Author Thoughts - Just Back from Balticon
I was at Balticon Over Memorial Day Weekend… and Bigfoot and the Four Horsemen Is coming out this month!
Going to my first con in a year — I had a long recovery from an illness — felt good. My successful Kickstarter for my forthcoming book in the Apocalypse Knot series is behind me (except sending out the goodies, which I’m working on) and Bigfoot and the Four Horsemen releasing at any moment on Kindle and Amazon.
At Balticon, I moderated “Getting Your Short Stories to Readers”, featuring panelists Alex Shvartzman and David Keener, who are both writers and editors. They shared how short stories may have a smaller percentage of the sci fi and fantasy genre market, but short stories are a great way to introduce yourself and find readers, who like what we do.
Alex quoted the late Mike Reznick, who would share that short stories were an investment that kept on giving. Alex explained that when he gets a short story published once the exclusivity period ends, he can sell the story again as a reprint and include it in a collection of stories. David added, it’s even better when that previously published stories can be sold to a Best of Year anthology. What they were advocating is seeking to sell your short stories to one of the best (defined as most read and highest paying markets) building an author’s street cred as it were. David shared that the Submission Grinder is a great place to find markets, particularly paying anthology calls. Among the best paying short story markets are Analog, Asimov’s, and Clarke’s World.
Advice like this and much more, made for a great panel, with a good discussion from those who attended. Going to con, attending panels like this one and networking, meeting editors like Alex and David, offers opportunities to meet editors, who are often promoting forthcoming anthology projects.
I was also on a panel on “Urban Fantasy,” and was part of our “Writing Meetup: All Things Fantasy,” where fantasy authors got together to network. Ten of us were at the Meetup and I’m looking forward to staying in touch. The networking at Balticon was pretty good overall, too. I now have an in to being on the program at a Con where I’ve never been on the program or had a table at the Dealer’s Room before.
In the area of my getting short stories to readers, I’ve donated a story to a charity sci fi and fantasy anthology, which will feature stories about Winning in the End. The anthology will help a fellow genre author pay her medical bills for her treatments for Lymphoma. My father had Lymphoma, so being able to offer a story to help out someone battling that… Well, I felt it’s more than for an excellent cause. I’ll share more about the anthology closer to its publication.
Getting short stories before readers like yourselves has me planning a new free story offering, which I’d hoped to release as a bonus in my Kickstarter… Instead, as it’s a prequel to my Highmage’s Plight series, you’ll be seeing me offering it soon.
On the Urban Fantasy side, I’m putting the finishing touches on Children of a Lesser Dragon, sequel to Lessers Not Losers. That will be released during the summer after Bigfoot and the Four Horsemen comes out.
And, since I couldn’t help myself, the 3-in-1 novella trilogy, Apocalypse or Bust as a paperback was just released. It’s a revised edition of my novellas: Apocalypse Knot, Little Apocalypse, and Apocalypse Nigh.
In other news, if you are looking for free stories, my novella, Last Knight, a prequel story to my Knights Tower series, is featured this month in the promo, FREE SCI-FI & FANTASY JUNE 2025, where you can find a lot more free stories.
So, Dare 2 Believe,
D.H.