Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction

This is my annual post about supporting the free Internet resources that you find especially useful. Despite them being–well–free, websites cost a lot to run, both in terms of paying for hardware, hosting and bandwidth, and especially in terms of the endless hours of time the webmasters are volunteering.

Because of this, I donate a bit of money each December to the sites I’ve used the most over the course of the previous year. The list of writing-related sites isn’t really different from the last time around:

* Codex Writers

This is a community of neo-pro writers. It’s not open to the public, but anyone who has made a professional sale or has attended a pro-level writing workshop (such as Viable Paradise, Clarion, etc.) qualifies for membership and should apply. I find the forum incredibly useful and visit it on the daily basis.

* The Submission Grinder

This free alternative to Duotrope launched when DT ceased to offer a free membership option and asked its members for $50-60 a year for the service. Submissions Grinder works just as well, at least for the speculative fiction markets that interest me, and while I feel $50 is too much for the way I use a site like this, I’m happy to donate the same $20 a year I used to give to Duotrope. For those of you who might not already be familiar with DT and Grinder, they’re wiki-type services that help writers track their submissions as well as provide a database of fiction markets.

* Absolute Write

I haven’t spent as much time on the Absolute Write forums this year, but they deserve support for both providing excellent forums for write0r-folk, and for being vocal advocates against disreputable publishers, agents, and anyone else who might choose to prey upon ill-informed or new authors.

Of course, it’s also important to support authors and editors and everyone else involved in creating the fiction you like to read. To that end, please consider doing some of the following:

* Subscribe to magazines you enjoy reading, even ones you can read online for free.
* Support Kickstarter and other crowdfunding projects by your favorite creators.
* Buy their books, music, comics, or whatever else you enjoy.
* Take a moment to write a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other site where you might buy books. It will cost you nothing, but is actually very helpful to authors and publishers.

#SFWAPro

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Craft of Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.