CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

There are some who mourn the death of publishing as we know it, but to me it’s like wishing we could have the plague back, or getting nostalgic for the feudal system. ( Colin Falcone r on the Write it Forward Blog , March 4 2012) Just sayin’… ‘Cos it made me laugh, and then it made me think, and then it made me remember all the blogs I’ve read as I researched which way was best for me to go. It doesn’t have to be the only way, and it may not be the right way for everyone, and every writer must choose which publishing method or combination of publishing methods is best for them or so I keep hearing from the numerous blogging posts from writers like the guys at Write it Forward , Joe Konrath , Dean Wesley Smith , Kristine Kathryn Rusch , David Gaughran , and Passive Guy , just to name a few. Every writer must choose their own path, but learning about the paths available so we can tread them with a modicum of safety can only be done by listening to the experiences of others g...

Why Anthologies? There are two main reasons I decided on writing and compiling stories for anthologies. The first is that I have a number of short stories that I’ve written over the years. They need a home. The second is that not all of my writing is in one genre or one style, so an anthology is a good way to establish the fact I write a range of genres in the readers’ minds—at least for related genres. Science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction for example, but probably not romance. That’s a whole different animal in my mind, and a slightly different set of readers. Thoughts on Pricing and Selling Short Stories in Anthologies. At first I thought of packaging each short story individually and selling it for $0.99c, but I worried about the quality debate, as many readers are wary of work below a certain price range. Initially, I considered packaging the stories individually and then bundling them at a later date and selling them at $2.50, but that seemed destined to ann...