[book review – written in 2012]

This books provides a good overview of what to consider what trying to publish your work. To some extent it is applicable to any genre as much of the writing and publishing process is the same, it is of course looked at from a science fiction perspective. Although there is the inclusion of fantasy and horror; SF has a rather broad definition anyway. One key point to note is that the book was written in 99/00, so while some of the information is timeless there are some sections that are quite dated in 2012.

There are many important topics covered such as contracts, agents and taxes. This is perhaps some of the more boring stuff that you need to do once you have written your ”masterpiece” but it is even more important than the writing itself. The authors do a good job of presenting the information in an easy to digest and actually non-boring way. The occasional humour is also welcome.

The section near the end on promoting your material is a little bit dated when they review the electronic forms of promotion. Yes, it mentions websites but there is no mention of social media which is currently a dominant form of advertising. Facebook is obviously popular but Twitter seems to be awash with aspiring writers and their myriad spam posts to buy their wares. There are more self-publishing websites than they mentioned too, such as Lulu and now Amazon via the Kindle Direct Publishing.

I think speculative fiction will always be a strong selling genre, perhaps the authors should consider an update.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Science Fiction and Fantasy (Paperback)