user394536‭

I hear this advice a lot: "Treat your writing as a job." But it seems to me that this is easier said/done when it is actually paying off and, thus, one is encouraged to do it. But what if one is be...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Mark Baker‭

It's funny that i have the opposite problem. I find it much easier writing novels than short stories, and oftentimes when i come up with a good short story plot it ends up actually being a novella!...

posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

I have heard that the the editor of F&SF (Finlay) is the only one who reads all the submissions. Yet he always responds within a week! (With detailed comments on each story.) Clarkesworld is an...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Why don’t they simply judge each story based on its own merit? Why do they want your publication history? Of what relevance is it to the story itself? I ask this because a suspicion has been growi...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Lots of writers give writing advice -- but why do they so often contradict each other? For example, some say that "good writing is rewriting", while others (like Dean Wesley Smith) say that rewrit...

2 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

I’ve heard from some authors that setting your book at a low price without making it clear that it is a sales/giveaway price tends to devalue your work and makes people assume that it is of low qua...

0 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

This is what I keep hearing but no one seems to be able to provide an explanation. Is it because 2.99 is high enough to be make the book respectable while 0.99 is low enough to make it easy for peo...

0 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

While I tend to agree with the writer & publishing guru, Dean Wesley Smith, that agents are usually a liability and that it is wrong for writers to hand over their royalties to them, I am not s...

0 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

I know it normally takes several months to get an agent and then a contract. But are there any shortcuts, any particular companies that one can submit to directly and get a much faster evaluation? ...

0 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Agents typically demand that authors sign over complete control of their royalties to them so that their money comes from the agent rather than from the publisher directly. I know a certain author ...

1 answer  ·  posted 5y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

If so, how? Intuitively, it would seem like being skilled in one automatically entails being skilled in the other. Why is that not necessarily the case?

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

How fast a magazine pays is a function of several factors like their response time for stories they accept, their payment policy (eg., paying on acceptance as opposed to paying after publication), ...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Or should I dumb down my writing and pander to what I think most people like to read? (Note: This isn't necessarily about me. It's a general question for many writers facing such a dilemma.) NB: ...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Is it a large seamless novel chopped up into several parts, or is it a collection of independent novels with recurring characters?

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

I find this rather strange given that the English-speaking population of the rest of the world combined is much greater than that of the US (even though the US is the largest single market for book...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by user394536‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭