First of all, congratulations to Encinitas for his/her first professional sale. It’s a great feeling when someone tells you, “I like your work well enough that I’ll use my money to publish it”.
Well, Encinitas’ thread got me to wondering who else on SMDB has been or shortly will be published professionally–defined as getting a check or checks for something you’ve written and actually seeing it in print.
Back in 1994, I published a paperback, saddle-stitched booklet with a small publisher in Chicago, a one-man operation which is now defunct. It was a small dictionary of pagan gods and goddesses, and while I got no advance, it did generate a number of royalty checks over the next several years ranging from as little as fifteen to as much as fifty dollars. Almost the entire printing of 1000 copies sold out over four or five years time, and I got a little under $500 altogether. The publisher was planning a second and much fancier edition just before he went under. Several folks on Amazon.com spoke kindly of it, and I got the immense pleasure of seeing something I’d written on the shelves of local bookstores.
Okay, so I didn’t take the literary world by storm. Even so, it was a major event in my life, and I’d like to know who else among our merry band has had that immense satisfaction.
So let’s hear from the other folks here who can stand up and tell us (beaming with pride, no doubt), “I am a published author!” (If you’re someone who’s really makin’ in the publishing world, let’s hear about that all-important first sale.)
I’m one of about half a dozen contributing authors of Build Your Own Combat Robot. I wrote 3 out of 18 chapters for the book, and contributed a lot of the photos and diagrams. Didn’t get my name on the cover, but I am listed with the other authors inside.
One novel, Staroamer’s Fate, published some time ago by Warner/Questar Books. It was named one of the best first novels of the year 1986 by Locus.
30+ short stories in science fiction/fantasy markets including Fantasy and Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, Galaxy, Aborginal SF, Marian Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy, Absolute Magnitude and anthologies like Blood Muse, Vampires, and Swashbucking Editor Stories. I’m also online at Strange Horizons.
I’m also treasurer of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer of America.
I sometimes write articles for Poker Digest, and I’m listed as a contributing editor in their magazine, although I’ve never done anything to deserve it.
I was first published in 1979 i Scientific American. I’ve had articles in American Journal of Physics, Physica Status Solidi, Optics Communications, and a lot of other technical journals. I’ve also had stuff in Parabola, the Magazine of Myth and Trdition, New Jersey History, the Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, and the Double Star Observer. And my first book came out in 2000 – Medusa, Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon (see my site at www.MedusaMystery.com )If enough people buy copies, I may actually make back my advance, which I foolishly blew on illustrations.
Wow, my little announcement inspired a whole new thread where I learned of the various literary successes of my fellow dopers. But I must confess that I was not actually paid cash for my article. Instead I will be receiving a year’s free subscription to the newsletter in which it appeared! WooHoo! I wrote the article partly as a favor to a friend and partly as a test to see if I could do it. Now that I know that I can…the sky’s the limit!
Well, I’m published in an academic journal, but I don’t get a check for that.
So I must turn to my other literary success, which was being paid $100 for a contribution to “True Confessions.” It was for their regular feature “My ESP Experience” and not a word of it was true of course.
Well, I’ve had several magazine articles published (though of a very specific nature), and in my current job, I write stuff for a living. Still, it’d be nice to do stuff with short stories, if only I got off my duff and did it…
Generally you can throw me into the mix. True, I have no books yet, but a good number of short stories (By far most are in the mystery and SF genres), some of which have been anthologized. Periodically, when working out plot ideas and run into road blocks, I come to SDMB for assistance and the “teeming millions” are consistently helpful.
I have also published tons of non-fiction stuff, but that’s what I do for a living (write and shoot photos for newspapers and magazines).
Years ago I also wrote and had published two (what I now consider very bad) plays. Fortunately they are no longer being carried by any publishing house although while they were, the occasional (tiny) check was welcome.
I would have to agree that Eve and RealityChuckare two of this board’s most respected authors and I should also add that they both have excellent first-hand knowledge about the publishing business. They have on different occasions disspelled misconceptions I have held about my publishers, agent, editors and once a reviewer.
I’m a free-lance writer, which means that I’ve done just about anything and everything you can do to make money in the field.
Just for some highlights, I’ve published several non-fiction books, edited an anthology, written magazine articles, did a series of profiles for a business newspaper, have been a columnist, written sf short stories, written reviews and criticism and even academic articles, although I’m not an academic.
And yet by far the most luctrative work I do is technical writing. Sigh.
I do not recommend the life of a free-lancer, BTW, unless you have a working wife.
I’ve been involved in two books: one researching(Wonder Woman’s 60th Anniversary Book), and in a high school English text book by McGraw Hill that I have an article about feminism in.
Even so, it was a major event in my life, and I’d like to know who else among our merry band has had that immense satisfaction.
