Short Story Markets

Time has not been kind to the short story market. This is surprising, given the limited time and patience of today's reader. It seems that more doorstop novels than ever before weigh down the shelves of our bookstores, but magazines dedicated to short fiction come and go (more often go).

Time was when a Ray Bradbury or a Robert Heinlein could make a decent (if meager) living selling short stories provided he was prolific. Nowadays, there are few markets that pay in anything other than contributor's copies, and fewer still that pay well enough for to be considered "professional publication" according to the guidelines of the major professional organizations.

If you're looking to get rich with by publishing short fiction, you have chosen the wrong profession. Today's short story writers craft their works for three main reasons:

• To establish or maintain their visibility with readers.
• To establish a history of successful publication so they can sell other works (such as novels).
• Because they love the form.

This last reason is not to be underestimated. I prefer short fiction and I believe others do as well. If you're working in a genre or format solely because it sells, you're wasting whatever gifts you might have. If you don't love writing (yours in particular), you're wasting your time.

That said, it is still nice to see one's byline.

As bleak as the declining subscription numbers for genre magazines that appear in Locus every year might be, there are still markets out there where you stand a chance of publication.

Follow these guidelines for finding markets:

• Read the magazines to which you want to submit.
• Carefully review the writers' guidelines for the magazine.
• Rank your markets in order of suitability.
• Some markets are better than others for your career.

Read the magazines to which you want to submit.

There is something oily and cynical about reading magazines solely to reconnoiter them as possible targets, and I'm chagrined to see my Barnes and Noble likes to place Asimov's and Analog among the writing magazines. I shudder to think that a significant number of their readership are there mostly because they want to be in the magazine themselves.

My suggestion is to read magazines you love and send your stories to them.

Don't send stories blindly just because you read about them in Writer's Digest or some other market listing. There are two reasons:

• You want your story to fit the mood and intention of the magazine. Chances are Guideposts does not want your Satanic prison sacrifice story.
• You may not want your work associated with some magazines. Sometimes a magazine may sound innocuous in the market description but turn out to be a place you'd be embarrassed to appear.

Order a contributer's copy and learn about the magazine. At the very least, you're supporting the short fiction market. You're also helping find a better home for your story.

Carefully review the writers' guidelines for the magazine.

Imagine going to a funeral wearing a pair of worn coveralls and a rope belt knotted around your moonshine-bulging gut.

You're a rube.

That's exactly what you look like when you send your vampire story to Analog Science Fiction or your hardcore necrofilia sonnet to Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Don't be a rube. Review the guidelines for your target market and follow them religiously. Understand your editor's needs. Don't waste time or postage sending stories to a market just because it's there.

Of course, magazines do accept stories outside their usual standards or patterns, but try the more likely market first. Never rule out a market completely, but make sure you're sending a story to a magazine where it will fit.

Rank your markets in order of suitability.

A good tool for keeping your story out where editors can read it is to maintain a list of markets where a particular story has a better chance. Review the markets and your sample issues and stack them in order according to the magazines most likely to purchase your story. Start with the most likely, send your story there, and work your way through.

Send to the highest paying markets first, too.

Some markets are better than others for your career.

Another reason to review a contributor's copy of a magazine is to estimate the viability of the publication. Is this something cranked out on a basement mimeograph machine like a militia tract? Is this a magazine you'd be embarrassed to have tumble out of your briefcase on the metro?

Many magazines work their way up the ranks of prestige just as you will have to do. Some make it, others don't. As tempting as it is to take any publication you can get, don't sell yourself short. At least try the major markets before sending to your friend's fanzine.

Is it okay to take a chance? Sure. But honestly estimate the future of the magazine. Many excellent stories fall between the couch cushions of publishing just because they appear in magazines that are run in an amateur fashion.

Will publication in a bad magazine hurt you? Probably not. You'll still want to avoid the appearance of artificially inflating your credits with markets that are little more than vanity presses. An editor is not as impressed with a writer published on his friend's Web site as he or she might be with a publication in Weird Tales.

Just as NBC and CBS have more clout than UPN or FOX, so too are some magazines (to paraphrase Orwell) more equal than others despite the quality of the content.

Online publications are gaining legitimacy in publishing circles but don't carry much weight in the field yet. I cannot decide what their fate may be, but I have to admit I still retain the snobbery of thinking that a story is truly "published" when it appears in print. I suspect others still have this feeling as well.

Part of the problem is that the standards for online publication tend to be lower than those of print publications. An online editor loses little or no money if your story wastes a page of bandwidth. A paper magazine pays much more for your story to appear in print and is more selective accordingly.

That said, online markets are still a great place to hone your craft and gain visibility. Of course, it is easier to have your work pirated from such places, and I'd advise writers with any professional reputation to avoid any but the most reputable of those markets. Harlan Ellison's recent fight against Internet pirates of his work warns us all about such dangers.