I, Libertine is a historical novel that began as a practical joke by late-night radio raconteur Jean Shepherd who aimed to lampoon the process of determining best-selling books. After generating substantial attention for a novel that did not actually exist, Shepherd approved a 1956 edition of the book written mainly by Theodore Sturgeon—which was later claimed to have become an actual best-seller, with all profits donated to charity.
Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author.
Syfy is an American basic cable television channel, owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division and business segment of Comcast's NBCUniversal. Launched on September 24, 1992, the channel broadcasts programming relating to the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres. As of November 2023, Syfy is available to approximately 69,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2011 peak of 99,000,000 households.
A vanity press or vanity publisher, sometimes also subsidy publisher, is a book printer that is paid by authors to self-publish their books. A vanity press charges fees in advance and does not contribute to the development of the book. It has been described as a scam, though, as the book does get printed, it does not necessarily rise to the level of fraud. The term vanity press is derogatory, so it is not used by the printers. Some self-publishing businesses prefer to market themselves as an independent press, and some authors who are self-publishing through CreateSpace and Amazon Kindle prefer to market themselves as indie authors instead of as self-publishing authors.
Skiffy is a deliberate humorous misspelling or mispronunciation of the controversial term "sci-fi", a neologism referring to science fiction.
Roger Elwood was an American science fiction author and editor, who edited a large number of anthologies and collections for a variety of publishers during the early to mid-1970s.
Naked Came the Stranger is a 1969 novel written as a literary hoax poking fun at the American literary culture of its time. Though credited to "Penelope Ashe", it was in fact written by a group of twenty-four journalists led by Newsday columnist Mike McGrady.
Yargo is a romantic science fiction novel by Jacqueline Susann. It was written during the 1950s, but not published until 1979, four years after Susann's death.
America Star Books, formerly PublishAmerica, is a Maryland-based print-on-demand book publisher founded in 1999 by Lawrence Alvin "Larry" Clopper III and Willem Meiners. Some writers and authors' advocates have accused the company of being a vanity press while representing itself as a "traditional publisher". It changed its name in 2014, and since 2017 it has stopped accepting new authors.
An author mill is a publisher that relies on producing large numbers of small-run books by different authors, as opposed to a smaller number of works published in larger numbers. The term was coined by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, as a parallel formation from diploma mill, an unaccredited college or university that offers degrees without regard to academic achievement, and puppy mill, a breeding operation that produces large numbers of puppies for sale with little regard for breed purity, puppy placement, health, or socialization.
John Michael Scalzi II is an American science fiction author and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Old Man's War series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog Whatever, where he has written on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several charity drives. His novel Redshirts won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, writing and politics, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series Stargate Universe.
William C. Dietz is an American science fiction writer, principally of military science fiction novels and video game novelizations.
James Douglas Ignatius Macdonald is an American author and critic who lives in New Hampshire. He frequently collaborated with his late wife Dr. Debra Doyle. He works in several genres, concentrating on fantasy, but also writing science fiction, and mystery and media tie-ins.
Jim Butcher is an American author. He has written the contemporary fantasy The Dresden Files, Codex Alera, and Cinder Spires book series.
Charles Coleman Finlay is an American science fiction and fantasy author and editor.
Lisa Smedman is a science fiction and fantasy author and journalist. Her novel Extinction, set in the Forgotten Realms universe, was a New York Times bestseller. Smedman first became known for gaming adventure novels, and later published her own independent fantasy novels.
Brent Weeks is an American fantasy writer. His debut novel, The Way of Shadows, was a New York Times best seller in April 2009. Each of the five books in his Lightbringer series made the NYT list as well, starting with The Black Prism in 2010. He lives and works near Portland, Oregon with his wife, Kristi, and their two daughters.
Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using print on demand technology. It may also apply to albums, pamphlets, brochures, games, video content, artwork, and zines. Web fiction is also a major medium for self-publishing.
Harvey Aronson is an American journalist and journalism teacher, and a former Newsday editor who also wrote or co-wrote several books. He was part of a group of Newsday reporters involved in writing the bestselling hoax novel Naked Came the Stranger, initially credited to fictional author Penelope Ashe, and published as a parody of commercialized book publishing in general and of novels in the genre of Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls in particular. Aronson co-edited the project with his colleague, Mike McGrady, who had conceived the idea, and Aronson also wrote a chapter of the book about a character described in a later news article as "Melvin Corby, a meek real-estate lawyer, unsatisfied in his marriage yet incapable of adultery, the only character in the book thus afflicted." In a Life magazine article written after the ruse was revealed, Aronson commented that he thought the book had ended up being more comedic than pornographic, and he opined that Susann "writes about sex as if she were a virgin".
The Atlanta Fantasy Fair (AFF) was a multigenre convention which took place once each summer in Atlanta, Georgia from 1975 to 1995. Organized by A.C.F.F., Ltd., the convention was a nonprofit entity designed to promote the fantasy genre in the American Southeast. Over its two-decade run, the AFF featured hundreds of guests, encompassed hotels in downtown Atlanta and ran thousands of hours of programming for fans of science fiction, fantasy, comic books, and other elements of fandom.
