if those novels weren’t originally published as middle grade or young adult books.
MFA Programs and the efficacy or use thereof tend to come up in discussion periodically. For those of you interested, here is a run down of the types of programs and what to expect. I personally have an MFA in Poetry from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and am currently looking into applying for a second MFA, this time in Fiction. I might be addicted to school. Or it might be that MFA programs really are just that awesome.
You might have heard the advice, “Don’t chase the market.” That’s good advice, as a general idea, but many people misunderstand it and think that it means that you should not write for a specific audience. Here’s the thing… Your audience is not the market.
From the multi award-nominated author of SHIGIDI, a stunning new collection of stories that investigate the rapidly changing role of technology and belief in our lives as we search for meaning, knowledge & justice; converging to our future selves.
S.B. Divya is a lover of science, math, fiction, and the Oxford comma. She is the Hugo and Nebula nominated author of Meru and Machinehood. Her stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and she is a former editor of Escape Pod.
