Tag Archives: sale

08.13.12
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A Podcast, Some Advice, and a Story (new places to find me online)

I’m going to skip my usual “things I did last month” roundup because I’ve actually talked about most of them (sick, Readercon, IN SITU, temp job, etc). I’m hard at work getting FISH finished up, and  other Dagan Books business like con planning, advertising, hiring, accounting and so on. It’s quickly becoming an actual 40-hour a week job (the weeks I can keep it to only 40 hours) and perhaps in another year or so it will start doing nifty things like paying me.

We’re not there yet. In the meantime I’ve done a couple of non-Dagan Books things I’d like to share:

  • Last week I was on an episode of the Hugo award nominated podcast at SF Signal, “Readercon, Harassment and Making Positive Changes” with Stina Leicht, Mur Lafferty, Jaym Gates and Patrick Hester. It’s not the only podcast to have covered the topic or even the recent incident at Readercon, but it’s part of the ongoing conversation. I think we said some good things. You can listen to it here: Episode 143
  • My most recent Tech Nerd column is up at Functional Nerds: “Ten FREE Apps That Make My iPhone a Mobile Office”
  • “Mrs. Henderson’s Cemetery Dance” was published by Red Penny Papers in their Summer 2012 issue. Click on the link to read it for free.
  • “No Hand to Turn the Key” (my clockwork erotica/librarian story) sold to the STEAMPUNK CTHULHU anthology forthcoming from Chaosium. I’ll post more details once I have them, but for now, check out the cover by Daniele Serra:

06.04.12
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Writing Goals: Markets I Want to Crack

Part of envisioning my future as a writer is compiling a list of markets I’d love to be published in. We sit around talking about these kinds of things, my writer friends and I. Which markets are new and exciting, which venerable institutions we’d be awed to be accepted by, which have great pay rates, which seem to produce a lot of award-winning work… my list won’t be the same as yours, and maybe not the same as anyone else’s, but as of right this moment, here’s where I hope to someday see my name in print:

Magazines (Fiction):

  • Analog
  • Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
  • Asimov’s Science Fiction
  • Bullspec
  • Clarkesworld
  • Crossed Genres Magazine: “Monsters, Monsters, Everywhere,” published fall 2011
  • Daily Science Fiction: “Call Center Blues” published Nov 2011
  • Electric Lit
  • Every Day Fiction
  • Goldfish Grimm’s Spicy Fiction Sushi: “All The Right Words,” published in issue #1, Mar 2012
  • Ideomancer
  • Kasma Science Fiction
  • Lightspeed
  • Lovecraft ezine
  • McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (I’d call this snark-fiction, or sarcastic lit, instead of my usual spec fic, but it’d still be fun)
  • Nature
  • Red Penny Papers: sold “Mrs. Henderson’s Cemetery Dance” for July 2012 issue
  • Redstone
  • Strange Horizons
  • The Journal of Unlikely Entomology
  • The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
  • Tinhouse
  • Weird Tales

Magazines (Non-Fiction):

  • Functional Nerds: ongoing tech column and book reviews
  • New York Review of Science Fiction
  • The Rumpus
  • SF Signal: published a two-part essay on classic scifi novels with dystopian real estate Feb 2012

Publishers:

  • Chaosium – sold two Mythos tales to them this year, for two different upcoming anthologies.
  • Mainstream mid-list publisher (Tor, DAW, Orbit, etc).
  • Small Beer Press

The bold items are the places I’ve already sold to (though don’t be surprised if I keep trying for them; a good market isn’t a one-time-only experience). My list includes a mix of both major markets and smaller indie markets I wanted in to because of the quality of their other work, and/or because authors I aspire to be similar to also started in those publications. As you can see, I have a lot of writing to do to get through the rest of my list. Knowing what direction I want to take my career in helps a lot, though, because even if I’m not there yet, I’m headed in the right direction. I’m not just tossing stories at the publishing wall to see what sticks. I have a plan, I have goals, and I have a clear idea of what I want my eventual career to look like.

What markets are you dreaming of cracking? Anything I’m missing that you think would be a good fit for my list?

10.03.11
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A Story and Two Podcasts (online now)

Right now you can find me in a few different places:

“Monsters, Monsters, Everywhere” is now available to read (free!) online at Crossed Genres in Issue #34 (MONSTERS), out October 1, 2011.

And SF Signal has graciously let me take part in their last two podcasts:

SF Signal #82, Science Fiction Movies, with Lisa Paitz Spindler, Scott Cupp, Derek Johnson, Jessica Strider, and Patrick Hester.  (posted Oct 3, 2011)

SF Signal #80, Near-Future Science Fiction, with Jeff Patterson, Fred Kiesche, John Stevens and Patrick Hester (posted Sep 26, 2011)

I won’t be on the SF Signal podcasts every week but I should be in one or two a month for the foreseeable future, and thanks for listening!

09.13.11
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New Sale! Details and an Update

I am thrilled to announce that my most recent sale is to Crossed Genres magazine. My story, “Monsters, Monsters, Everywhere”, was written specifically for their upcoming monster-themed issue, so it’s great that they liked it enough to accept it. I don’t often write stories to meet a certain themed magazine issue or anthology, and Crossed Genres is a market I’d been hoping to get into since I met the editors at Readercon this year. In addition to having beautiful covers, the magazine has also featured writers I admire, like Don Pizarro, Wendy Wagner, Barbara Krasnof and Camille Alexa, to name a few (links go to their CG stories online).

Maybe the next time Crossed Genres has a reading, I’ll get to be a part of it.

The issue comes out October 1, 2011, and I’ll post links once it’s available to purchase.

Also, my story “Call Center Blues”, sold in July to Daily Science Fiction, is tentatively slated to be published the first week of November.

07.12.11
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New Sale! (Now with added details)

I’m pleased to announce I’ve sold my story, “Call Center Blues” to DAILY SCIENCE FICTION. It’s going through the editing process now and I’ll post a link once it’s live on the site. This is the sale I was so very excited about last week. At 8 cents per word, this is my first pro-rate sale, and it’s in science fiction to boot! Though I don’t want to give too much away, I will say that this story comes directly from my current day job, working in a tech support call center. While dealing with customers who don’t actually want the features they’ve ordered is part of my daily routine, I wondered what would happen if the unwanted feature was me, or someone just like me. “Call Center Blues” evolved from there.

Thank you for all of your support.