DOUGLAS SMITH | Writing the Fantastic

Laura Powers, Celebrity Psychic, Host, Entertainer, and fellow writer, interviews me on her Write Hot podcast about short fiction and my writer's guide, Playing the Short Game. The podcast is available on iTunes, Sitcher and Hipcast.

Fellow writer, Sherry D. Ramsey, interviews me on her blog about writing my story "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down," why I love short fiction, my all-time favourite short story, my approach to novel writing, my fascination with shapeshifter stories, what music I listen to while writing, and what I'm working on now.

I'll be attending the 2018 Limestone Genre Expo in Kingston, Ontario on May 26-28 (Sat-Sun). I'll be giving a workshop on marketing and selling short fiction, participating on panels, and selling and signing my books. 

Limestone Genre is a fun con that has quickly grown from a part-day event to a full weekend in just a few years. Unlike many genre conventions that focus on visual media, this expo has a clear literary focus and consciously caters to actual (gasp) book readers. Like you, or you wouldn't be here, right? 

From the website: "The Expo is a two-day literary event, celebrating the best in Canadian genre fiction. We offer panel discussions, workshops, readings, pitch sessions, a large vendor area, and many opportunities to interact with our attending authors, editor and publishers.​"

Kingston is a pretty town and this is a great time of year to be there. I hope you'll mark this expo in your calendar. 

I'll be reading as the special guest at the Open Mic programme at the Parliament branch library in Toronto on Tuesday, May 8 in the evening. There will be a number of short readings starting at 6:30p, and then I'll read up to 8pm. I'll also be selling my books at discounted prices and signing. If you're in the area, I hope you'll drop by or tell some friends.

Details:

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

6:30-8:00 pm

Toronto Public Library

269 Gerrard Street E.

Toronto

For Toronto-area peeps: I'm giving a 2-hr workshop on marketing & selling short fiction at the Albert Campbell branch library tomorrow from 1-3pm. The workshop is taken from the first part of my Playing the Short Game book and covers the benefits of writing short fiction, rights and licensing, a strategy for marketing your short fiction, how to find markets, how to select the best markets, how to submit, the no-nos of submitting, and much more. 

If you're a short fiction writer or if you know someone who is, please spread the word.

Details:

Friday April 13, 1-3pm

Albert Campbell branch

Toronto Public Libraries

496 Birchmount Road

Toronto

 

Cost: $20, which includes a copy of the book

Thanks.

If you're a writer as well as a reader, you'll be interested in this. NY Times and USA Today best-selling author, Joanna Penn, recently interviewed me on her webcast / podcast, The Creative Penn, about my guide for writers, Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. Much of the discussion focused on how writers can make money from a short fiction career or by adding short fiction to a novel career.

The interview covers a lot of topics, including:

• The differences between short stories, novellas, novelettes and novels
• How to know the ‘size' of an idea – whether it's a novel or a shorter piece
• Finding good markets for short fiction
• Submitting short fiction vs. publishing it indie
• How to track submissions and why it's so important
• Has the magazine market been disrupted the way the book industry has?
• On rights, including language and territory
• The audio market for short fiction

You can watch the video interview, listen to the podcast or read the transcript here. 

Playing the Short Game is available in both trade paperback and as an ebook from all major retailers. 

My urban fantasy shapeshifter story, "Out of the Light," has been reprinted in issue #2 of Black Infinity. The theme for this issue was "Blobs, Globs, Slime, and Spores." Check out the great retro cover at the right.

"Out of the Light" first appeared in Dark Wisdom Magazine (#11) in 2007. It was nominated for an Aurora Award, but as I had another story on the ballot that year, I asked for it to be removed from the ballot so I wouldn't compete with myself. 

Black Infinity #2 is available now on Amazon and will be available shortly on Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and other ebook retailers. From the Amazon page:

Black Infinity #2 features 13 tales of blobs, globs, slime, and spores, plus a brief history of gunk and goo in SF magazines, movies, TV and comics; not to mention science fact, retro movie reviews and comics. 200 pages of slimy fun, with new stories by Rhys Hughes ("Swallowing the Amazon"), Gregory L. Norris ("The Tree Surgeon") and Marc Vun Kannon ("Boarding Party"). Plus Douglas Smith's "Out of the Light" and Kurt Newton's "The Old Mill."

I also had a story in the debut issue and will have a story in issue #3 as well, which will be the first time I've been published in three consecutive issues of any magazine. Very cool.

How would you like to own, at an incredible bargain, ten books that readers like yourself have already voted to be the best examples of speculative fiction published in Canada? Well, here's your chance. I'm once again curating an ebook bundle for StoryBundle.com of winners and finalists for Canada's premier speculative fiction award, the Aurora Award.

The Auroras are awarded annually by the Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association (CSFFA) for excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Introduced in 1980 as the Casper, it was renamed the Aurora Award in 1990. I'm honored to have won the Aurora three times and to have been on the final ballot another sixteen.

This Aurora bundle again delivers a great mix of speculative fiction genres: SF, fantasy, urban fantasy, horror, steam punk, as well as young adult. The titles reflect the long history of the Auroras, spanning nearly a quarter century of Canadian speculative fiction from 1993 to 2016.

This bundle also provides a great introduction to several wonderful series, including the first title in three separate series and the second book in two more (which can be read as stand-alone titles). And the bundle lets you sample the rich tradition of Canadian short speculative fiction, with two acclaimed anthologies and a collection.

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you feel generous), you'll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format worldwide:

• Destiny's Fall by Marie Bilodeau
• Maddie Hatter and the Deadly Diamond by Jayne Barnard
• Evolve edited by Nancy Kilpatrick
• Scream Queen by Edo van Belkom

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the above titles, plus six more:

• Far-Seer by Robert J. Sawyer
• Tesseracts14 edited by John Robert Colombo and Brett Savory
• Thunder Road by Chadwick Ginther
• Steel Whispers by Hayden Trenholm
• Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism by David Nickle
• Relativity by Robert J. Sawyer

The bundle allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub and .mobi) for all books!

Check out the bundle here for more information and details on each of the included titles. And remember, it's available for a very limited time only, from today until November 30 at midnight.

#SFWApro

This news is so cool from several viewpoints. First, my story "Going Harvey in the Big House" is being reprinted in the very first issue of the new SF magazine, Black Infinity, now available here on Amazon. This issue is titled "Deadly Planets."

That's great all by itself, but check out the awesome retro-SF cover. Isn't that great? Love it.

But the absolute best part is getting my name on the cover on top of a list that includes Clifford D. Simak, Harry Harrison, and Jack Kirby. I loved Simak's short stories when I started reading SF, especially his novel Out of Their Minds. And I devoured Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books. And Jack Kirby? The "King of Comics"? Yeah, definitely made my day.

"Going Harvey in the Big House" first appeared in the US young adult magazine, Cicada, in 2005. It was a finalist for Canada's Aurora Award in 2006.

I hope you'll check out the issue and help support a new magazine. Amazon link is here.

I'm thrilled to have my story, "Fiddleheads," included in the upcoming horror anthology, Group Hex 2, which, as the number implies, is the second such volume containing stories from members of the Ontario chapter of HWA (Horror Writers of America). I also had a story ("By Her Hand, She Draws You Down") in volume 1, so it's great to be in the second volume as well.

Volume 2 again has an excellent lineup of authors, with a mix of best-sellers, cult faves, and impressive newcomers: Kelley Armstrong, Suzanne Church, Brian Clement, Derek Clendening, Alessia Giacomi, Sephera Giron, Danann Hawes, Repo Kempt, Nancy Kilpatrick, Monica S. Kuebler, Shebat Legion, John R. Little, Stephen B. Pearl, Mary Rajotte, Lou Rera, Andrew Robertson, Douglas Smith, Robert Smith, Julianne Snow, Jessie Turk, and Jason White. Collected by Andrew Robertson. Art editor Brad Middleton.

The book will be released with an official launch on October 26, suitably just before Halloween, at the Glad Day Bookshop at 499 Church St. in Toronto, starting at 7:30pm. After release, it will be available on Amazon for Kindle, with other retailers to follow for both print and ebook editions.

Another great ebook bundle promotion from BookFunnel is launching today. This one offers fifty fantasy titles and all for free!

The promotion works like others from BookFunnel. You can download any or all of the books in the bundle just by signing up to the author's mailing list by providing your email address. And BookFunnel is fantastic in getting your ebook onto your ereader, no matter what type of device you use. If you encounter any problems getting the book onto your ereader (unlikely), BookFunnel technical support is there to help you.

There's no downside to these promos for readers. You can always unsubscribe to the newsletter(s) after at any time. But you might not want to. Many authors, like me, give away free stuff to their subscribers on a regular basis or offer other perks to followers such as discounts, special offers, or chances to be beta readers or participate in cool contests (like getting a character in a book named after you).

So check out the bundle here. It runs from October 16-30, then it's over.