Where can I find a good science fiction publisher dealing with old fashioned scifi?
My writing style is much like the science fiction style in the 1930′ and 40’s and I am having trouble finding publishers that publish that type of science fiction. My novels are much like the early Edgar Rice Burroughs novels or even Buck Rogers. I see plenty of publishers putting out books from older authors, but where can a new author find a publisher interested in publishing that sort of story?
All were good answers. Thanks!
- Scifi Boy
April 10th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
The best way to find a publisher is to find books similar to yours and contact their publisher. You can send them a copy of your manuscript, or just a letter of interest to find out if they accept unsolicited manuscripts. Expect to contact a lot of publishing houses that are not interested, not because of your work, but because of the amount of people looking to get published. There are also several books out there to help authors get published that have publisher info – address, etc. Submit! The Unofficial All-Genre Multimedia Guide to Submitting Short Prose is a DVD with some good info.
Good Luck!
April 11th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Well, publishers will tend to publish what will sell. If people want old style science fiction, chances are they will go out and buy old science fiction. That is, there isn’t much of a market for your sort of work.
This devolves into a question of why you are writing? Is it for yourself and the enjoyment of it, or is it to get published and make money? If it is the former, then don’t worry about not getting published (but, I would say, keep trying, and try to build a rep through writing short stories and getting those published in magazines). If it is the latter, however, then you have to write to your audience (well… you write to your audience no matter what, but for one your audience is you, for the other the audience is everyone else).
Not the answer you were looking for, I am sure, but hopefully one that will help.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
In addition to being really well-read in the sci-fi genre, you also need to know who publishes what’s out there, and why each book was picked by a certain publisher to publish.
If no-one is publishing your kind of story, it’s going to be hard to get it published.