Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction: Writing Guides
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About this ebook
Take your first step to becoming a professional short fiction writer—Buy this book!
In an engaging and conversational style, award-winning author Douglas Smith teaches you 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.
"We short story writers have needed a book like this for decades. I'm glad Doug decided to write it. Read and reread this volume. Because you'll learn something each time you do. And take Doug's advice. It's spectacular. Don't take my word for it. Turn the page and dive in. By the time you're done, I'll wager you'll be recommending this book to your writer friends—just like I have." —Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Award-winning Author and Editor
Topics covered 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.
With an introduction by multi-award winning writer and editor, Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
"Douglas Smith is, quite simply, the finest short-story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres." —Robert J. Sawyer, Award-winning author
Douglas Smith
Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator and the author of Rasputin and Former People, which was a bestseller in the U.K. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives with his family in Seattle.
Read more from Douglas Smith
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Reviews for Playing the Short Game
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Book preview
Playing the Short Game - Douglas Smith
Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction
Take your first step to becoming a professional short fiction writer—buy this book!
In an engaging and conversational style, award-winning author Douglas Smith teaches you 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.
~~
We short story writers have needed a book like this for decades. ... It’s spectacular.
—Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Award-winning Author & Editor
"If you are the least bit interested in having a career as a fiction writer then I can tell you what to read: Douglas Smith’s Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. From now on this is my go-to book for all things related to starting and maintaining my fiction writing career."
—Filip Wiltgren, The Guide to a Professional Writing Career
Contents
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.
With an introduction by multi-award winning writer and editor, Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
~~
Doug Smith is, quite simply, the finest short story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and he’s also the most prolific. His stories are a treasure trove of riches that will touch your heart while making you think.
—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author
One of Canada’s most original writers of speculative fiction.
—Library Journal
A great storyteller with a gifted and individual voice.
—Charles de Lint, World Fantasy Award winner
Smith’s writing, evocative yet understated, gracefully brings to life his imagined realms.
—Quill and Quire
Smith paints his worlds so well that you are transported within a paragraph or two and remain in transit until the story ends.
—Broken Pencil
His stories resonate with a deep understanding of the human condition as well as a characteristic wry wonder... Stories you can’t forget, even years later.
—Julie Czerneda, award-winning author and editor
An extraordinary author whom every lover of quality speculative fiction should read.
—Fantasy Book Critic
Smith is definitely an author who deserves to be more widely read.
—Strange Horizons
Sadly under read, Douglas Smith is deserving of an entire ‘Science Fiction You Haven’t Read…But Should’ article all to his own, and you’ll likely see it one day.
—Digital Science Fiction
Table of Contents
Description
Introduction by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
PLAYING THE SHORT GAME: HOW TO MARKET & SELL SHORT FICTION
About This Book (and How to Use It)
Section I — Setting a Foundation: The Fundamentals
Chapter 1. Why Are You Writing?: Deciding on the Writing Career You Want
Chapter 2. Why Short Fiction?: Its Benefits to a Writing Career
Chapter 3. Why You Never Sell
a Story: Rights and Licensing
Section II — Selling Short: How to Market Your Stories
Chapter 4. How Do I Know It’s Ready?: Submission Fear & Arrogance
Chapter 5. Where to First?: A Strategy for Choosing Short Fiction Markets
Chapter 6. Where to Look: Finding Short Fiction Markets
Chapter 7. Markets, Markets Everywhere: Selecting the Right Market
Chapter 8. Dear Editor: How to Submit Short Fiction
Chapter 9. The No-Nos: What Not to Do When Submitting Fiction
Chapter 10. The Numbers Game: What to Do after You’ve Submitted a Story
Chapter 11. Behind the Curtain: How an Editor Chooses (or Rejects) a Story
Chapter 12. Oh God, They Hate Me: Dealing with Rejections
Chapter 13. Drawing the Line: When to Stop Submitting a Story
Section III — You’ve Sold a Story: Contracts, Editing, and Reality
Chapter 14. Sign Here: What to Look (Out) for in Short Fiction Contracts
Chapter 15. I Love Your Story. Now Change It: Working with an Editor
Chapter 16. But You Bought My Last Story: What a First Sale Really Means
Chapter 17. They Said WHAT?!?: Dealing with Reviews
Chapter 18. Let the Band Ring Out and the Banners Fly: Promotion (or Not)
Section IV — The Magic Bakery: How to Leverage Your Stories
Chapter 19. Having Your Cake and Eating It Too: A Writer’s Magic Bakery
Chapter 20. This Story First Appeared In...: Selling Reprints
Chapter 21. Bonjour / Hola / Ciao: Selling Foreign Language Rights
Chapter 22. Curling Up with a Good Podcast: Selling Audio Rights
Chapter 23. More Options for Your Backlist: Collections
Chapter 24. A Brave New World: The Indie Option for Short Fiction
Section V — Is That All There Is?: Thoughts for Established Writers
Chapter 25. Cool Stuff That Might Happen: Awards, Best of Anthologies, Movies
Chapter 26. Bands and Banners Revisited: Promotion for Established Authors
Chapter 27. Where Do We Go from Here?: Career Progression in Short Fiction
Chapter 28. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish: Parting Thoughts
A REQUEST
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY DOUGLAS SMITH
CHIMERASCOPE
IMPOSSIBILIA
THE HOLLOW BOYS
THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD
COPYRIGHT
Index
Introduction by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
NOVELISTS THINK of short stories as afterthoughts. Oh, they tell each other, you can always write a short story.
They say that with a bit of a snobbish air, as if short stories are beneath them. They sit on their lofty 100,000 word perches and sneer at the writers who toil in the short fiction arena as if those writers really aren’t worthy.
Until the novels-only novelists try to write a short story, and realize just how hard it is. They can’t natter on for pages about how someone looks or reveal that he grew up with a German Shepherd, unless that dog is part of the short story’s plot.
For a while in the 1980s and 1990s, it looked like the short story might die of neglect. Only a few markets still published them in the genres. Outside of the genres, the literary press cut back on the short stories that it published as well—at least the stories that it paid for. If a short story writer wanted to sell something for copies of the publication, well, there were hundreds of those markets.
I put the word in quotes because, as a professional writer, I don’t give my work away, and the places that ask me to, saying I’ll get prestige, apparently don’t realize that I can’t eat prestige.
About ten years ago now, it became possible again to make a living selling just short fiction. A short fiction writer would have to write a lot of short fiction each year, and would have to be very good at marketing it, but the writer could make about a hefty five-figure income.
It took concentration; it meant the writer had to know her markets. It meant she had to understand contracts, and she had to look outside of her native land for reprint sales. But it could be done.
I know, because I did it.
I also sold novels at the time, but the short fiction made as much as four novel sales each and every year.
Fortunately for me, I love short stories, and I love writing them. I’ve edited them, I’ve written them, and I’ve owned publishing companies dedicated to publishing them. I blog about them even now, and I subscribe to almost every genre short fiction magazine I can get my hands on.
The short fiction market has greatly improved since the publishing industry started to change about five years ago. The rise of electronic publishing saved some of the genre magazines, and inspired others to start. Suddenly, the magazines could get worldwide subscribers with just a click of a button. A reader overseas didn’t have to pay massive shipping costs to read something curated by their favorite editor.
At least once a quarter, I donate to some Kickstarter project dedicated to funding a new magazine. At least once a quarter, I also donate to other Kickstarters funding a new anthology. Heck, I’m even back editing, and I said I wouldn’t do that unless I had complete creative control, something I didn’t have at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, back in the 1990s when I edited the magazine.
The short fiction markets haven’t just grown: They’ve exploded.
And not just in science fiction or mystery. Literary journals are actually paying money again. Romance anthologies have received major funding.
I suspect that writers could probably make more than the median income in the United States with short stories alone, as long as they keep their heads down and write a lot of short work.
Writing short takes skill. It takes craft and a dedication that novel-only writers don’t quite understand. New ideas weekly, a willingness to venture into creatively unknown territory, and on and on and on. The craft side alone of writing short fiction could take up an entire volume—and has.
(Ignore those books that tell you to spend a year or more on your short story; That’s for amateurs. If you want to be a professional writer—and why would you buy this book if you didn’t?—then write and mail a short story per week for one year. Just try it. What can it hurt?)
No one, to my knowledge, has written an entire book on the business of short fiction.
Until now.
Douglas Smith is the best person to write this book. Sure, Library Journal called him One of Canada’s most original writers of speculative fiction
and the marvelous Charles de Lint praised him. Doug has won or been nominated for dozens of awards, not just in Canada, but in France and the United States as well.
He’s one of the few people who has probably published more short fiction than I have, and in more countries, and more high-paying markets. He loves the short story as much as I do, and he’s good at writing them.
He’s just as good at the business side of the profession. He knows more about marketing short stories to other countries than I do. He understands how to manage short fiction contracts very well. He’s up-to-date on 21st century publishing practices, and he has a toughness that the best business people need.
We short story writers have needed a book like this for decades.
I’m glad Doug decided to write it.
Read and reread this volume. Because you’ll learn something each time you do. And take Doug’s advice. It’s spectacular.
Don’t take my word for it.
Turn the page and dive in.
By the time you’re done, I’ll wager you’ll be recommending this book to your writer friends—just like I have.
—Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Lincoln City, Oregon
April 30, 2014
PLAYING THE SHORT GAME: HOW TO MARKET & SELL SHORT FICTION
About This Book (and How to Use It)
HI AND WELCOME! Congratulations, too! By buying this book, you’ve taken your first step towards selling more stories and building a career as a professional short fiction writer.
Who This Book Is For
I wrote this book for the beginning short fiction writer who wants to learn how best to market and sell their stories. More experienced writers will also find value in these pages, but my target audience is the beginning writer.
Also, although many of my examples in this book relate to genre short fiction—science fiction (SF), fantasy, mystery, horror (since that’s what I write myself)—the advice I give applies to all and any short fiction writing.
Who I Am and Why I Can Help You
I’ve been selling short stories since 1997 and selling them regularly with multiple sales each year. I have over a hundred and fifty short fiction publications in thirty countries and twenty-five languages around the world, including top professional markets such as Amazing Stories, InterZone, Cicada, Baen’s Universe, Weird Tales, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror.
I have three collections of short fiction: Chimerascope (ChiZine, 2010), Impossibilia (PS Publishing, 2008), and a translated fantasy collection, La Danse des Esprits (Dreampress, France, 2011).
I’ve won Canada’s Aurora Award for short fiction three times and have been a finalist another sixteen times. I was a finalist for the international John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. My collections have been finalists for Canada’s juried Sunburst Award, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Bookies Award, and France’s juried Prix Masterton and Prix Bob Morane.
One of my short stories was made into a short film, and I’ve also published a novel, The Wolf at the End of the World. Check out my website at www.smithwriter.com for more information on my writing.
And if you are still not convinced, here’s a quote from Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Robert J. Sawyer:
Douglas Smith is, quite simply, the finest short story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and he’s also the most prolific. His stories are a treasure trove of riches that will touch your heart while making you think.
But in the end, you will decide if my advice in this book is worthwhile based on its value to you. So let’s get started.
What This Book Will Cover
In Section One, we set a foundation for the rest of the book and your short fiction career. I ask you to consider why you are writing and what kind of writer you are at this point in your career. I ask you to consider the career you want as a writer and what you are willing to invest to achieve your dream. We then review the many benefits of writing short fiction for any writer planning a long-term career. Finally, we look at why you never actually sell
a story and learn about licensing rights for short fiction.
With this critical foundation in place, you will be ready for the next two sections, which mirror the steps a story goes through from its initial marketing to its sale, and then through the publishing process to its final publication.
Section Two covers everything you must understand about marketing and selling a story. We start with learning to know when your story is ready to send out. Next, we cover finding markets and how to select the right first market for your story. We’ll discuss how to submit stories, how to handle rejections, and what to do with stories that keep being rejected. You’ll also learn how editors decide on what stories they choose to purchase and what ones they reject.
In Section Three, we begin the happier topic of what happens when you sell a story. Here, we’ll cover short fiction contracts, working with editors, dealing with reviews, and what to expect after you sell your first story.
In Section Four, we