Speculative fiction, broadly, includes the stories that are typically classified as science fiction and fantasy, but if you've written in the genre realm for long, you may have noticed that the terminology employed by libraries and other sources to classify genre fiction is somewhat limited. Maybe we genre writers aren't as "serious" as the "real" authors, but that hasn't stopped us from developing our own terminology to help describe our works. Since I think that many of these terms would be useful for both readers and writers to know, I've sought to describe some of them below.
Cartography
One of the distinguishing features of the speculative fiction genre in its published form is the maps. Avid readers of fantasy and science fiction are known to pour over the maps included in the books they read, maps describing fantastical worlds and universes in vivid detail. It was perhaps inevitable, therefore, that I would at some point be obliged to create maps to go along with the stories I've written or am in the process of writing.
A Place to Start
Maybe, if I were some kind of amazing author, a writing protege, with nothing to do but labor lovingly over my works of fiction, I could think about doing this the "normal" way, if such a thing even exists. There's something attractive about traditional publishing, mostly that the publisher usually takes care of all of the logistics, advertising, and social media outreach. In other words, the traditional publishing route (at least as I imagine it) would allow me to hide in a cave and write, without worrying about all of this publicity and business.
IGC Publishing 