posted
My first choice is what SFWA think are pro magazines (I'm at the short story stage) Then I fumble away at duotrope and look mostly at pay. Not because I think I'll get rich by writing but because I assume that a mag that will pay 3, 5 or more cents a word must be doing ok and have reasonably good circulation. What criteria do you use?
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posted
Well, with me, it started with, "I'd like to submit a story to these magazines I read," and so my first manuscripts went off to Analog, F & SF, Galaxy, and Amazing, usually in that order. (Asimov's didn't happen for another couple of years. When it did I started sending to it, too.)
Now, it's "I'd like to submit a story to those magazines I read," read now being different pronunciation and past tense, since I rarely read the SF magazines from cover to cover. (I just finished a couple of magazines that way this week, though, for the first time in years, but that's another story.)
Financial thoughts played a factor---a magazine called The Writer, which most of you have probably read at one time or another, listed rates and word lengths and such. I think the order I listed above was also the order of their rates, top to bottom---but I might've submitted in that order if they'd paid the same rate.
(Not that anything from that early era got accepted---thank God!)
posted
I also like to start out with magazines that I have read. Granted, it may have only been one issue several years ago, but it does give you at least a little insight into what they like to publish.
Next best, I like to look at the website. If the website looks like it was put together by a colorblind monkey with ADD, I'm very turned off. If nobody at the magazine can put together a decent website, I have a hard time believing that they can design a nice-looking magazine. Granted, it's the content that really matters, but people usually aren't as eager to buy a butt-ugly magazine.
Next most important to me is pay, circulation, and general stats about the magazine. Obviously higher pay rate is preferred, in terms of magazine quality, but that's not as big of an issue. Spec fic is quite healthy, and there are a lot of places to send a short story that pay well.
posted
Right now I have so many stories in the market that I usually just pick the highest paying market where I don't already have something submitted. Obviously F&SF, Analog, Asimov's, Strange Horizons, et. al. are top tier, followed by whatever else is available.
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posted
I send stuff to markets that I have read and liked, and that I believe will be a good fit for the story.
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posted
How important is it that the magazine doesn't take email subs? I live overseas and I kind of shy away from mags which only take slowmail because of the postage and extra response times.
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posted
Likewise, I've started to use duotrope to give me the main suggestions, than study the details to try and identify the right fit of story to market.
And yes, my search criteria is "Paying - highest first".
quote:I live overseas and I kind of shy away from mags which only take slowmail because of the postage and extra response times.
That's definitely understandable. It takes a long enough time through the mail if you live in the US. I've noticed that more and more magazines are now accepting overseas submissions through email, even if Americans still have to use snail mail. Seems like a great idea to me. Easier on the writer and none of the fussing with IRCs. Hopefully the rest will catch on soon.
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How important is it to hear back quickly? With a printout submission, a month seems fine...and within a week makes me wonder if they read it at all. Going the other way, anywhere over three months seems too long.
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posted
By that response standard, I wouldn't be submitting anything to the pro mags, because most of them have long response times Response time isn't an important criterion for me. My criteria are: first, the market looks like it will be a good fit (I'm not overly choosy, but sending an epic fantasy story to Analog is too much a suicide for me). Then highest-paying, whichever of them happens to be free from my prose at that moment Posts: 1075 | Registered: Sep 2004
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The traditional opinion has been -- start with the highest-paying market and work down.
But Dan Simmons offers a different approach -- start in the mail-room and work up.
In other words, don't waste your time with the pro-markets until you have some semi-pro credits to your name. And don't waste your time with semi-pro until you have paying credits to your name. What about "for-the-love" markets? Well, not for genre fiction, unless they are highly reputable. But well-circulated (i.e., 750 or so) nonpaying literary-fiction markets are very good to begin with . . . if you write literary fiction.
I'm not sure which advise is better. Both have the plueses and minuses. Perhaps a combination of both. If you're unpublished, instead of sending to ALL of the pro-markets, maybe pick one or two. Then one or two semi-pro. But send to at least a dozen paying markets. And once you get a half-dozen hits in the paying markets, start sending to more semi-pro markets.
posted
Who is this Dan Simmons guy, and how dare he tell people to shoot for their feet when shooting for the moon will hit your feet if it misses everything else on the way up and down.
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Dan Simmons - I assume we're talking "Hyperion" Dan Simmons, here?
I see no reason not to start at the top and work down, even if that then allows me to work back up again by getting "credit" at lower levels. After all, it's entirely possible that the very first story you submit will be accepted by a pro market.
posted
I, too, also see no reason not to shoot for the moon, to aim high, to [insert your own mess of other metaphors here, 'cause I'm tapped dry].
I suppose a market might reject something if they knew it had been bounced by someone else. I doubt I'd want to appear in a market that did that. A good market wouldn't do it...
quote:I suppose a market might reject something if they knew it had been bounced by someone else.
That philosophy would be doubly stupid, considering that many award winning stories have been rejected by several magazines before finding a home. There's no accounting for taste.
Besides, I don't see how they'd know your story has been rejected unless you go around saying so in your cover letter.
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yes, things not to put in a cover letter...
"Dear Editor,
Please find enclosed my story "Blechkovo's Doom". Although this has been rejected by eighteen other magazines, some of which you may not even have heard of, I hope you will find it a suitable story for your publication."
posted
Spaceman, you've never heard of Dan Simmons? And you call yourself a SF fan. Jeez!
Anyway, Simmons isn't saying one shouldn't "aim for the moon" and "shoot at the foot" instead.
What he is saying is be realistic in your approach. Break in with small paying markets, then work your way to the semi-pros, then to the pros. He has a point. As King suggests in ON WRITING, success breeds succees.
And given the accompliments of Mr. Simmons, his word shouldn't be dismissed outright.
posted
In a practical sense, his advice doesn't exactly contradict the advice to submit to the highest paying markets first.
I could point out that the market that pays you 100 dollars for the story you've actually written will pay you a hundred dollars more than the market that would have payed you 300 dollars for a story you're not yet capable of writing. I could point out that Simmons is just suggesting that you be willing to submit to lower ranked markets when you're first breaking out, that doesn't mean that you won't be consistently trying to break into higher profile markets.
Mostly, I'll point out that there's nothing wrong with choosing where to submit your work based on your own personal desires. Write what you wish, and submit where you wish. It might not be the road to fame and fortune...but probably that's true of writing at all.
posted
I would probably start high and work my way down the list as the rejection letters come in, after all it sometimes takes several submissions for a piece to find a home.
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posted
Does anyone take into account the "personal responses" statistics on Duotrope? Would you be more likely to submit to a magazine that frequently offered something by way of critique?
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posted
Yeah, I'll go for a mag that offers critique if they have good circulation and pay. Circulation/pay are my main criteria, but I like to get input that might improve my chances of publishing somewhere else
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quote:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I suppose a market might reject something if they knew it had been bounced by someone else. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That philosophy would be doubly stupid, considering that many award winning stories have been rejected by several magazines before finding a home. There's no accounting for taste.
Besides, I don't see how they'd know your story has been rejected unless you go around saying so in your cover letter.
It's a sidebar issue here, but...it's always made me uncomfortable that if I was rejected by Analog, and wanted to submit to Asimov's, I had to bundle up a manuscript and send it to the exact same address.
I don't really know how much they share with each other (say, passing a manuscript from one to the other with a note saying, "This isn't for us but it might work for you.") But their proximity always made me wonder: Do both see my manuscript when I send it to one? Is it worth the extra postage to send it out?
We thrashed this out in another post not all that long ago...I don't remember which...
[edited 'cause it looked damned strange when it popped up...]
[This message has been edited by Robert Nowall (edited August 04, 2006).]
[This message has been edited by Robert Nowall (edited August 04, 2006).]
quote:In other words, don't waste your time with the pro-markets until you have some semi-pro credits to your name. And don't waste your time with semi-pro until you have paying credits to your name.
Baloney.
Yes, there are people who seem to work their way up to the pros while accumulating credits in lower-paying markets. But that's not because their credits somehow earn them the right to move up to the next level of market; it's because their writing improves with time, so that they're eventually capable of writing stories the pro markets will buy.
If you're already writing work of a quality the pro markets are willing to buy, why on earth should you start with lesser markets?
I have sold seven stories to pro markets. I don't have any semi-pro or lower-paying credits. (I do have two "for the love" credits for an LDS-themed story, but that actually came after six of the pro sales, not before.)
If I'd started at the bottom to work my way up, I'd have no pro credits at all.
posted
As far as personal responses from editors, No, I won't steer towards a market just to get another crit.
By the time I send a story out, it has been workshopped by 5 or more published authors. There's a good chance, any additional crit at that point will be contradictory to a crit I recieved before and I had already decided which way to go with the story.
The exception is when an editor will say, "change this and resubmit it" - which very few will ever do.
That's not to say that I don't appreciate the crits from editors, but I won't choose feedback over prestige and/or pay. Generally I will choose a market on how well I think my story will fit with what they are looking for. But, I start at the top of the pay/prestige market list and work my way down until I find one I think a story fits with.
posted
Top down, setting Duotrope to electronic subs to avoid snail mail, and then I look at what the publications want.
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posted
My process is to look at the story and determine the genre. Then I develop a list of markets that accept stories of that genre and length. From that list, I break the markets up into 3 categories, top, middle and bottom.
If I think the story is really strong, I'll sub to one of what I consider the better markets on the list. This may be the best paying, or one that I consider most prestigious, or that for some reason I really want to appear in. (Best paying is not necessarily the only reason I might desire to be in there.)
If I think the story isn't quite so strong, I'll go with the second layer of markets.
posted
Imagine you have a story that you don't really think you can improve. The plot is what it is, the writing is clear and sure, there's always more tweaking to do, but the story is almost as good as it will get. Do you keep sending it out again and again after it starts collecting rejections? Or do you humbly admit defeat and start working on this weeks story? Do you send it to the non-paying markets? Or do you only think it's worth publishing in a paying one.
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posted
It honestly depends what I think of the story. Some of my stories are "as good as they'll get" but aren't as good as others. I'm probably more prone to drop to "lower" markets with the stories I don;t rate as highly, but if I genuinely think I've written something very good, then I'll persevere at the top level.
Opinions are obviously very individual and personal things, but it is worth noting that my only pro sale to date is, indeed, something I regard as the best thing I've ever written so far. It may be that until I can write something that good again, I won't get another pro sale. Time (probably a lot of it) will tell.
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I keep sending it out if I can't figure out how to make it better and no one tells me what's wrong with it. Maybe it's one that has appeal, but to a smaller number of people, or maybe to lots of people, but to a smaller number of editors.
Maybe it's a story ahead of its time, or at least ahead of a trend, and will later become known as cutting edge. If I really, truly, not-fooling-myself believe in a story, I'll keep sending it, including to non-paying markets.
I don't have any stories I feel that strongly about yet, though. Gift With Strings went out as good as I could make it at that time, but I bet if it comes back rejected (I wish they'd hurry and let me know!) I'll read it with fresh, sharper eyes and find ways to improve it. But after that, it goes out again, and will keep going out until I find a home for it, so long as I don't have to pay its upkeep.
posted
How about taking what you learned from the rejected story, and applying what you learned to the next story? I stopped grieving over my past rejections as time went on---especially when I reread my early efforts.
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posted
I see what you mean. I started rewritting a story I wrote on and off for a year. I have only one word to describe the experience: painful.
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posted
It happens that all stories are not created equal. I've had a couple accepted at the first place they went to. Others, I've sent out as many as five times before acceptance. Still others were rejected once and I've shelved them, simply because I realize the story isn't solid enough to market. Three different layers of markets, three different levels of stories.
A carpenter learns to look at lumber and determine the quality and usefulness of it. A writer has to learn to have that critical eye with his stories.
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