Comments on: Building a Career Backwards

By: Graham Storrs

Graham Storrs — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:20:40 +0000

Jane, your pitch party has been a huge success. I’ve met all kinds of interesting new bloggers and I think I’ve picked up a couple of new subscribers too. Thanks for organising it.

(Hmmm. I suppse I’d better go and copy this into your own blog too in case you don’t come back here.)

By: Jane Smith

Jane Smith — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:25:26 +0000

With book publishing I’d definitely start with the big boys and work my way through them, then move onto the independents: but with articles it’s often easier to establish yourself as some sort of expert in your field by working for the smaller titles before you approach the top guns.

Thank you for participating in my pitch party today, by the way–it’s much appreciated.

By: Graham Storrs

Graham Storrs — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:34:35 +0000

Thanks, Jody-Ann, Jenny and Emma. J-A, your comment about supporting the industry is an important one. I hadn't realised before I started submitting to the free mags just how serious and dedicated the editors are. They're doing a major service to writing and writers and, by setting high standards, often produce mags that are not distinguishable in quality from the paying ones. Emma, if you want to have a go at submitting to free mags, I highly recommend it. Two mags I have found which have high quality and very good editors are Bewildering Stories (based in Canada, ed. Don Webb) and Concept Sci-fi (based in the UK, ed. Gary Reynolds). You might also take a look at The Absent Willow Review (based in the US, ed. Rick Decost) which is newer than the others but is doing very well so far.

By: Emma Newman

Emma Newman — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:48:16 +0000

I’m afraid I have no experience with submitting short stories, so I can’t give any useful advice. I just wanted to say that it sounds like a scary world in which ones writing ability is judged by fellow writers based on which magazine you get into. I would be thrilled to get any magazine to feature my work, paid or not.

By: Jenny Woolf

Jenny Woolf — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:09:21 +0000

Why not do it both ways? There’s no law says you can’t submit to both non and high paying markets. The main issue will probably be your own self confidence. High paying markets will be more likely to kick your story back or totally ignore you. Well, they can go and get stuffed.

Best thing about submitting to payers is that if you DO get any feedback it is useful, because presumably you’ll want to join the paying market one day and their requirements are going to be different from the non payers.

good luck. Jenny

By: j-a

j-a — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:03:58 +0000

i think you’ve done a good thing in getting your stuff published, and it gives you credibility for the paying mags. you could probably start venturing out into other fields, but i wouldn’t view what you’ve done as a waste, because you’ve now got publishing credits. and it’s good to support the industry, even when you don’t get paid for it!