Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction (2nd edition) PDF Download

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Spiral Path Books
ISBN: 1928048382
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
“Short story writers have needed a book like this for decades. ... It's spectacular.” — Kristine Kathryn Rusch, multi-award-winning author & editor Fully revised and current, this second edition addresses every change in the short fiction landscape since the classic original edition came out a decade ago. “Doug has gone through this new volume carefully, updating every possible detail. That makes the second edition as indispensable to the short fiction writer as the first.” — Kristine Kathryn Rusch, multi-award-winning author and editor Take your first step to becoming a professional short fiction writer—Buy this book! In an engaging and conversational style, multi-award-winning author Douglas Smith teaches how to market and sell short stories—and much, much more. Even experienced writers will find value here as Smith takes you from your first sale to using your stories to build a writing career. Topics include: The Fundamentals: The different types of writers. The benefits of short fiction. Rights and licensing. Selling Your Stories: Knowing when it's ready. Choosing markets. Submitting stories. Avoiding mistakes. How editors select stories. Dealing with rejections. When to give up on a story. After a Sale: Contracts. Working with editors. What your first sale means. Dealing with reviews. A Writer's Magic Bakery: Selling reprints. Foreign markets. Audio markets. Selling a collection. The indie option. Becoming Established: Leveraging your stories. Discoverability and promotion. Career progression in short fiction. Douglas Smith is the ideal person to write this book. His stories have appeared in thirty-seven countries and twenty-six languages. He has three acclaimed collections and has won five awards—three for his short fiction alone. “Douglas Smith is, quite simply, the finest short-story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres.” —Robert J. Sawyer, multi-award-winning author “Lots of writers write good books on craft. Few have the experience to write good books on the publishing business. Doug is one of those few, and this book shows it.” — Kristine Kathryn Rusch, multi-award-winning author and editor

Author: Matty Dalrymple
Publisher: William Kingsfield Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
Are you a short fiction writer wondering what opportunities are open to you? Are you a long-form fiction writer wondering if short fiction is worth the investment of your time? Short fiction is enjoying a resurgence and provides both independently and traditionally published authors opportunities for creating income and connecting with readers. Matty Dalrymple and Mark Leslie Lefebvre will show you where those opportunities lie and how to take advantage of them. CREATING INCOME Traditional Publishing Market Anthologies & Collections Mechanics of Indy Anthologies Standalone e-books e-book Collections Serials Foreign Language Markets Audio Patron Support Getting Unstuck CONNECTING WITH READERS Offering Your Story for Free Reader Funnel Reader Magnet Video Author Readings Market Research Flash Fiction and Micro-Fiction Chapbooks Bonus Material Custom Story Location-based Apps When the Reader Is an Agent BEST PRACTICES Editing and Proofreading Cover Design Links and QR Codes Being an Active Member of the Community Create Once, Publish Everywhere Matty Dalrymple is the author of the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels and Suspense Shorts and the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers. She writes, speaks, consults, and podcasts on independent publishing as The Indy Author™. Mark Leslie Lefebvre (as Mark Leslie) has authored numerous horror short stories and edited horror anthologies. He writes, speaks, consults, and podcasts on topics related to writing, publishing, and bookselling. He was the founder of Kobo Writing Life and is the Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital.

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
ISBN: 1928048218
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Twelve-year-old Andy Pembleton's younger brother disappeared two years ago. The loss tore Andy's world apart. His father left. His mother withdrew into guilt, all but ignoring Andy. But Andy is going to change all of that. He has a plan to find his brother—a deeply disturbing one. " ...about every parent’s worst nightmare. This was a gripping tale and goes to show that not only parents suffer when a child goes missing and how it can warp a child." —Bitten By Books

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
ISBN: 1928048129
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 37

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Book Description
Aurora Award Finalist When James Mackaby, respected scholar, husband and father, accepts a dinner invitation from an old rival who has fallen on hard times, he has no idea that revenge is on the menu. During this singular evening, three very separate and very different dinners will take place, all at the same time, all in the same place, all with the same guests. And by the end of the last course, no one’s life will ever be the same again. "Another standout is the masterful "State of Disorder," which contemplates the flexibility and fluidity of time." —Ideomancer Magazine "A neat twist on time travel and quantum physics." —Publishers Weekly "The claustrophobic atmosphere of this tale heightens its devilish suspense and draws favorable comparisons to Poe’s tales of trapped, desperate protagonists." —Tangent Online "A chilling story of three dinners in the same place and time, and a very satisfying ending made this another A++ story [in Chimerascope]." —Fantasy Book Critic "A stunning piece of work." —Kim Mohan, editor, Amazing Stories

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
ISBN: 1928048005
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Aurora Award Finalist Think of human emotion as a geography, with peaks of pleasure and valleys of pain. Imagine a drug that flips the valleys and makes them peaks, too. You react now to an event based not on the pleasure or pain it brings, but solely on the intensity of the emotion created. Pain brings pleasure, grief gives joy, horror renders ecstasy. Now give this drug to a soldier. Tell them to kill. Not in the historically acceptable murder of war, but in a systematic corporate strategy--of xenocide. They will kill. And they will revel in it. Welcome to the world of Scream. Jarrod is a Scream-addicted soldier forced to take part in the destruction of entire races. But when his unit encounters the Be’nan, aliens who hold the secret to true enlightenment, no one is prepared for the result. "...reaches far past the muddled mediocrity of swashbuckling tales forgotten before the page is turned to the next story. I enjoyed the alien anthropology and the details are tremendous...in this tale of tremendous sacrifice" —Tangent Online "My favourite of the selection was 'Enlightenment' by Douglas Smith. A strange story indeed about Earth people engaged in strip-mining planets and relocating indigenous populations. ... The end is horrific in many respects but it's also thought-provoking." —SF Crowsnest Reviews "...[tells of] a spiritual undertaking by a member of a brutal planetary occupation force who "goes native" in which Douglas Smith provides a riff on Ray Bradbury's famous rationale of space travel: for Man to find God in the cosmos. A science fictional depiction of the mistreatment of "aliens" to subvertly criticize the atrocities of imperialist colonization." —SF Site "... unexpected twists and a superb ending; the story is as powerful as any in the [Chimerascope] collection (A++)" —Fantasy Book Critic "Douglas Smith...succeeds in evoking an alien society with mythic/religious overtones in his moving tale ‘Enlightenment’." —New Hope International Review Online "Another strong story, looking at humanity's treatment of indigenous people." —Best SF "...oppressed inhabitants of distant worlds making the ultimate sacrifice in order to bring mankind back to the realisation of what right and wrong truly mean." —Whispers of Wickedness reviews "Nicely judged depictions of alien customs..." —SF Site "...was my favourite of the issue. ‘Enlightenment’ went exactly where I expected it to, but that was where I wanted it to go--I was there for the ride" "Stories [were] great, particularly ‘Enlightenment.’ [I] was just engrossed in the whole thing...and applaud it thoroughly!" "...just blew me away...I was taken away by the lovely prose." "...provoked some really interesting ideas..." "...mind-blowing..." —InterZone readers forum

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
ISBN: 1928048102
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 53

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Book Description
Think of human emotion as a geography, with peaks of pleasure and valleys of pain. Imagine a drug that flips the valleys and makes them peaks, too. You react now to an event based not on the pleasure or pain that it brings, but solely on the intensity of the emotion created. Pain brings pleasure, grief gives joy, horror renders ecstasy. Now give this drug to a soldier. Tell them to kill. Not in the historically acceptable murder of war, but in a systematic corporate strategy—of xenocide. They will kill. And they will revel in it. Welcome to the world of Scream. Jason Trelayne is a Screamer, a soldier forced to take part in the enslavement or death of entire races. But Trelayne falls in love with Philomela, a Scream Angel, an alien who produces the addictive drug. Does he love her for her beauty, for the drug she gives him, from guilt for what he has done to her people? And does she love truly him as she swears? Or is he simply her only hope for freedom, for her and her entire race? Forced to choose between freedom and love, what will they do? "...a multi-layered tale about a circus that features a pair of ‘angels’ who have the ability to produce a drug that produces pleasure based on intensity of emotion. Factor in that the owner of the circus is in love with one of the angels as well as addicted to the drug she produces, and the story quickly becomes one that holds the reader’s attention until the very end." —SpecFicWorld "Smith describes a disturbingly plausible military application for the narcotic ... The basic concept behind the drug strikes me as one of those rare ideas that seems at once so perfect and so natural that someone must have come up with it before; but if someone has, I haven't heard about it, and regardless Smith exploits the potential of the idea extraordinarily well here." —Strange Horizons "...remind[ed] me of the reasons I love the author’s writing: his characterisation, attention to detail and recurring themes of love, faith and redemption."—SF Crowsnest Reviews "A visceral work [...] a true pearl of the fantastic literature. Breath-taking."—Café de Ontem "The story has so many layers that I'm still sorting them out. And like an onion, I'm not sure if I'll ever find the final layer."—Tangent Online "A dark and powerful story with a first line that sets the tone for what is to come: 'They stopped beating Trelayne when they saw that he enjoyed it.' (A++)"—Fantasy Book Critic "Scream Angel was especially horrifying and compelling, and I wound up re-reading it again after I had finished the book."—Fluidity of Time

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
ISBN: 099180077X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description
Maroch, ex-CIA, reluctantly agrees to coach a beautiful young woman “remote viewer” in a scheme to locate lost paintings. But the woman, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his dead wife, has her own secrets. Together, they set off a chain of events that may alter the past and destroy both their lives. “The pièce de résistance of the collection and one of the best and most moving novellas I have read in a while. Haunting and evocative... Just astounding. ...” —Fantasy Book Critic “This is one of those heady and ambitious stories that throw so many different elements into the narrative mix that one wonders whether the author is going to be able to pull it off. In fact, Smith does so very skillfully, so that the plot arc, character development, and denouement come off feeling effortless and elegant, and quite satisfying.” —Dead Reckonings review magazine “...a beautiful and haunting tale of love, loss and remote viewing. “ —Hellnotes

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
ISBN: 1928048110
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
AURORA AWARD WINNER A Heroka story. The Heroka are an ancient race of shape shifters, drawing vitality from their animal totems. Gwyn Blaidd, a Heroka of the wolf totem, has been a recluse ever since a deadly battle with the Tainchel, the covert government agency that hunts his kind—a battle that cost him the woman he loved. But to save an old friend, Gwyn must again face the Tainchel—and his own dark past. “A vivid and wonderfully written tale about Native Canadian spirits, in the vein of Thomas King.” —Challenging Destiny “Draws on North American Indian myths, particularly the idea of shapeshifters... Smith once more creates a credible and sympathetic protagonist, Gwyn Blaidd, [who] returns to his old stomping ground to help out some fellow shapeshifters who have become embroiled in a conflict with a large logging concern.” —The Fix

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
ISBN: 0991800761
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
The man known only as Stranger lived and died in a town with no name. Each day he lived. And each night he died... “...absolutely masterful...a kind of much, much creepier Quantum Leap: the amnesiac protagonist awakes in a new body each morning only to die in it by nightfall.” —Strange Horizons “Another superb story ... unpredictable and with a great ending, this story is another highlight of the [Chimerascope] collection (A++).” —Fantasy Book Critic “...wonderful...has a taste that lingers...” —SF Crowsnest “A charming tale about a man cursed to die every day and be reborn as someone else.” —SFRevu “A fascinating fabulist premise...” —Internet Review of SF

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
ISBN: 0991800796
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
Aurora Award Finalist story from a multi-award winning author. The House promised Jack wealth, fame, and revenge...if it didn’t kill him first. ~~~ Dr. Lucius Rainer, head of research at GenTech, is dead. But to Jack, it seems that his old mentor still lives on through his house. Certainly, Rainer’s strange island retreat exudes the personality of its late owner: isolated and eccentric, brooding and uninviting. But when GenTech learns that the house holds a working model of Rainer’s final project, Jack discovers that the house shares one other trait with its former owner. Dangerous. The house will open only to Jack’s biometrics, and will only allow two very specific people to accompany him: Wendy, Jack’s now ex-wife, and Deak Sanderson, Wendy’s new lover and Jack’s former rival at GenTech. As the three of them explore the house and its secrets, Jack discovers that some doors—in this house and in life—should never be opened. “A couple months ago I was introduced to Douglas Smith by way of his collected short stories, Impossibilia. So I was looking forward to his story 'Doorways' and was not disappointed. ... This story has a cunningly satisfying conclusion. I find a good short story falls into two categories: There is the complete story, the novel miniaturised, which is a nearly perfect art form. These are hard to capture but constantly illustrated by such writers as Douglas Smith.” —SF Crowsnest Book Reviews “...is based on an interesting concept ... The puzzles [in the story] and the final invention that they hint at are intriguing ... Smith ties [the story's] denouement’s metaphorical significance in well with the technological concept at the center of the plot.” —The Fix