Agents
- A little-known way of identifying successful agents
- Agent first, then sale? Other way ’round?
- Career planning: before you look for an agent…
- Do you need an agent?
- Everything you wanted to know about literary agents…
- Five Writers Explain How They Got, Kept and Fired Agents
- How to Get Published: a Flow Chart
- On agents as publishers
- On agents' self publishing services
- On the getting of agents
- Preditors & Editors
- Questions to ask an agent who has offered you representation
- Sales reported in Locus since July 2004
- The 20 Worst Literary Agencies
- The Association of Authors’ Representatives
- Why fee-charging agents suck
- Writer Beware
- Writing a simple query letter
- You should never submit unagented to publishing companies
Book Publishing
- A Book Publishing Glossary
- A Publishing Dictionary
- Book Publishing Accounting: Some Basic Concepts
- Debut author lessons
- How Acquisitions Work
- How publishing works from the bookselling side
- How publishing works from the publishing side
- How to Get Published (a brief overview)
- How to Get Published: a Flow Chart
- How to Write a Query Letter in Five Easy Steps
- Publishing in the Twenty-First Century, part 1
- Publishing in the Twenty-First Century, part 2
- Publishing in the Twenty-First Century, part 3
- Publishing primer, part 1
- Publishing primer, part 2
- Sell-Throughs
- The Devil’s Dictionary of Publishing, corrections
- The Devil’s Dictionary of Publishing, part 1
- The Devil’s Dictionary of Publishing, part 2
- The Rise and Fall of the Mass Market Paperback
- Things the author does not get to control
- Tracking Sales with Affiliate IDs
- Under the Author’s Control For the Most Part/Not Under the Author’s Control For the Most Part
- Who are all these people?
- Word count for novels and children’s books
- Word counts and novel length
Copyright
Critique Groups
Ebooks
- Business Rusch
- Cover Designs for Digital Publishing
- ebook formatting guide
- On ebook piracy
- Pricing strategy, back matter, and discoverability (half the good stuff is in the comments!)
- Tracking Sales with Affiliate IDs
Jargon
Magazines
Markets
Money and Contracts
- Anatomy of a three-book deal
- Annotated first novel contract
- Bestseller list primer
- Business Realities for the Beginning Writer
- How much money you’ll actually see from a six-figure book deal
- Laura Anne Gilman’s Basic [and Updated] Rules for Going Freelance, specific to novelists
- More on money and the writing life
- Negotiating novel contracts
- P&Ls and how books make (or don’t) money: part the first: the mass market original complete failure
- P&Ls and how books make (or don’t) money: part the second: the hardcover to mass
- Real World Book Deals
- Real World Book Deals — follow-up #1
- Real World Book Deals — follow-up #2
- Royalty calculations explained
- Royalty periods, payments, and making a living
- Sell-Throughs
- Simple book revenue breakdown
- Survey of first novel advances
- The Big Misunderstanding About Money
- The Importance of Reversion Clauses in Publishing Contracts
- Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money
News, Rumors, and Daily Reads
Organizations
Publishing
Responding to Reviews
Scams and other bad ideas
Self Publishing
- “Indie First?” What Is Best In Publishing?
- A tale of two royalty statements
- Charlie Stross: Why I don't self-publish
- Cover design secrets
- Elisabeth Naughton on leaving her publisher
- How Tobias Buckell used Kickstarter to continue a slow-selling series
- Hugh Howey: Self-publishing is the future — and great for writers
- On agents as publishers
- On agents' self publishing services
- Pricing strategy, back matter, and discoverability (half the good stuff is in the comments!)
- Self-publishing income/sales survey
- The Importance of Backmatter
- Tracking Sales with Affiliate IDs
SF Writing Workshops
Short Stories
Slush
Working with editors
Working with other authors
Writing
- Avoid these clichés
- Billy Wilder’s ten tips
- Dan Harmon on story structure
- Dos and Don’ts of Setting
- Elmore Leonard: Ten Rules of Writing
- Holly Lisle’s articles
- How to Write a Novel
- How to Write a Sentence
- Jennifer Crusie: Plot Diagrams
- Jennifer Crusie: Revising Scene
- Jennifer Crusie: Turning Points, part 1
- Jennifer Crusie: Turning Points, part 2
- John Scalzi: 10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing
- John Scalzi: Ten Writing Tips
- John Scalzi: Utterly Useless Writing Advice
- Learn Writing with Uncle Jim
- Michael Hauge’s six-stage plot structure
- Orson Scott Card’s articles
- SFWA’s articles
- Stephen King: Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully in Ten Minutes
- Steven Brust's writing advice
- The Guardian collects ten rules of writing from various authors (part 1)
- The Guardian collects ten rules of writing from various authors (part 2)
- The secret menu of writing advice
- The Well-Tempered Plot Device
- Trouble vs. Conflict
- Write a Novel
Writing Life
- 12 things about authors
- A day in the life of John Scalzi
- A week in the life of Nick Mamatas
- Beware Of Writer II: Revenge Of The Teenage Penmonkey From Mars
- How to behave at conventions: hotels & going out to dinner
- How to keep writing as a new parent
- The Dictator of Writing Announces His Decrees, Part I
- The Penmonkey’s Paean
[Note as of June 2022: This page is nearly ten years old and may contain outdated information.]
