Foreign markets for speculative fiction writers

As a fiction writer in the U.S., like most of my ilk, I mostly sell my short stories to U.S. publications. Every once in a while I will take a look around at foreign markets, and I've been fortunate enough to have a couple of stories placed in English or Scottish markets.

But I've always been intrigued by foreign markets, especially non-English markets. Why? I don't know. A sense of the alien, perhaps? I do know I've often enjoyed reading fiction from non-English writers because I find different perspectives, different ways of looking at situations and the world.

Still, I've never tried to sell any fiction to non-English markets because ... well, I can only write English, though I can read Spanish and most latin-based languages to a far lesser extent.

It has recently come to my attention, however, that there are a number of foreign markets that are willing to translate English stories into their audience's language or have enough of an English-reading audience that they publish at least some English-written stories.

How did I discover this?

Because writer Douglas Smith has a Foreign Market List.

That's right. If you are a writer of fantasy and science fiction, and possibly of horror, this list can open up new possibilities for you.

There's much of interest here, and you might even find a place to that will publish or re-publish one of your tales. Keep in mind, even if you've sold a story to a U.S. market, quite often you still retain the rights to sell the story to a foreign market; that's not always true, so make sure to check your contracts before venturing forth. Or you might have an older story in which the rights have returned to you.

Foreign markets offer another possibility for writers to get their name out there, so check it out.