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!)
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.
And yes, my search criteria is "Paying - highest first".
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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.
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.
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.
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...
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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.
"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."
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.
But then, it's only one opinion.
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.
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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).]
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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.
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.
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.
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.
The bottom category is always a back up.
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.
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.
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.