100 sites for fiction writers: #17 - Tor.com

This is an ongoing series looking at websites that can be of help to fiction writers with their craft and career.

Tor.com

Longtime fans of science fiction and fantasy reading will be familiar with Tor Books, the publishing company which has its online home at Tor.com. For more than 30 years Tor has been bringing best-selling fiction to genre fans, along the way earning numerous awards and consistently being recognized as one of the best science fiction and fantasy publishers in the market.

But often enough genre fans only know a publishing company by its name on the spine of its books. While Tor offer some excellent reading material, the company's website offers much more for readers and writers.

Tor has been one of the strongest, most active online communities for fans of science fiction and fantasy. Tor.com includes a Forum, as can be expected, but there is also a Community page that focuses on blogs by various authors and others associated with Tor, as well as fiction from some of those authors and others.

For those with an interest in genre art, there is the Gallery, regularly featuring artwork by different artists in different mediums.

As can be expected, the focus here is upon Tor books and products, though there are mentions here and there of other publishing companies and books.

This is not a site for finding tons of information directly related to writing, though there is some of that here and there if one looks around. For the most part, Tor.com is a site for readers and fans.

But writers need to pay attention to those readers and fans. Writers need to keep abreast of what's going on in the marketplace. Writers need to know what readers want.

This does not mean a writer has to curtail his or her work to only what the masses are interested, but it can help a writer form an idea of what is selling, what is not selling, what are readers' expectations, etc. And you never know, a writer might pick up a few ideas from those readers.

If you have interests in genre fiction, you should be checking out Tor.com. Even if science fiction and fantasy aren't your thing, you can learn a lot from the site. In fact, you can learn how to do a great website for genre fans.