Sci-fi, fantasy, and everything in-between
Business
Miscellany from the business side of writing fiction.
Calling all tax experts
01 year ago
by Damon Kaswell
in Business
Does anyone know where I might find a good list of tax deductions for writers living in the United States? I know a lot of expenses can be deducted, and since this year I’m going to be so heavily focused on novel editing and writing, I figured I should go all the way pro and try to make writing a full-time business, but I’m not really sure where to start in the tax department. I already know about the basics, like the cost of printing and postage, and business meals, but I’d like to graduate to Super Elite Writing Taxation Expert Hyper Force. Especially if it comes with an awesome costume.
Accidents happen
01 year ago
I recently found out I accidentally submitted two different stories to the same market at the same time. Somehow I lost track of the first submission, so thought the market was free.
When I got a rejection for the first submission, the one I didn’t have a record of sending, I was mightily confused. My tracking database only showed the second submission, but here was a rejection for a story I thought I hadn’t sent at all. No biggie, I thought… I must have just put the wrong story title in my tracking database. But since I didn’t know for sure, I decided I should email the editor and ask. The first response I got seemed to validate my thinking — the editor was kind enough to double-check the story title for me. Case closed.
Then I got another email from the editor. He’d located the second story, further down in his submissions queue. Oops.
For the record, most markets want writers to send them only one story at a time, and this one was no exception. So I made a mistake, and violated their guidelines. But again, the editor was very nice. He recognized that this was obviously an accident and shrugged it off. He even went ahead and read the second story and gave it a quick critique and rejection along the way.
Moral of the story: Accidents will happen. Writers are human and make mistakes. Fortunately, editors are also human, and recognize this fact. Don’t tread in terror of a vicious, bloodthirsty editor blacklisting you and ending your career because of a simple mistake even long-time pros make.
Challenge on hiatus until tomorrow
02 years ago
I’m putting a halt to story submissions until tomorrow, when quite a few markets open up again. I’m not rude enough to send my stories to markets they aren’t suitable for and waste an editor’s time just to meet a self-imposed daily quota. I’d rather do a big flurry of better-targeted submissions over the weekend.
Note for other writers in similar situations: There’s no rule that says you can’t get your backlog of submissions ready prior to the day the market opens.
Defeating submission inertia
02 years ago
In this day and age, submitting a story isn’t that hard. Many markets accept electronic submissions, and for those that don’t, the most time-consuming part of the process is printing the manuscript.
Yet more often than not, I find myself procrastinating about actually pulling up a list of markets (say, from ralan.com or duotrope.com) and putting stories out there.
It’s not fear anymore. It used to be, but after your 87th rejection letter, you find your terror of editorial rebuke quite faded.
No, it’s pure inertia. Authors at rest tend to stay at rest. Nobody ever told me that as a neo-pro, I might fall into this trap and have to slog out of it (by way of fun self-challenges like the one that led to six stories in the mail as of this afternoon).
Fortunately, I can report that authors in motion tend to stay in motion. There’s something invigorating about finally getting moving that’s self-perpetuating.
On that note, tonight’s goal: Edit an almost-ready story and make it tomorrow’s first submission.
Back to business
02 years ago
One of my goals for this month (I have several I’ll discuss later) involves getting plugged back into the business end of writing. The actual writing part of writing is and has been going well. Well enough that I have a backlog of stories that ought to be in the mail. The fact that they aren’t — and haven’t been for six months or more — is frankly embarrassing.
So for the next week or so, I’ll be focused on:
- Getting my tracking system updated with several missing submissions, the rejection letters of which currently reside in The Filing Cabinet Drawer of Doom.
- Market research.
- Putting actual stories in actual envelopes and actually mailing them.
To guarantee I don’t cop out on that last one, I’m going to post how many stories I’ve gotten in the mail every day this week. We’ll see how this goes. I’m open to self-punishment suggestions should that number ever be 0.