DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

My online bookstore is now live, and I've added a page where I'll be posting special discount offers, including free giveaways, discounts, and 2-for-1 specials. Current offers include:

• a coupon for a free ebook version of any short story contained in my second collection, Chimerascope
• 50% off any ebook in my store.

Most of the coupons have a limit of one use per customer, and they all have a maximum number of buyers, so try them out soon. I'll change the coupons regularly, so check the page often. Any feedback on the store or my site is always welcome.

The indie film based on my short story "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down" will be screening at the film festival program at the 2011 Cyphan convention in Chicago, July 29-31. Great to see that this movie still has some legs. It's won 11 awards so far for Anthony and the crew, so let's hope it picks up some more. You can read all about the movie, the awards its won, how it came about, plus see the trailer and more right here. The official Movie Companion Book is also now available as an ebook or a signed personalized print book.

Krista D. Ball interviews me on her site today about writing and marketing short fiction, including the following:

• Is the short form your favourite to write, or did you just fall into that?
• How does an author choose when to do a collection?
• As a reader, what do you look for in short fiction?
• Do the works of others influence where your ideas take you?
• What advice would you give an unpublished writer trying to break into short stories?
• What is your opinion on unpaid or very low paying markets? Do you have a firm rule (“I never work for under 2 cents a word”) or do you play it by ear for each market and/or piece?

Read the interview here.

To launch my new online bookstore, I'm running a 2-for-1 sale this week. Buy any ebook and add another of equal or lesser value to your order for free. Just enter this coupon code into the "Coupon code" box in the shopping cart page:

2FOR1-01B294B2

One use per customer. The sale ends next week, Saturday, July 16. Hope that you'll check out the store!

I blogged earlier about my collection Chimerascope being chosen by the jury for the 2011 Sunburst Awards short list for adult fiction. SF Scope has now kindly published the full shortlist with buying links on Amazon for all of the finalists. So if you want to check out some of the best Canadian speculative fiction from 2010, click away!

My new online store is now officially launched and live on this site! The new store provides the following options for buying my published fiction:

• Short Story eBooks: You can now buy over two dozen brand new ebooks of my previously published short stories and novelettes, most of them for only $0.99. All are available in both .mobi (Kindle) and .epub formats (all other major ereaders), and all are DRM-free. With one exception, the gorgeous covers were done by Erik Mohr, the talented artist who does all of the covers for ChiZine Publications. Jean-Pierre Normand, the equally talented and multi-award winning artist, also did one cover.
• Chimerascope: Now you can find buying links for my first full collection, Chimerascope, at my online bookstore and at all the major traditional and online book stores, including Chapter/Indigo, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and many other ebook retailers. Chimerascope is currently a finalist for the 2011 Sunburst Award for adult fiction and for the 2011 Aurora Award as well. Earlier this year, it was a finalist for the inaugural CBC Bookies Award for Best Collection.
• Impossibilia: Similar to Chimerascope, you can now find a full set of buying lnks for Impossibilia, my first collection and an Aurora Finalist in 2009.
• By Her Hand, She Draws You Down: The Movie Companion Book: You can now purchase the ebook version of this collector's item from the store, as well as ordering the original print version.
• Personalized and signed print copies: Want a special gift? Now you can order signed editions of Chimerascope, Impossibilia, and the By Her Hand Movie Book, personalized as per your instructions and shipped to you directly. So take a look around the new store. I hope that you'll find something that you like!

My weird / SF / time travel / love story, "Radio Nowhere" will be published as an audio book in an upcoming issue of Escape Pod, the excellent SF podcast magazine. "Radio Nowhere" first appeared in the horror anthology, Campus Chills, and was a finalist for the Aurora Award in 2010. If you'd like to read the story and didn't get a copy of the anthology, you can buy the ebook version of "Radio Nowhere" from my online store for just $0.99. I'll post here and tweet when the story is up on the Escape Pod site.

ChiZine Publications, who published my collection have just announced that all CZP titles are now available on Barnes & Noble's ebook reader, the Nook. The Nook is the second most popular e-reader on the market, behind Amazon's Kindle. Here's the link to Chimerascope on the Nook.

I am thrilled to announce that my short fiction collection, Chimerascope, has been selected by the jury for the 2011 Sunburst Award short list. In making the selection, the Sunburst jury had this to say about Chimerascope:

"This collection contains a beautifully diverse selection of short tales that runs the full spectrum of the speculative genres. The tales are well-crafted, easily digestible; several of the stories are incredibly moving and stick with the reader long after. The wide range of stylistic approaches works well together."

From the press release:

I'll be appearing at the main branch of the Guelph Public Library on September 21 at 7pm, to repeat the workshop on marketing short fiction that I gave with On Spec's Diane Walton this past May out in Edmonton. This workshop will be the first in a new series that Kevin Nunn has added to the Sound of Writing reading series. Readings and workshops will alternate on a monthly basis going forward, if all works out as Kevin hopes. Here's a link to the public Facebook event page.

I'm planning to cover the same topics as in the Edmonton workshop, but this time, unfortunately without the editor's perspective that Diane provided. Here's the outline: