As an editor I see a lot of bad cover letters. I can’t help but think folks are following some bad advice out there, so I wrote a thing that might help. It’s long and it’s a little ranty and cranky (because I’ve seen a lot of bad cover letters in the last month), but I hope […]
Read More How to Write a Proper Short Story Cover LetterOriginally posted on The Toy Soldier Saga:
? Welcome to another Friday Author Spotlight! This week Diane Morrison is here to tell us about her novel, Homefront, which is part of the On the Horizon Bundle. She’ll also be sharing an excerpt from her book, so keep reading! Diane Morrison lives with her partners in Vernon, BC, where…
By Delilah S. Dawson This is like that Couch to 5k thing people do to gear up for a marathon. Except you can do it without leaving your couch. And for me, a book is a better souvenir than a popped-off toenail. What follows is the quickest, dirtiest, most simple route to writing a novel […]
Read More 25 Steps to Being a Traditionally Published AuthorBy Ruth Harris We all come face to face with them, those pesky glitches, oopsies, OMGs and WTFs that ruin a story, turn a reader off, guarantee a slew of one-star reviews—and kill sales. Beta readers will often point them out. Editors are professional fixers, always on the lookout for booboos. You will realize them […]
Read More Plot Holes & Pot HolesBy Shaun David Hutchinson I tell stories because the real world sucked for me when I was a teen. No. Sucked doesn’t even begin to cover it. The real world nearly killed me. The real world told me that I was going to hell because I was gay. It told me I would die of […]
Read More Representation MattersBy David Barnett Two centuries. Two hundred years. That’s how long we’ve had science fiction. From the birth of Frankenstein, to the death of Ursula K Le Guin. Two hundred years. This was originally meant to be just the story of Frankenstein, written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and published on 1 January 1818. But this week, with […]
Read More If Mary Shelley Invented SF, Why Are So Few Female SF Writers Known?From the December 2013 issue of Locus Magazine Telling people who don’t read science fiction and fantasy that I write it is still awkward. My mom used to tell people I wrote ‘‘novels like Stephen King,’’ even though I can’t watch a movie more supernaturally terrifying than Ghostbusters without enduring fierce nightmares, insomnia, and night sweats. I prefer corporeal, knife-wielding villains […]
Read More Kameron Hurley: Making Excuses for Science FictionBy Derek Haines Why are Amazon ebook reviews from US readers more important than reviews from international readers? Have you noticed that reviews from Amazon.com are aggregated across all other international Amazon sites, but that the reverse is not true? If someone kindly posts a review of a book on Amazon.co.uk, it is stuck there, and […]
Read More Amazon Ebook Reviews Are US Biased
