Douglas Smith's blog

The final post (Part 32) in my now-completed "Playing the Short Game" series on marketing and selling short fiction at the Amazing Stories site is up. In this post, I finish off the series by completing last week's discussion on how the expanding options for indie publishing can be leveraged by the short fiction writer--and whether they should be.

That's it for the series. If you're a writer, I hope that you've been following along each week. If not, you can still check out all the posts in the series at this link on the Amazing Stories site.

I'll be taking a break for a bit to focus on my writing, but plan to be back at Amazing Stories with another series.

Part 31 in my continuing "Playing the Short Game" series on marketing and selling short fiction at the Amazing Stories site is now up. In this post, I discuss how the expanding options for indie publishing can be leveraged by the short fiction writer--and whether they should be.

I only have one more post in this series, which goes up next Saturday, before I wrap it up. You can check out all the posts in the series at this link on the Amazing Stories site.

Part 30 in my continuing "Playing the Short Game" series marketing and selling short fiction at the Amazing Stories site is now up. In this post, I discuss how to put together a collection of your short fiction and how to market a collection. I only have two more posts before I wrap up this series. You can check out all the posts in the series at this link on the Amazing Stories site.

My second collection, Chimerascope, is still generating interest and reviews. Writer Kristene Perron (Warpworld series) recently posted a review of the collection, and a short interview with me on story structure and plotting.  Here are some extracts:

Chimerascope, a collection of speculative fiction short stories, enchants, horrifies, enlightens, and mesmerizes. Through each tale, no matter the tone or subject, Smith connects the reader instantly with his characters and they are as unforgettable as they are diverse. From the broken and twisted (Jason Trelayne of “Scream Angel”, John Bishop of “Memories of the Dead Man”) to the ethereal and innocent (Asai of “The Red Bird, Big G of “Going Harvey in the Big House”), these characters step off the pages and become real.

Another of Smith’s strengths is structure. I’m in awe of his ability to choose just the right voice, POV, and timelines for his stories. He includes enough details to show the reader the depth of each world without bogging down the story in description. No matter how short the story, their worlds feel fully formed. ...

If you love speculative fiction, short stories, and masterful storytelling, Chimerascope needs to be on your bookshelf.

Thanks, Kristene!

The next post in my continuing "Playing the Short Game" series marketing and selling short fiction at the Amazing Stories site is now up. This week, in part 29, I look at some of the paths a writer might choose for their short fiction career (or paths that your career might pick all by itself). And special bonus points for anyone who leaves a comment correctly identifying the inspiration for the title of this week’s post. You can check out the earlier posts in the series at this link on the Amazing Stories site.

I'm a tad behind posting updates about the blog series that I'm writing at Amazing Stories on how to market and sell your short fiction--and more. I'm now dealing with a another set of topics on what can happen (and what you can make happen) after you've started to sell your stories.  Here's an update on the latest posts over the recent weeks:

• Part 24 – Let the Band Ring Out and the Banners Fly: To promote or not to promote
• Part 25 – A Writer’s Magic Bakery: Selling your stories again (and again, and again…)
• Part 26 – Bonjour / Hola / Ciao: Selling foreign language rights
• Part 27 – Bonjour / Hola / Ciao: Selling foreign language rights (conclusion)
• Part 28 – Cool Stuff That Might Happen (or Not): Awards, Best of Anthologies, Movies

Check them out and please feel free to leave comments or questions.

Part 23 of my series on selling short fiction is up now at Amazing Stories. Well, actually it's been up since Saturday, but I'm a tad late in posting about it here.  This week, I deal with a good news / bad news aspect of publishing your first story…the ever anticipated, ever dreaded reviews. I cover what reviews really are, a safe way for beginners to deal with reviews of their first published story, how to do pull quotes, and why writers should never be reviewers. Check it out!

This response by Stephen Fry to grammar police is wonderfully entertaining to listen to (and to watch for the animation), but more importantly, the message is one that all writers need to hear. Language is a living creature--it evolves, it grows, it changes, and we as writers, and especially fiction writers, should be the catalyst, the impetus, the drivers for that change.

Part 22 of my continuing series on selling short fiction is up now at Amazing Stories. This week I talk about what to expect after you've finally made your first sale. Much to the surprise of many new writers, your first sale doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to sell the next story to the next market where you submit. It doesn’t even guarantee that the market that just published your first sale will buy the next story that you send them. Or any story you ever send them again. Read more about what your first sale really means here.

Part 21 in my ongoing series on marketing and selling short fiction just went up on the Amazing Stories site. This week's post completes the two-part discussion I began in Part 20 of working with an editor on getting your story ready for publication. In Part 20, I talk about why having an editor to work with is a good thing and discuss the different types of edits a story can receive. This week, in part 21, I finish off the editing topic with some tips on handling the editing process, and on deciding when to agree to suggested changes and when to politely say no. I also deal with the special situation of editing suggestions for a previously published story that’s about to be reprinted. Feel free to leave questions and comments at the Amazing Stories site. A complete list of my posts in this series is available here. Next week, I’ll talk about what to expect the next time you submit a story to a market that has just published you.