Hey folks. If you follow me here or on Twitter you’ve almost certainly heard me mention Fireside Fiction. I am a huge fan the market and have been supporting them since just about their very beginning. I was also lucky enough to have my flash fiction piece, “All of Our Days“, published by them last year, and as I talked about in a previous post that made them the first professional market I ever signed a contract with. So yeah, they’re special to me.

But if you are a writer or reader of short fiction (of any genre) they should be special to you too.

Why?

Two reasons: Quality & Fair Pay

The second reason there is really the key, because by dedicating his market to fair pay Brian White, editor and publisher of Fireside, ensures that he will attract and can demand the very best stories. I mean, if you’ve written an excellent story, why wouldn’t you hope to sell it to a market paying more than twice the currently recognized professional market. (Actually, I’m  fairly certain that, with the closing of Tor.com to unsolicited submissions, Fireside is now the second highest paying market available to writers of genre fiction).

The good pay, and the quality that follows from it, also means that Fireside has attracted the attention of some of the best writers out there today. Here are just some of the people whose stories have appeared under the Fireside banner:

A. Merc Rustad, Caroline M. Yaochim, Sofia Samatar, Stephen Blackmoore, Helena Bell, Malon Edwards, Andrea Phillips, Daniel José Older, Annie Neugebauer, Lisa Nohealani Morton, Megan Grey, Rebecca M. Latimer, Nino Cipri, Jennifer Mason-Black, M. Bennardo, D.B. Starler, Jonas David, Jason S. Ridler, Karina Cooper, Adam P. Knave, A.E. Decker, Jake Kerr, Delilah S. Dawson, Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Ken Liu, Kat Howard, Christie Yant , Lilith Saintcrow, and Chuck Wendig

And that’s not an exhaustive list by any means. And, of course, they also publish plenty of writers at the beginning of their careers. (*waves* – like me!)

And you don’t have to take my word for it – Issues 10 – 29 of Fireside are all available to read for free over at www.firesidefiction.com. Please – go read!

While you’re there you might also want to notice the beautiful Galen Dara art that illustrates every issue. Fireside provides a quality package top to bottom.

But when you’re done checking them out please consider supporting Fireside by either signing up for their Patreon or Subscribing to the remainder of Year 4. You can read all the details about it at their website, but the fact is Fireside has bills to pay and not enough paying readers. You can’t provide one of the best per-word rates going for writers without the support of readers. Every little bit helps, after all $2 a month to the Patreon will knock $20 off the total they need to reach to support themselves for the next 10 months. If you are very financially comfortable though, by all means check out their $50/month tiers on the Patreon and help knock their subscription drive out of the park (while getting some very cool perks). Seriously though, every little bit helps.

A couple more things:

• Everyone thinks that it’s nearly impossible to make a good, fair, fee for selling the rights to a short story. You can help prove the narrative wrong and help change the conversation by supporting Fireside.
• Fireside has also started publishing Novels – their first, Revision, by Andrea Philips, hit a home run with critics and readers. (Deservedly so, I read it and loved it) Don’t let this small publisher die out before they can show us what other homeruns they’ve got up their sleeves.

So please – Go support a publisher who wants to support good writers telling great stories with fair pay. As readers and writers you’ll be supporting a better world for all of us.