What constitues a "professional" market? Is 5cents/word+ suffcient, even if its brand new and has no reputation? Or do you feel it needs to be recognized by the SFWA or similar or affiliated with a major publisher to truly be pro?
And
What would you consider a "professional" writer?
Someone who has been paid for stories, period?
Someone who has been paid 5 cents/word or more for at least one story?
Someone who regularly sells stories for professional rates and/or has sold/published a novel or the like?
Someone who actually makes their primary living by writing?
For me, anything that involves being paid for something is technically professional on a base meaning-of-the-word level. However in practial terms its harder, especially the "professional writer" part. I'm interested in the thoughts of others...or maybe even more than the thoughts, the feelings of others about these two ideas.
A professional writer is someone who sells a story for money...but what you are looking for is a label, a pidgeon hole, and those exist only in people's minds not in objective reality...so it will vary according to who you ask.
For me:
A professional writer is only as good as his last sale. If it was to a crap e-zine then he better sell something else quick or his professional status will slink into the shadows with the rising of the new sun. If it was a nobel prize-winning novel then he can safely sit on his laurels for the rest of his life and still call himself a writer (and likely others will).
As for magazines...some are rich and some are poor. Some have big circulations and some have small. If they pay you they are professional no matter how rubbish their final product maybe.
Personally, I want to get published in the rich, pretty mags.
point 2. For me a professional would be someone who sells regularly to "paying" markets set at semi-pro and above.
A professional writer, for me, is one who must designate so on a tax return, and accords all the attendant obligations and priviliges thereof. Yes, I make my living in the writing game and must so indicate on my tax return.
Also, I think semi-pro and professional writers have a writing process, or method. They know what they're doing and can be relied upon, by editors, to deliver stories of consistent quality and to work with editors through the revision process without being more of a pain than the story demands.
I would have said a pro market is recognized as such by SFWA, until someone told me here recently that they don't recognize Interzone. So for me a pro market is one that pays money for stories and does it year on year, sustainably; and, as extrinsic says, delivers stories of consistent quality.
But I don't think that means SFWA members don't consider INTERZONE to be professional. It's pretty prestigious, as far as I can tell.
Hey everybody, I'm a pro now!
See how easy that is? Now if anyone is looking for advice from a professional writer you know where to look.
My fee is cheap.
I consider 5c/word markets to be pro, but add a few exceptions. For example, The London Magazine, which used to pay pro rates and was, I think, established by T.S. Eliot, now no longer pays as it lost its UK Arts Council funding. It's still extremely prestigious here in the UK. Similarly, Ambit no longer pays but had JG Ballard as its fiction editor for a while, and I'd consider that pro. Others are Interzone and Weird Tales (WT only pays 3c/word).
But the technical definition of a pro writer is someone whose main job is writing, however you choose to define that.
And I would also add to the definition of a professional is one that turns out "pro writing" on a consistent basis. Meaning, deadlines are met, and the writer treats the writing as a true job; not just writing while in the mood, or when the muse beckons.
Harry Crews said he sat in front of his typewriter for three hours every day, whether he could put anything down or not. It was his job to sit in front of that typewriter and try to write.
quote:
Harry Crews said he sat in front of his typewriter for three hours every day, whether he could put anything down or not. It was his job to sit in front of that typewriter and try to write.
Good strategy...wouldn't work now, though. My 'typewriter' plays movies, allows me surf the information super-highway, shop, etc. I can sit and do sit at it for hours and don't type--it's no hardship.
This definition excludes nearly all writers, though. How about this:
Amateur writer: anybody who has yet to make any money from their writing.
This opens up a big field of in-betweeners.
In the sf/fantasy writing world, however, when people talk about "pro markets", they almost always mean those recognized by SFWA (or some nearly equivalent criteria). It's a combination of pay rate, readership, and stability.
I would feel a little uncomfortable describing myself as a "professional writer" on the basis of one or two sales. To me, the term implies an ongoing source of income.
[This message has been edited by Starweaver (edited March 12, 2009).]
However, if you call yourself a professional writer to anyone who is NOT a writer, they will assume that you mean you make your living from writing, and when they find out you have published a couple of short stories in a couple of magazines they have never heard of, they will laugh at you.
So long as you understand that, call yourself a professional writer if you wish. Ther is no objective external measure for the term.
Incompetents, shirkers, malingerers, skylarkers, posers, scammers, and frauds, browbeaters, and boorish, churlish louts present themselves as professionals in every walk of life.
I won't enter the argument over pro and non-pro markets because I have not yet reached that stage. I may argue the unfairness of SFWA requirements when I publish in a snubbed magazine.
I will be content to call myself a writer and worry about professional status later.
---from New Webster'a Dictionary, the edition I bought about thirty years ago, leaving out pronunciation and derivation.
The "been publishing for a year" criterion is set by SFWA for a reason. It's easy for someone to set up a magazine, pay (or even claim to pay) pro rates, publish one issue that happens to consist entirely of stories by the editor, the editor's pseudonyms, and the editor''s friends, and then for that magazine to vanish again.
Would that be professional? I think not.
SFWA have to apply some criteria and I for one am pefectly content with the criteria they have, even though it means I'm not SFWA-qualified yet and probably won't be for at least another six months, maybe a year (I have a story to be published in BCS and another that is due out in an anthology early next year, although there is some question as to whether my IGMS sale and the IGMS anthology actually count as two pro sales for SFWA membership purposes - I'm not convinced they do but some people suggest they might. I'm not going to push it).
quote:
Is being a professional solely all about the benjamins? What place does ethical, courteous, conscientious, and business-like mannerisms play in the marketplace?
Incompetents, shirkers, malingerers, skylarkers, posers, scammers, and frauds, browbeaters, and boorish, churlish louts present themselves as professionals in every walk of life.
That's a different meaning of the term, and applies to behaviour. We talk of people behaving in a "professional manner" or even being a "true professional". But that's not the sort of thing someone can claim for themselves - it's a judgement made by others. Being a professional in the sense of having a profession IS something one can claim to be - but would sill be subject to the judgement of others (I don't call myself a writer, socially, just as I don't call myself a photographer even though I take hundreds of photographs, don't call myself an electrician though I can wire a plug, etc etc).
quote:
Is being a professional solely all about the benjamins? What place does ethical, courteous, conscientious, and business-like mannerisms play in the marketplace?
("Benjamins" are bucks, right?)
This is why I find a distiction between pro and semi-pro helpful.
The semi-pro has gotten paid, once or a few times, but not much and with little confidence in continuing, sizeable income. Getting published is something of a matter of luck, more so than through established relationships with audiences, publishers and editors -- a "name".
The pro, earning enough to live off full-time writing (and writing-related activities), has larger paying audiences, because she has mastered, not only story-telling, but reliable process disciplines of writing consistently, understanding markets, and dealing with editors, publishers, agents and paying readers with the respect, courtesy, ethics and conscientiousness that keeps bringing them back to her for more.
So, while I'm interested in everyone's experiences, since pros have demonstrated consistency of skill in all the requisite disciplines, I'm inclined to give extra weight to guidance from the Kathleens, OSCs and Haldemans than the ... well, you get the idea.
Similarly, I'll approach a semi-pro market with a little more caution in terms of contractual issues than a pro market, because the pro market is more likely to have dependable discplines in place. (That said, I can think of several semi-pro markets which appear to have professional disciplines in place ... maybe there are pro, quasi-pro and semi-pro markets ...)
(And, my secret reason for finding the distinction between pro and semi-pro useful is that my ultimate aspiration is to be a pro writer.)
[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited March 12, 2009).]
[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited March 12, 2009).]
quote:
("Benjamins" are bucks, right?)
Pro = someone who makes a living writing. They don't have to be a professional novelist to fit into this category. One of my in-person writer group friends is a pro writer who makes his living writing ad copy, and writes novels on the side that have yet to be published. But he's a solid writer, and he has a great perspective on writing as craft and business, so he's a great resource.
There are plenty of other pro writers who don't write fiction at all.
And then there are a lucky few pro writers who write fiction. 
I hope to join that category some day (or reach the place where the "makes a living" is enough to justify to the DH why I shouldn't have to take on independent consulting projects anymore. But then that would decrease my "observe human behavior" opportunities at work which would impact my writing which...hmmm. Conundrum.)