Reading: back issues of Amazing
Music: matthew Sweet's "100% Fun"
TV/Movie: Red Dragon
Link o' the Day: Ralan.com

Another productive evening. Yay, me!

A revisit to yesterday's topic. The discussion at sff.net diverged too far from the original topic to have anything of interest to repeat here, but in response to the question as to whether or not it's useful/good/worth sending stories to non-paying markets--hmmmm.

Good question. My first impulse is to say no. I'm trying very hard to establish good selling habits. I believe editors that when read in a cover letter about how I sold this story to a free zine or that story to a penny-a-word market it hurts my credibility. But then again, my goal is to become a professional writing. Call it validation if you'd like. If my story is good, then it must be good enough to pay for.

Still, I _have_ written for free or almost-free in other venues. I've written a couple of fanzine articles--by definition that's writing for free. It's a time sink that pays back in nothing other than egoboo and the enjoyment of doing it (much like this webjournal). The book review payments at Strange Horizons are better than most (i.e., they _pay_) but I donate back every other book review I do for them because I admire the hell out of them and believe in supporting them as a new market and showcase for new writers.

I wrote a chapter called "The Literary Roots of Fantasy" for a compilation work called THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO WRITING FANTASY. Currently it's available as a PDF publication at twilighttimes.com, but will soon be coming out in paper by Dragon Moon Press. Neither are markets that are going to be paying me a lot of money when and if there are royalties to go out. I did it because it was a group project started on an internet fantasy writers list I've belonged to for a while and it seemed like fun. It doesn't hurt that my chapter leads the book, so my name appears nice and early anyplace that discusses the contents. It's a promotional sort of thing.

I have a couple of stories that have been difficult to place for a variety of reasons. One is at it's 14th market. Another is at its 10th. I don't believe these are bad stories, but they're taking a while to sell. I've yet to offer any story to a market that offered less than 3 cents per word. If it gets that bad, I may simply retire the story if I don't think I can do a sufficient enough rewrite.

Now that's not to say that I go through the market list and submit in a descending list of pay rates. Not everything I write falls into what I perceive to be SciFiction or Strange Horizon's market. Not everything falls into F&SF, Asimov's, Analog, or the DNA pubs. But I do try to choose the best paying and most respected market for that particular story.

But is it all about pay rate? Probably not. Are there non-paying markets that are worth sending fiction to? Possibly. I can't think of any off the bat. But you know... if tomorrow F&SF or the other slicks announced that they were no longer paying for stories, I might consider still offering them stories. Why? Because of the presitige? Because I could then say, "Hey, my writing is good enough to appear in Analog!"

Do I expect to become rich writing? Do I expect to be able to make a living solely on writing?

I'd sho 'nuff like to, but I know the odds are stacked heavily against me, and I still have a ways to go.

I wonder what would have happened if I didn't get so discouraged by those creative writing classes from o-so-long ago.

* * *
Today's list is a repeat, but I figured I should stay on topic. My first stop for current market listings is Ralan.com. The anthology listings don't differentiate between pro, pay-for, and for-the-love-of rates, so make sure to read the mini-guidelines with each entry. It's worth exploring the rest of the site. Ralan packs a lot into a webpage.

Cheers!