Online places we Fictorians find fabulous. We think you might, too.
Blogs
- A blog written by a literary agent working in Sydney, Australia hoping to shed light on the sometimes shadow-shrouded world of publishing in order to help writers work out how the hell they get published
- Great site to get comments on openings, queries and synopsis
- Check the FAQ before submission – Evil Editor reserves the right to humiliate all submissions
- A blog focusing on writing tips and publishing advise run by multiple established and bestselling authors
- They also have a printed collection of the top posts available for sale
Pubrants – The Nelson Literary Agency Blog
- Take time to look at past postings; lots of useful advice coming from a top agent
- One grumpy literary agent, a sea of query fails, and other publishing nonsense.
- A multi-contributor blog that includes bestselling authors and industry leaders
Generators
- A fabulous shareware random name generator
- A site that lists random generators for people, places, things, and stories
- A site of generators to randomly produce concepts, characters, and descriptions for stories, role-playing games, and art
Online Communities
- An online resource for freelance writers of all sorts that has a large and active online community of writers and publishing professionals
- Check out the Forum – the Absolute Write Water Cooler
- An online writers organization dedicated to writers helping writers
- Includes a forum; an online guest speaker program with agents, acquisitions editors, and best-selling authors; advice and how-to articles from publishing experts; conferences and events
Professional Societies
Mystery Writers of America (MWA)
- The premier organization for mystery and crime writers, professionals allied to the crime writing field, aspiring crime writers, and folks who just love to read crime fiction
Romance Writers of America (RWA)
- Professional society dedicated to advancing the professional interests of career-focused romance writers through networking and advocacy.
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)
- Professional society for authors of science fiction, fantasy, and related genres
- Tons of great info on being a professional genre writer
Workshops, Conferences, Conventions, and Seminars
- The largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe
Shaw Guides Writers Conferences & Workshops
- A Guide to Writers Conferences & Workshops
- Practical, no-nonsense courses on business topics for the professional writer, taught by a group of prolific bestselling authors. These three days will teach you how to be a writer, not just how to write
- We Fictorians cannot recommend this unique seminar highly enough-it’s how we all met, and the authors could not be nicer or more giving of their knowledge and experience. It’s a must for anyone planning to make a career in fiction in any genre
- An annual gathering (almost a reunion) of professionals, collectors, and others interested in the field of Light and Dark Fantasy art and literature
- The number of Attending memberships is limited (to 850) and usually sell out in advance of the start of the convention
World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon)
- An annual international Science Fiction and Fantasy convention
- Convention membership is also membership to the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), which allows voting on that year’s Hugo Awards
- On years where Worldcon is held outside North America, WSFS also holds the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC)
Writing Resources
Adventures in SciFi Publishing
- Brings you authors of science fiction and fantasy
- Includes a podcast, blog, book lists, interviews, and videos
- A site maintained by Open Horizons providing information on writing, publishing, and marketing your books, ebooks, or other information products
- A dictionary of women’s clothing and lingerie clothing terms and phrases complete with definitions and links to examples
- Sign up for his Daily Kick in the Pants and receive short writing lessons on a daily basis via e-mail
- An award-winning, free writers’ resource listing over 3625 current Fiction and Poetry publications
Farland’s Authors Advisory Conference Calls
- A free conference call series featuring published authors and publishing professionals brought to you by the David Farland’s Writers Groups
- Attend the calls and/or subscribe to the podcast
- The official site of Orson Scott Card
- Includes great writing resources and a forum
- Quick and dirty tips for writing better
- A great resource for those trickier aspects of grammar
- A site that connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults
- Freelance editor and Fictorian
- “. . .I’ve had some fifty novels edited at various firms like Bantam, Random House, Tor/St. Martins and Scholastic, but I don’t recall ever having an editor who did such an in-depth and exhaustive job on editing.” — David Farland, New York Times Best-Selling author of The Runelords, The Courtship of Princess Leia and dozens of others
- A guide to publishers and publishing services for serious writers
- A dedicated marketplace for publishing professionals to find critical information and unique databases
- Home of Publisher’s Lunch – a free, daily e-mail filled with publishing news
- A Subject Tracerâ„¢ Information Blog developed for monitoring research resources and sites on the Internet
- A publishing industry watchdog group sponsored by SFWA and MWA that is dedicated to warning writers about schemes, scams and pitfalls
- Includes the Writer Beware Blog for up-to-date info on things to watch out for
- A weekly, fifteen minute podcast on the writing craft that will probably be the best, and possibly the most entertaining, fifteen minutes you’ll spend all week
Got something equally fabulous to add to the list? Let us know. Send the link to admin@fictorians.com and we’ll check it out.