Welcome back
for another Writing Tips Tuesday! Today I'd like to welcome a fellow short
story writer, and someone I really look up to, Mr. J.W. Alden! This guy
just keeps landing stories in markets that I desperately want to break into.
Daily Science Fiction? He's been there. Unidentified Funny Objects? Yup. Fantasy Scroll? Darn Tootin. I mean, the guy's been published in Nature! I'm a scientist by day and I've worked
with plenty of world renown researchers who've never managed to get a paper
into Nature.
So, how does he do it? J.W has been gracious enough to stop by and share some
tips on selling short fiction. In fact, he ended up with enough material that
I'm breaking it into a two-parter. So be sure to come back next week for the
second half!
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The Power of Market Research for Short Fiction Writers
 |
| That is some finely manicured facial hair. |
Selling
short fiction is hard. Every time I sell a story, there's a small part of me
that says, "How did I do
that?" Sometimes it even feels like I must have tricked that editor into buying my story, somehow. Those of you
who've been at this writing thing for a while are probably hearing your
Anti-Insecurity Alarms going off on my behalf right now. ALERT: IMPOSTOR
SYNDROME, right? Right. But the reason this particular flavor of Impostor
Syndrome has legs is because sometimes you can
trick an editor into buying your story. Well . . . kind of.
Trick is
the wrong word, because it implies dishonesty. There's nothing dishonest about
effective market research, which is what I'm really talking about. With the
right approach to research, it's possible to discern the tastes of the
editorial staff and write a story that connects with them by design. In my
experience, most writers don't take this approach. Most writers finish a story,
and then go looking for a market that fits. I do that too. Sometimes the story
just comes first. But as often as I can, I try it the other way around: write
the story with a particular market in mind. I don't have the longest list of
publication credits in the world, but every pro-rates sale I've made so far, I
wrote to market this way. My most
recent sale to Nature I even
stubbornly sent to a few other markets first because I didn't want to trim it
down to meet their word count requirements, even though I wrote it with them in
mind. After getting a couple of rejections, I realized the error of my ways and
made the necessary cuts. Voila, it
sold.
Does this
mean you'll sell every story you write this way? Of course not. There are a lot
of factors that determine whether or not an editor buys your story, many of
which are out of your hands. But even if you don't make the sale, and now you
have to shop that story around to markets you didn't have in mind when you wrote it, it still helps tremendously
if you're familiar with which markets are buying what.
So, how do
we do that? There's a ton of markets
out there, from print magazines to online publications to anthologies. It's
pretty much impossible to keep up with them all. Here's a few strategies that I
fine helpful.
Find the Markets
The most
useful tools for this first step are online listings like The Submission
Grinder. The Grinder has a huge database of fiction markets. You can
search with specific parameters such as genre, wordcount, and payrate. Better
yet, it also serves as a submission tracker, so you can keep track of how long
your stories have been out in the wild. Duotrope is another
website with similar functionality, but they charge a fee. If the listings are
all you're after (and you write SFF), you might also try Ralan.com, one of the oldest listings
of SFF markets on the web. Using a service like these can help you build a list
of markets that you think are worth aiming for. This will be your research
list.
Another
great way to find out about new markets is to join an online writing community.
There are a lot of these out there, whether it's message boards, facebook
groups, or subreddits. The first big writing community I joined was Absolute
Write, which has a
huge message board full of writers exchanging ideas and information,
including market info. The community I spend most of my time in these days is Codex, an online writing group
for "neo-pro" SFF writers like myself. You have to make at least one
pro sale or graduate from a major workshop to join, but the discussion within
has been invaluable.
Read the Markets
Surprising
amounts of writers I've talked with don't bother reading markets before
submitting. But there's no better way to get a feel for a market than by
reading the stories they're buying. After a while, you start to notice little
commonalities here and there. Susan McEditorpants
tends to buy a lot of stories written in first person, while John P. Editsalot
tends toward third person. That's the sort of thing I mean, though it's not
always so obvious. Keep a notepad or word document to write down observations
like these, and before you know it, you'll see patterns emerge. That's why it's
important to read as much as you can. Bonus: reading a lot makes you a better
writer!
Of course,
there's a reason many writers don't do this. As I mentioned above, there's an
overwhelming number of markets buying short fiction these days, thanks largely
in part to the rise of electronic publishing. There's just not enough time in
the day to read them all. So how do you manage all that content? Well, the
first step is to resign yourself to the fact that you're not going to be able
to read every issue of every magazine cover to cover. If you're like me, your
first instinct is to try, especially if it's a magazine you're paying for. But
you just won't have the time. The overall goal here is to read as many
different publications as possible. For those released monthly, I tend to read
about half of the issue before moving on to the next market, sometimes even
less. If I'm trying to crack a particular market, or I just plain love what a
certain publication publishes, I might read more. But for the most part, I try
to keep it as manageable as possible. If I come to the realization that a
market doesn't publish the sort of thing I write, I have no qualms with taking
it off my reading list for good. And if I do end up submitting to a market
that's not in my regular reading cycle, I'll still make a point to look at
their most recent couple of issues before submitting, if possible.
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Seriously folks, there are some top level nuggets of wisdom in there. Be sure to stop by next week for the exciting conclusion!
