Thanks to C L Lynn, Jon Ruyle, Merlion, Bored Crow and JeffBarton for the crits.
 

I have a feeling it's a lot of "keep sending out MSs" advice, but I'd like to hear more from you on what it is that you're finding with various markets. Are you researching all on ralan? Duotrope? How do you decide what to send to whom? How's the pay? Have you had any markets go belly up on you before they pay/print your work? What happens then?

And on and on I could go.

But I really should emphasize the CONGRATS part of this message! I'm excited for you!
 

But for what it's worth, yeah, I basically send the stories out until I sell them. I go on Duotrope and just do a search for the genre of the story I've just written and send it out there. If the markets allow it I always sim-sub too, life's too short to spend months waiting for one form rejection.

I only ever sub by email, too. If a market only accepts hard copy, I just don't sub to that market. That's just mainly a money thing, all my wages go to the wife and kids and one of the things that attracted me to this hobby was that it's free.

And speaking of money, the most I've got for a story is 100 bucks and the least is 3 bucks. I've given two stories away for free, but both of those were reprints: one because I like the editor and she's bought a few off me in the past, and the other one was a reprint to that dragon anthology, my nephew loves dragons and I thought that would be a cool birthday present for him next year. But really I don't lose any sleep over what the markets pay--depending on the lenght of the story, the difference between semi pro and token payment might only be a few pence anyway--and lets face it, if we were looking to get rich, we wouldn't be writing short stories anyway Personally I do it to learn the craft for when I finally start that novel I keep putting off, so if people want to buy and publish my stuff in the meantime, good on them.

And the last question, I sold a story to sfzine.org that they haven't managed to broadcast yet, but they've paid me for the story already and it was a reprint anyway. Hub magazine bought another reprint off me before going on hiatus, and Flashing Swords bought a story off me in January 2008 and it still hasn't been published! With that one, I have it in my contract that if it hasn't been published within two years of signing, all rights revert back to me. And then it will be back bouncing around the markets again.

But like I say, don't listen to me--other people seem to have far more method to their story subbing ways. And thanks for the congrats!

[This message has been edited by monstewer (edited October 10, 2009).]
 

And congrats