I am in hardcore editor mode this month. Deadlines are looming. Contracts are pending. Submissions are stacking up. Layouts, covers, audio books, and revisions are in process. And I am ecstatic about all of it. Needless to say, I digress from my genre specific theme of recent weeks, partly because I have other things on … Read more
One category of novel that has been generally out of vogue because of low sales is western fiction. Sales increased by 7% in 2014 but are still low overall. If you write westerns, you write for a niche market, but readers of westerns are die hard for the genre, and if they like you, they … Read more
We’ve been roaming around the speculative fiction category for some stretch of time, and this week we are focusing on a subgenre of fantasy called urban fantasy. Fantasy and urban fantasy can be quite similar. Fantasy as a genre usually includes some magical or supernatural elements, and so does urban fantasy, and so does paranormal romance, … Read more
Snark alert! I thought I would say this up front so those of you who don’t want to read snarky comments from an editor can find something else to read. Still here? Okay. Here’s the deal. I want to publish your novel as much as you want me to publish your novel. Pitching isn’t hard, … Read more
As we continue our exploration (no pun intended, or maybe it is…) of genre specific topics, our focus this week is science fiction. SF usually deals with topics and ideas set the future, such as science, technology, space travel, time travel, extraterrestrials, and the like. The ability of the writer to create a world which … Read more
I was chatting with fantasy author Carol Berg earlier today. I asked her about issues that new fantasy writers have. The thing I see new fantasy writers do a lot is spend so much thought on world building that they ignore adding any depth or logic to their characters. When I am critiquing for writers … Read more
Speculative Fiction is a marketing category that includes the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternative history, dystopian, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and superhero fiction. Speculative fiction asks what if reality were different? This is the common story question that runs through the genres, though the focus of each genre is different. Note there is some debate … Read more
I was scrolling through a Twitter pitch fest a while back where I favorited pitches I liked. If I favorited the tweeted pitches, then the authors knew to send me their pages. There are several of these pitch parties on Twitter, including #PitMad* and #Pit2Pub*. My point, though, is if you scroll through the pitches, … Read more
We’ve been talking about genre-specific tropes for the last several weeks. Tropes, or story patterns, are an important concept to learn if you write genre fiction. Why? Because writers need to know how to market their books. Because booksellers need to know where to put books on the shelf Because readers have expectations that what they purchase … Read more
Tropes DAMMIT! So What the Hell? Who cares about all this shit? I was asked this the other day in reference to why I have been focusing on genre tropes for the last several weeks. Here’s an example of why genre and trope matters. I was recently approached by a person who wrote a book. … Read more