Scifi Watch » submission

Tesseracts Fourteen Open For Submissions (Sept. 1, 2009 – Nov. 30, 2009)

David Halpert — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:33:13 +0000

Submissions are now open (from September 1, 2009 to November 30, 2009) for volume 14 of the Tesseracts anthology. Tesseracts is the premiere anthology for Canadian short fiction published annually by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy, so if you are a Canadian author, feel free to submit your stories, poetry, radio plays, and flash fiction to them.

As each volume rotates their editors for the anthology, this year’s editors are John Robert Colombo and Brett Alexander Savory.

John Robert Colombo is the Toronto-based author and anthologist whose byline has appeared on over 200 books of quality. These range from volumes of poetry to compilations of quotations. Colombo has been variously dubbed:

• “The Master Gatherer” for his compilations of Canadiana.
• “John ‘Bartlett’ Colombo” for his ‘quote books.
• “Canada’s Mr. Mystery” for his collections of told-as-true ghost stories.
• “Superfan” for his pioneering interest in Canadian fantastic literature.

Recently Mr. Colombo was the keynote speaker for the Montreal World Science Fiction Convention’s academic track. Although he has 200 books to his credit, it is his six pioneering works in the field of Canadian speculative fiction that is celebrated, his most significant work is his massive historical retrospective Other Canadas, published in 1979, the first-ever anthology of Canadian science fiction and fantasy, which gathered 21 fiction pieces and 28 poems drawn from 400 years of Canadian history. Prior to that book, no one had made the case that there was such a thing as Canadian science fiction and fantasy.

Brett Alexander Savory is the Bram Stoker Award-winning Editor-in-Chief of ChiZine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words, Publisher of ChiZine Publications, has had nearly 50 short stories published, has written two novels and penned the foreword to Tesseracts Twelve.

In 2006, Necro Publications released his horror-comedy novel The Distance Travelled. September 2007 saw the release of his dark literary novel In and Down through Brindle & Glass, and November brought his first short story collection, No Further Messages, released through Delirium Books. In the works are three more novels. When he’s not writing, reading, or editing, he plays editor drums for the hard rock band Diablo Red.

Click Here for a List of Writer’s Guidelines

Click Here to View Other Volumes of Tesseracts at Amaon
Click Here to View Other Volumes of Tesseracts on Ebay

How to Deliver the Perfect Elevator Pitch

David Halpert — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 01:33:36 +0000

A week ago, I bookmarked a post on io9.com on Delicious entitled “Make You Epic Space Novel Live Up To Your Elevator Pitch” and didn’t look at it until yesterday. Expecting to read an article on how to deliver the perfect elevator pitch I was presented with something verydifferent, leaving me to scratch my head and ask myself WTF? The comments reflect this, so does the title (in fact it’s probably better to pitch your novel once it’s completed, as manuscripts change further down the writing process). Nevertheless, as a person actually trying to get published it disheartens me on how many readers were given this poor advice, so I decided to do something about it, a simple blog post on how to deliver a great elevator pitch.

1) Keep it Short

An elevator pitch is exactly as it sounds, it’s a pitch for your novel that can said in thirty seconds, or the length of an average elevator ride. Elevator pitches are often given to editors/literary agents at trade shows and conventions. They remain short because agents/editors are busy people and expect a barrage of aspiring writers to swarm them with similar elevator pitches (in addition to other events going on at said event). If you can’t pitch your novel in thirty seconds than you’re taking too long. Revise and try again.

2) Keep it Sweet

If you can’t distill the plot of your novel in one short paragraph (four sentences max.) than your elevator pitch is too long. There should be no fluff in your pitch either. Here’s the perfect elevator pitch: a two-sentence plot synopsis, one sentence describing it in relation to other novels so they have an idea of what to expect, and maybe a few short sentences describing any publishing credits that would be helpful. Here is the elevator pitch for my novel, ‘Second Death‘:

“‘Second Death’ is a blend of Richard Morgan’s ‘Altered Carbon‘ and Raymond Chandler’s ‘The Big Sleep‘. Harlan Novak is a twenty-eight year old private investigator hired by Luna Veca, who’s investigating the murder of her former boss, J.T. Blithe. However, their investigation soon uncovers a secret underground experiment known as ‘The Lazarus Project’ and both quickly discover the lengths their enemies will go to keep it a secret.”

Simple yet effective!

3) Offer to Buy Them A Drink or Dinner

We all like free stuff, and one of the perks of being a literary agent or editor is not having to pay a cent for meals and drinks. If they are too busy to hear your elevator pitch or you want more time to pitch your novel and list your credentials, offer to buy them a drink or even divver. If you’re sitting there telling yourself “Why should I spend money trying to impress someone, my novel can be published on its own merits?” consider that you can cement a life-long professional relationship with an editor that can get you published right there on the stop, and for a measly $20-30 will pay off a hundred (or even thousand) times more in the long run.

4) Prepare a Media Kit For Your Novel Beforehand

For me this shows how an aspiring writer can go above and beyond when it comes to pitching a novel, a one-page double-sided paper that includes, in my case, a two-sentence plot synopsis, general facts and figures, my publishing credentials, information pertaining to my blog, information on my forthcoming novel, and a full-page synopsis on the back. Why, you might ask, do I do this? Because while an elevator pitch can get you published, people are very forgetful.

Ask yourself this, what did you have for lunch yesterday? If it took you more than a minute to figure it out, that is the very reason you create a media kit. Imagine you’re an editor that, in addition to attending several panels, seminars, and workshops, have to remember ten other novel pitches, who are they going to remember, the person that talked to them for two minutes, or the person that gave them a piece of paper they can peruse and read at their own leisure.

While it may sound simple, I guarantee you will be put in front of the pack just on your initiative alone. Take this advice to heart and consider whether or not your elevator pitch is perfect.

New Years Resolutions #26, #74 Completed

David Halpert — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:18:50 +0000

It’s hard to believe that almost half the year is over and we’re already headlong into spring. It seems like only yesterday I was wearing Long John’s and dreading stepping out into that -20 below frigid temperatures with my hood up, my scarf tucked around my mouth, hoping I didn’t catch frostbite on my way to work (hey, I’m an editor, my fingers are my life!)

So going over my list of New Years Resolutions I noticed, without realizing it that I managed to complete a few more of my goals for the year 2009. Unfortunately, it’s not resolution #1 Get a Literary Agent or #3 Get “Second Death” published (Click Here to View) but some of the lesser resolutions that involve my getting rejected from literary magazines. Oh what fun! At least I have a job.

In my attempts to get my latest short story published entitled “The Fantasy Writer” from four online magazines (which I shall remain nameless but you could probably guess) I honestly didn’t think I’d get rejected within a 24-hour period. Nevertheless, here are those resolutions that I have concluded.

14 out of 98 Resolutions Completed

26) Make $10,000 after tax
74) Submit five fiction Submissions

My Novel Gets Rejected From Writers House, and Why I Couldn’t Care Less

David Halpert — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:33:44 +0000

Well six weeks after I was requested sample chapters for my novel, Second Death, I received an email yesterday from Writers House that they will not be accepting me for representation. Am I disappointed? A little, but not near as much as I thought I would be given the circumstances. I finished completing the manuscript back in October ‘09 and since then have been rejected by about 12 literary agencies.

Merrilee Heifetz, the agent in question, is a reputed expert with regards to science fiction and fantasy publishing, which would have been great because not only would I have been getting a book published but my next novel, ‘The Seducer’s Handbook’, is fantasy, not science fiction. Merrilee Heifetz represents some of the biggest names in the publishing industry including Neil Gaiman, Ellen Daltow, and the late Octavia E. Butler. Writers House is also one of the biggest literary agencies in New York representing such authors as Stephanie Meyer, Nora Roberts, Christopher Paolini, and Janet Evanovich (not that they’re particularly good writers).

So why am I not terribly disappointed?

For a few reasons, the most obvious being this blog which I started at the beginning of February has shown steady progress (plus I’m also earning small amounts of income as an Amazon and Ebay affiliate). Secondly, I plan to attend Ad Astra in Toronto next week where I will not only be promoting the blog but hopefully rubbing elbows with some of the big names in the publishing industry. Also, I plan to attend the 67th Worldcon this year in Montreal this August.

The final reason that I really don’t care about rejection is because since November I’ve already completed over 100 pages of my next novel. Trust me, once you get past the first one hundred pages it gets a whole lot easier. With any luck I’ll be at Anticipation in a few months with two novels under my belt (not to mention five months more work on this blog).

I Get Rejected from Weird Tales Magazine!

David Halpert — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:23:43 +0000

Click Here To View the Works of Jeff VanderMeer

Well, after getting into the second round of submissions and months of waiting it appears the editor of Weird Tales magazine, Ann VanderMeer, has decided to pass on my short story submission ‘The Archer’s Paradox’ for their next issue. Weird Tales remains the longest-running fantasy magazine in the U.S. and produces some of the best short stories to come out of the industry in years. Am I disappointed? A little. Frankly, I’m more upset that I hadn’t written any short stories in the last couple of months since novel writing and blogging have taken up much of my time.

Ann VanderMeer is the fiction editor for Weird Tales and wife of Jeff VanderMeer, an American author and editor as well. Both are probably best known for editing the 2007 anthology ‘The New Weird’ which gained considerable attention for promoting the subgenre.

‘The Archer’s Paradox’ revolved a group of underground seducers who rid the city of darks creatures from a parallel netherworld with crossbows loaded with arrows. Sort of a modern take on the Cupid story.

Here is an excerpt below:

“It used to be that a man could walk around the city for hours without ever encountering a snag. Now, they swarmed the sidewalks with undue haste and tact. Following their behaviors, their movements, long enough it appeared as though they were evolving, slowly adapting to our world at a phenomenal rate. Some claim they coincided with the arrival of the second moon, which was commonly referred to as ‘Gemini’. It didn’t move, didn’t rotate, and for all intensive purpose was utterly and irrefutably purposeless. NASA couldn’t touch it, nor any country with space exploration capabilities. The closer one rocket got to the satellite the farther it would pull away, and when the moon’s orbit came into contact with the motionless hunk of rock, nothing happened, and the magenta spotlight continuously hung in the sky, against all odds.“

Xbiz World Magazine Purchases Article Submission

David Halpert — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:04:50 +0000

Last Friday ( May 30, 2008 ) just a few days after submitting my article “Porn 2.0: How Xtube Ruined Me For Playboy” to Nerve.com, Now Magazine, Xbiz Magazine, and Wired, I heard back from the senior editor of Xbiz World Magazine, Stephen Yagielowicz, who said they’d publish the article in both the print and digital editions of next month’s Xbiz World Magazine. Not only that, but Xbiz wants to keep me on their freelancer rotation as one of their Canadian writers at $250 an article. Since I’m being paid for the article I cannot post it on this blog but here’s an excerpt for those interested:

“Since the invention of recorded video in the late seventies, the mass production of video pornography has led to proliferation of sex and the creation of an industry. While printed pornography was always situated in the realm of harmless fantasy, video pornography promised something else, a hyper-reality of sorts, making sex appear sexier than sex itself and allowing us to indulge our voyeuristic desires. Yet over the last decade or so we’ve seen a gradual shift in the way people view pornography. The mpeg has greatly replaced the tangible video and DVD. Granted. But what we’re seeing happen is far greater than simply a change in media platforms or a shift in visual technology. What we’re seeing take place is a shift from ‘professional’ mainstream porn to the gritty realism of ‘amateur’ pornography, though not simply by virtue of its easy accessibility, as I’ll soon explain…”

Xbiz Premier magazine and Xbiz World magazine are based out of LA and is an American trade magazine for the adult film industry.

How to get a novel published

David Halpert — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:23:06 +0000

To View Books on How to Get Published at Amazon Click Here

I know I’ve been a little lax with my post entries lately but I’ve been pretty busy with school finishing up and am still scrambling to find an internship for the last leg of my program in book and magazine publishing. Nonetheless, I think I’ve come up with a suitable topic to write about for all of those aspiring writers out there trying to get their work published.

It is a common belief that once a person writes a novel there will be a line-up of publishers waiting outside your door fighting to get it put into book form. This is further from the truth. The harsh reality is that no one will do anything to promote your novel but you. However, there are several things to consider than simply writing the actual manuscript when it comes to getting a novel published that most people overlook. Here are some things to keep in mind that will hopefully make that process of getting that novel published easier:

1) Searching the Marketplace

There are more books being published in North America today than ever before. Not every publishing house publishes novels, some only publish poetry or drama or graphic novels. Similarly, when it comes to different genres of literature some publishing houses only publish romances, while others may only publish sci-fi or fantasy novels. To get a sense of the industry it is a good idea to read several books on the current writer’s market: one book to note is the “2008 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market” and another, for Canadians, is the “Canadian Writer’s Market“. Different publishing houses require different manuscript guidelines for submission and it is a good idea to brush up on the basics when it comes to delivering a new novel.

2) Finding a Literary Agent

To add insult to injury, not only does the aspiring writer have to contend with their own promotion, but the majority of publishing houses today do not accept unsolicited materials for publication (i.e. a new novel) without the backing of a reputed literary agent. The purpose of the literary agent is to act as intermediary between the author and the publisher. They help negotiate contracts, review an author’s manuscript, deal with subrights such as film rights and translation rights, but basically for someone not familiar with the publishing industry it is of vital importance to have someone championing your novel. While it is possible to get a novel published without a literary agent, the sad reality is most unsolicited manuscripts get immediately thrown into the slush pile where they can spend months on end collecting dust awaiting a ten minute review from an assistant editor. Do yourself a favor. Find a reputable agent!

3) Build up your credentials!

Before you publish a novel (or land a literary agent) it is a good idea to build writing credentials. These can take several forms including articles and short stories that have been published, any creative writing courses taken, or education in related fields such as English literature or journalism. It is important that an editor or agent see that you’re simply not a fish out of water when it comes to writing. Anything that gives you a leg-up in this industry (what we call ‘clout’) gives you that much more leeway when it comes to getting a novel published.

4) Editing your manuscript

Most first-time writers assume editing the first draft of a manuscript is simply looking for spelling and grammar mistakes. What editing a manuscript really means is a plethora of corrections (big and small) to make your manuscript absolutely perfect. Like a diamond in the rough, the editing process is the most crucial part of the writing process. Because you have the finished product of a manuscript, editing is the literary equivalent to carving a statue from a block of marble. These corrections could be anything, from making sure the sentences flow smoothly, to making sure there’s proper character development as well as checking to see there are no plot-holes in the story that make the reader stop reading. It doesn’t hurt to have someone else read your book either because at this point the reader may be so in love with the work they can’t see it clearly anymore.

Hopefully these tips help you, the aspiring writer, in getting your manuscript published. Keep in mind these notes are very brief and if you want to learn more about this be sure to check out the books at your public library or Amazon.

A Note on Cover Letters

David Halpert — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:31:26 +0000

If you’ve never submitted a short story or freelance article to a magazine before it can seem bewildering to someone with little experience in such matters. However, it can also be relatively simple. For the case of this post I’m only referring to cover letters sent in with short stories (I’ll save cover letters sent with freelance articles for another post).

So what is a cover letter?

Sometimes referred to as a ‘query letter’, a cover letter is a letter of introduction attached to, or accompanying another document. In this case, we’ll use a short story as the attached document. While a cover letter for a resume is meant to explain why a candidate might be right for a certain job, a cover letter for a short story should be brief and to the point. Since it’s entirely possible for a literary magazine to get hundreds, or even thousands, of submissions a month, most cover letters should be no more than three sentence, if the editor decides to read it at all.

So what goes into a cover letter?

Basically three crucial groups of information. The first is the author’s personal information which should be centered at the top of the page. This includes your name, phone number, address, and email address. The second group of information is spaced a few lines below and justified to the left. This includes the magazine’s title and address. The third piece of the information comes in the actual body of the letter. This includes the title of the short story, word count, the name of the head editor (if possible), and other published works.

Here are a few other things to check before sending off a cover letter (with a short story):

Don’t bother with a long-winded bio or paragraphs of useless credentials like a short story you published in high school or the number of submissions you’ve sent out to other magazines. However, if you have attended a creative writing workshop or have creative writing experience from an accredited university it might be worth mentioning.
Make sure you check that the editor-in-chief’s name (as well as the magazine’s title) is spelled correctly. Nothing pisses an editor off more than seeing their name (or magazine) misspelled in a cover letter. Sometimes submissions include the wrong magazine title and editor altogether. Don’t fall into this trap.

Hope this post helps all you aspiring writers out there.