Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Editors and Publishing Houses

Guest post–Revolution #9: Thoughts on Electronic Publishing Vs. “Traditional” Print Publishing

by Cat Rambo
1. Any debate about the current struggle between electronic and traditional print publishing begins with this fact: no one thinks that online publishing will not eventually overtake the traditional, hold-in-your-hand, made-of-dead-trees model. While you may well continue to be able to slip something paperback-sized into your back pocket two decades down the line, [...]

Tags: cat rambo, electronic publishing, guest post

The Importance of Style Sheets

A style sheet is a document the copyeditor prepares that lists the grammatical conventions, characters, places, unusual or made-up words, and the distinctive treatment of words (capitalization, hyphenation, favored spellings, etc.) within a particular text.

Tags: copyediting, copyeditors, Deanna Hoak, stylesheets

Victoria Strauss — The Perils of Searching For Publishers on the Internet

Imagine you’re a new writer. You’ve just completed your first manuscript, and are on fire to get it published. You don’t know a lot about the publishing world, or how to identify a good publisher for your book–but that’s okay. You have the Internet.
So you open a search engine–Google, let’s say–and type “publishers” into the [...]

Tags: Writer Beware

A Writer’s Guide to Understanding the Copyeditor

by Terry McGarry
Originally appeared in the Bulletin of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Spring 1995. Copyright © 1995 Terry McGarry. Reprinted with permission.
Many copyeditors prefer to spell the word “copyeditor.” I laughed when I got page proofs of a short story I had written about a copyeditor: the anthology’s copyeditor had changed [...]

Tags: copyediting, copyeditors, Publishing, Terry McGarry

How Thor Power Hammered Publishing

Publishing changed considerably after the 1979 Supreme Court ruling in Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Kevin O’Donnell, Jr., explains why.

Tags: Kevin O'Donnell Jr., Nuts and Bolts, Thor Power

1998: The State of Publishing

Eleanor Wood’s 1998 State of Publishing speech given at the Nebula Awards weekend

Tags: Eleanor Wood, Nuts and Bolts, Publishing

1997: The State of Publishing

Eleanor Wood’s speech on the State of Publishing given at the 1997 Nebula Awards weekend

Tags: Eleanor Wood, Nuts and Bolts, Publishing

Does “SFWA Member” help sell your story? Top SF editors comment

The question arises from time to time, “Should I put SFWA member on my cover letter.” Here are what some editors had to say about that from an article in 1998.

Gardner Dozois says, “I take membership in a professional organization like SFWA or HWA as an indication that I should pay more attention to [...]