Industry News Home

Welcome to the June edition of the SFWA Market Report.

Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by SFWA. Those markets included on this list pay at least $0.08/word USD in at least one category of fiction. This compilation is not exhaustive of all publication opportunities that pay our recommended minimum professional rate. Additionally, SFWA adheres to our DEI Policy when making selections for this report. We strongly encourage writers to closely review all contracts and consult our resources on best contract practices.

Markets Currently Open for Submissions

100-Foot Crow (Recently Opened)
Analog Science Fiction & Fact
Anomaly (Recently Opened)
Asimov Press
Asimov’s Science Fiction
Baffling Magazine (Recently Opened)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Clarkesworld Magazine
Crepuscular Magazine
Factor Four Magazine
Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter
Haven Spec Magazine (Recently Opened)
Infinite Worlds
It Was Paradise
Nature: Futures
Orion’s Belt
Plott Hound Magazine (Recently Opened)
Protocolized
PseudoPod
Reckoning
Samovar
Skull X Bones
Small Wonders
Strange Horizons (Recently Opened)
Taco Bell Quarterly
The Cosmic Background
The Daily Tomorrow
The Deadlands
Torch Literary Arts
Uncharted Magazine
Utopia Science Fiction

Markets Recently Closed for Submissions

Book Worms
Cast of Wonders
Escape Pod
Podcastle Flash Fiction Contest (Permanent)
The Fabulist
Three-Lobed Burning Eye
Tractor Beam
Wrath Month (Permanent)

Upcoming Market Changes

100-Foot Crow‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Anomaly‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Anomaly‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Baffling Magazine‘s Submission window ends soon.
Cast of Wonders‘s Flash Fiction Submission Window begins soon.
Diabolical Plots‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Flash Fiction Online (FFO) (Originals)‘s Submission window begins soon.
Haven Spec Magazine‘s Submission window ends soon.
Haven Spec Magazine‘s Limited demographic submission window: authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups begins soon.
It Was Paradise permanently closes soon.
Mysterion‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Plott Hound Magazine‘s Submission window ends soon.
PodCastle‘s Submission window begins soon.
Skull X Bones permanently closes soon.
Solarpunk Magazine‘s Submission window begins soon.
The Deadlands‘s Submission Window ends soon.
The Fabulist‘s Flash Fiction submission window begins and ends soon.
The Orange & Bee‘s Submission Window begins soon.

The SFWA Market Report is compiled by David Steffen, editor of Diabolical Plots and The Long List Anthology series, and administrator and co-founder of the Submission Grinder.  Diabolical Plots will open for fiction submissions on July 7th! You can support Diabolical Plots and the Submission Grinder on PayPal or Patreon or by buying books or merch.

The post SFWA Market Report For June appeared first on SFWA.

by Russell Nohelty

I’ve been working in both book publishing and comic publishing for close to 15 years at this point through my work as publisher of Wannabe Press and editor of the Cthulhu is Hard to Spell comics anthology series. While there is some overlap in marketing strategies between them, they’re remarkably different to market and sell. 

You would think they’re basically the same, right? After all, they are both made from paper, printed with ink, and bound together to be read sequentially. And yet, they are different enough that if you don’t know the idiosyncrasies and particulars of how to market comics, it can completely destroy your launch, leaving you to wonder how your sure-fire novel became a dud when translated into a comic. Here are a few of the main differences.

Art

Each page of a comic is filled with art, which can all be used in marketing. Every one of them is a chance to find a new audience for your books, so they need to feel cohesive with both the genre and the theme. Comics creators can market their work on the strength of both the art and the writing, creating more dynamic appeal.

This means that the artist is as important to selling the book as the writer. While prose readers are mostly drawn to genre, comics people follow artists, which tells them more about the book’s tone than anything else. At Wannabe Press, and in the comics industry in general, we market the heck out of our artists and put a lot of thought into pairing the right artist with the right project to hit the right audience.

Focus on Print

Comics are mainly bought in print, compared to the more than half of traditional books, which are sold digitally. Digital book sales revolutionized the publishing industry but never funneled to comics. There are some great platforms like GlobalComix and Webtoon that specialize in digital formats, but generally comics readers prefer to buy physical comics. This is one reason why comics embraced Kickstarter early on, since printing and shipping books is a lot more expensive than sending a digital file. 

When marketing comics, take time to talk about the size of the book and the paper quality. With comics, the paper quality and final size change the way a comic is read and whether it feels satisfying and high-value to the audience. 

The Market

Comics sell in completely different channels than novels. While graphic novels may be sold in bookstores, single comic issues almost never are, unless it’s as part of a collection. Instead, comics are sold into the direct market. This doesn’t mean direct-to-consumer but rather means comic stores, who for decades were the main buyers of comics. Unfortunately, these distributors require more product than most creators can push out, which locks off this distribution channel to them. 

That doesn’t mean traditional retailers work for comics either, as bookstores and libraries are generally only interested in stocking graphic novels or collected trades, not single-issue comics, and even then mostly for the YA and Middle Grade markets where they already have broad acceptance. 

These tough market conditions are another reason why comics was one of the first, and most successful, industries to embrace crowdfunding. There is a thriving comic market on Kickstarter, and creators who don’t take advantage do so to their detriment. 

Another major sales channel for comics is conventions. Most comic creators have a presence in at least one convention a year, which isn’t true for almost any prose writer I know. Conventions such as San Diego, New York, and Emerald City bring together tons of comic fans together, and many comic creators make a full-time living working “the circuit.” 

One interesting bit about selling comics and books together is that comics readers tend to be a lot more engaged at your table than book readers, who prefer to stand silently reading a book before deciding whether to buy it. This generally allows you to sell comics more aggressively and with more interaction than books. 

Buyers Who Are Less Price-Sensitive

Comic buyers are less price-sensitive than book buyers. It’s expensive to hire good artists, not to mention printing books, which means we can’t afford to price books like the book market. Instead, the comics industry largely focuses on the collectability of their work and sells it for a higher price than most books can manage. It’s very common for a single 24-page comic to be priced $10–$20, depending on the cover. 

Of course, this presents a whole different problem. Since comics are traditionally quite a bit more expensive than books, there are not that many comic readers compared to book readers. That’s why we do things like variant covers for our books, which means hiring better-known artists to create extra covers. It’s not uncommon for a book to have 5–10 different covers with different price points.

These distinctions are not trivial, and taking them into account is often the difference between success and failure in the comics market. Meanwhile, if you already work in comics and are sliding into the book market, make note that how book authors interact with their fans is a lot different than what you were used to in the past. The end goal might be the same (getting a book into your readers’ hands), but the methods and strategies are wildly different.

Explore more articles in THE COMICS PANEL series

Russell Nohelty (www.russellnohelty.com) is a USA Today bestselling fantasy and non-fiction author who has written dozens of novels and graphic novels including The Godsverse Chronicles, The Obsidian Spindle Saga, and Ichabod Jones: Monster Hunter. He is the publisher of Wannabe Press, co-host of the Kickstart Your Book Sales and Six Figure Author Experiment podcasts, and cofounder of the Writer MBA conference and The Future of Publishing Mastermind. He also co-created the Author Ecosystem archetype system to help authors embrace their natural tendencies to find success. You can find most of his writing at theauthorstack.com. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and dogs.

The post Book Marketing: Comics vs. Novels appeared first on SFWA.

The Ignyte Awards Committee has announced the finalists for the 2025 Ignyte Awards, which “seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.”

Outstanding Novel: Adult

• The Sentence, Gautam Bhatia (Westland IF)
• Metal from Heaven, August Clarke (Erewhon)
• Blackheart Man, Nalo Hopkinson (Saga)

...Read More

The 2024 Shirley Jackson Awards nominees for outstanding achievement in horror, psychological suspense, and dark fantasy fiction have been announced.

Novel

• Smothermoss, Alisa Alering (Tin House)
• Curdle Creek, Yvonne Battle-Felton (Henry Holt & Co.)
• The House of Last Resort, Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s US; Titan UK)
• The Eyes Are the Best Part, Monika Kim (Erewhon)
• The Haunting of Velkwood, Gwendolyn Kiste (Saga)
• Eynhallow, Tim

...Read More

The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia has announced the King’s Birthday 2025 Honours List. Authors of genre interest Gary David Crew and Garth Nix are among the 413 people to receive a Medal of the Order of Australia, which honors “Australians who have demonstrated outstanding service or exceptional achievement”, on account of each of their “service to literature as an author”.

Nominations for the Australian Honours and Awards system ...Read More

The six-book shortlist for the 2025 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year has been announced. Works and authors of genre interest include:

• The Cracked Mirror, Chris Brookmyre (Sphere)
• The Mercy Chair, M.W. Craven (Constable)
• The Last Word, Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
• Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney (Henry Holt and Co.)

The prize is presented by Harrogate International Festivals and sponsored by the brewery T&R Theakston, in ...Read More

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced the winners for the 2024 Nebula Awards in Kansas City and via YouTube.

The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award was presented to Nicola Griffith. The Infinity Award was presented to Frank Herbert. Eugen Bacon received the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award “for distinguished contributions to the science fiction and fantasy community” and C.J. Lavigne received the Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service ...Read More

Artist DAVID SCHLEINKOFER, 74, died April 20, 2025 of ALS. Born January 29, 1951 in Phila­delphia PA, Schleinkofer was a prolific artist in the 1970s, ’80s, and early ’90s, producing scores of covers for SF publishers. He was known for his distinctive airbrush style. ...Read More

Radha Vatsal, Anna Rasche, Gregory A. Wilson, and Christina Li read at the Barrow’s Intense Tasting Room in Industry City, Brooklyn NY on April 15, 2025 as part of the Brooklyn Books & Booze Reading series, hosted by Randee Dawn.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and ...Read More

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced that ML Clark has joined their professional staff as communications and marketing coordinator. Clark has previously worked with SFWA Pub­lications, as an editor for The SFWA Blog and Nebula Awards Showcase, and on other projects.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine ...Read More

The Associazione World SF Italia announced the finalists for the 2025 Premio Ernesto Vegetti, an Italian SF award.

Novel

• WINNER: L’arma del Druido, Giuseppe Bono & Marco Di Giaimo (Angolazioni)

• Odissea Futura, Luigi De Pascalis (Tabula Fati)
• Gente dello spazio, Franco Piccinini (Scudo)

Nonfiction

• WINNER: Teorie dello Spazio: da Newton alla fantascienza, Davide Arecco (Scudo)

• Il dilemma della fantascienza, Mauro Antonio Miglieruolo (Scudo)
• Conversando tra

...Read More

Author Barry B. Longyear, 82, died May 6, 2025 at the Maine Health Franklin Hospital in Farmington ME. He was the first writer to win a Hugo, a Nebula, and a Campbell Award in the same year, and has been nominated for multiple Hugo, Prometheus, and Locus Awards.

Barry Brookes Longyear was born May 12, 1942 in Harrisburg PA, and attended Staunton Military Academy in Virginia. He married his wife ...Read More

by Michael Armstrong

Starting in 1965, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association trophies have evolved from the original Nebula Award of spheres and spiral galaxies encased in Lucite to newer awards such as the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award of a butterfly and compass. One award, the Infinity Award, honoring Grand Master-worthy writers who died before they could be selected, didn’t even have a physical trophy until this year.

Several Nebula Awards trophies displayed before being awarded at the 1998 Nebula Awards banquet held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Note the large quartz crystal. Photos by Michael Armstrong.

At its annual conference, SFWA gives out these awards:

• SFWA Nebula Award for Novel
• SFWA Nebula Award for Novella
• SFWA Nebula Award for Novelette
• SFWA Nebula Award for Short Story
• SFWA Nebula Award for Game Writing
• The Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
• The Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction
• The SFWA Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award
• Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award
• The Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award
• The SFWA Infinity Award

Beginning in 2026, two new awards will be added to this list:

• SFWA Nebula Award for Speculative Comics
• SFWA Nebula Award for Speculative Poetry

Andre Norton’s 1984 Grand Master Award. Note the use of the clock face and seashells. Photo by Jeremy Brett, Courtesy of Texas A&M University, Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection.

According to Damon Knight, the first SFWA president and one of its founders, Kate Wilhelm sketched the original concept for the Nebula Award, with Judith Blish designing the trophy. Except for the Ray Bradbury and Andre Norton awards, the Nebula Awards consist of a black lucite base and a clear lucite slab with the nebula spiral galaxy design and spherical lapis lazuli, chrysocolla, and other minerals that look like floating planets. The trophy size has varied over the years from about eight to nine inches high, four to five inches wide, and three to five inches thick. The Grand Master award has a slightly larger and tapered base but includes the same top as the Nebulas.

The first Nebula Awards had quartz crystals and even objects such as pocket watches. Alan Dean Foster and William Rotsler selected gems for the Nebula awards in the early years. When quartz crystals became expensive due to New Age theories of their healing powers, Rotsler added the spheres.

In the 1990s, when I was the Nebula Awards rocks wrangler—the title of the volunteer who acquired the elements—I added objects like meteorites and titanium-coated crystals, shiny rocks a friend would pick up at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. In recent years, former SFWA executive director Kate Baker and, later, former deputy executive director Terra LeMay have been the rocks wranglers. 

Baker said recent trophies have stuck to using the spherical stones. “In order to make them more uniform to prevent material sourcing and production issues, while still preserving uniqueness of each award, I moved to different-sized and different-colored spherical gemstones,” she wrote in an email.

The Bradbury Award takes a different approach. Texas artist Vincent Villafranca designed and cast in bronze the sculpture of a person with an IBM Selectric typewriter ball head taking a hammer to a pyramid and standing on a book base. Villafranca also designed the Hugo Award base for the San Antonio Worldcon and recently did the redesign of the World Fantasy Award. 

The Andre Norton award previously had a taller, obelisk shape with a glittery spiral tube embedded, but in 2020, Baker said it was redesigned to be the same as other Nebula awards.

Fans of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey will appreciate the simple design of the Kevin O’Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award, a black monolith. Named after one of SFWA’s most tireless volunteers, the Service to SFWA Award honors members who have contributed to the organization through long-term service. The front is clear lucite with the nebula glitter pattern against a black back, but looked at from the rear, it could be a prop for Kubrick’s classic movie. After I received my award at the 2014 banquet, I amused my tablemates by playing Richard Strauss’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra” on my smartphone.

The Solstice Award recognizes “up to three persons, living or dead, who have consistently had a positive, transformative influence on the genre of science fiction and fantasy,” according to the SFWA website. A collaboration between former SFWA President Mary Robinette Kowal and artist Mike Libby, the Solstice Award consists of a butterfly hovering over a compass and encased in a glass dome.

Robert Sawyer’s 1995 Nebula Award for Best Novel, The Terminal Experiment. Photo by Robert Sawyer.

In 2023, SFWA added a new Infinity Award, first given to the late Octavia F. Butler. That award honors writers who died before they could be considered for the Grandmaster award. “This new award aims to recognize that even though those celebrated world builders, storytellers, and weavers of words are no longer with us, their legacies will continue to inspire,” according to the SFWA website.

Unique among SFWA awards, the Infinity Award has had no physical trophy until this year. Instead, SFWA donates to a cause the honoree supported or their loved ones requested. Butler was honored with a donation to the Octavia F. Butler Scholarship to the Clarion West workshop. For the 2024 honoree, Tanith Lee, SFWA donated to the Pasadena Humane Society and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

SFWA previously honored living writers who no longer worked in the field with the Author Emeritus award. Baker said former SFWA President Jeffe Kennedy instituted the SFWA Infinity Award in 2023 after the Author Emeritus award fell out of favor. 

From time to time, SFWA has also given out special awards, including a SFWA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001 to Betty Ballantine and a special honoree award in 2013 to Frank M. Robinson by former SFWA President Steven Gould.

Society Awards creates the current trophies, at a cost of about $1,100 for each award, including purchase of minerals and shipping, Baker said. In the event of a tie, extra elements are purchased every year to get a rush-order trophy.

The Nebula Awards have been featured in a few movie and television projects, most recently in the series Mythic Quest. 

Explore more articles in THE HISTORY FILES series

Michael A. Armstrong was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, and raised in Tampa, Florida. He moved to Anchorage, Alaska, in 1979, and has lived in Homer, Alaska, since 1994. He has a bachelor of arts in humanities from New College of Florida and a master of fine arts in writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage. He also attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop. He has written two post-nuclear apocalypse novels, After the Zap and Agviq. He also wrote The Hidden War and Bridge Over Hell. His most recent novel is Truck Stop Earth. His short fiction has been published in Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog, Fiction Quarterly, and many anthologies. In 2014, he received the Kevin O’Donnell Jr. Service to SFWA Award. 

In 2022, Armstrong retired after working 23 years as a reporter and editor at Homer News, a small weekly newspaper in Homer. He lives in the hills above Homer in a home he built with his wife, Jenny Stroyeck, a partner in the Homer Bookstore. He and Jenny play in Shamwari, one of Homer’s marimba bands. They share their lives with Fletcher, an enormously cute little dog.

The post Planets and Plastic: A History of the SFWA Trophies and Awards appeared first on SFWA.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced that the submission window for HWA scholarships and grants are open from June 1, 2025 to August 1, 2025. You do not need to be a member of the organization to apply.

Available programs include The Horror Writers Association Scholarship, The Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Scholarship, Diversity Grants, The Dark Poetry Scholarship, The Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for Non-fiction, and The Dennis Etchison Young ...Read More

Winners for the 2025 CrimeFest Awards have been announced. Authors and titles of genre interest include The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Faber & Faber) in the eDUNNIT category and Heist Royale by Kayvion Lewis (Simon & Schuster Children’s) in the Best Crime Novel for Young Adults category.

Winners receive a Bristol Blue Glass commemorative award and were announced May 17, 2025 at a gala awards dinner in Bristol, UK.

...Read More

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has announced the shortlists for the 2025 Dagger Awards. Titles and authors of genre interest include:

Gold Dagger

• The Book of Secrets, Anna Mazzola (Orion)

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger

• Nobody’s Hero, M.W. Craven (Constable)
• Sanctuary, Garry Disher (Viper)
• Blood Like Mine, Stuart Neville (Simon & Schuster UK)

ILP John Creasey New Blood Dagger

• Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney (Bonnier Books Ltd)

...Read More

The New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) has announced the winners of its annual Book of the Year Award, recognizing the best books either set in or by authors born or living in the Mid-Atlantic US. Titles and authors of genre interest include James by Percival Everett (Doubleday) in the Fiction category, Twenty-Four Seconds from Now… by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy) in the Young Adult category, and Luigi, The Spider ...Read More

Bouchercon has announced the nominees for the 2025 Anthony Awards, honoring the best in crime fiction. Authors and works of genre interest include:

Best Hardcover Novel

• The God of the Woods, Liz Moore (Riverhead)
• Alter Ego, Alex Segura (Flatiron)
• California Bear, Duane Swierczynski (Mulholland)

Best Paperback Novel

• The Last Few Miles of Road, Eric Beetner (Level Best)
• Echo, Tracy Clark (Thomas & Mercer)
• Late Checkout

...Read More

Clarion West has announced it will host its first three first in-person summer camps for teens in 2025. Eligible teens are “students entering 9th grade through 12th grade,” and all camps take place over the course of a week from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Clarion West partner locations in Seattle WA.

The Worldbuilding Summer Camp for BIPOC Teen Writers, instructed by Tara Campbell, will be held July 7-11, ...Read More

The winners have been announced for the 2025 Prix Imaginales, honoring the best works of fantasy published in France.

French Novel

• WINNER: Kosigan, un printemps de sang, Fabien Cerutti (Mnémos)

• Roman de ronce et d’épine, Lucie Baratte (Typhon)
• Une valse pour les grotesques, Guillaume Chamanadjian (Aux Forges de Vulcain)
• La Boutique des choses inavouables, Céline Chevet (du Chat Noir)
• Le Cycle de syffe, tome 4 :

...Read More