Marketing Between the Cracks

hi, folks, I've read the boards here for a long time but only signed up recently.

I'm searching hard through various market lists, including the ones posted here, but I was just hoping someone might have a specific suggestion for a story that falls between the cracks-- in this case, between Cicada and Cricket magazine. That's a pretty small crack. I've published twice before in Cicada, but they said no to this story for the reason cited-- falls between the target age groups of those two magazines. Which is a bit fuzzy-- Cicada is Teen/YA, Cricket "children's".

I gave Black Gate a try too, and they said no because they wanted a "fresher" setting (this story was set in contemporary suburbia, though it is a superhero/fairy tale/sf type of story). Though BG didn't mention caring about target age. The protagonist here is a 14 year old girl, but there is some strong material, violence and child predator kind of stuff. So I'm not sure if that's part of the difficulty....

Any suggestions would be welcome. I'm currently trying Weird Tales, where I've published before too, but I'm kind of doubtful about it as it really has a YA feel to it....

any suggestions would be very welcome.

The Lady said:

I could be hallucinating but I think I recall reading that Interzone had published a story lately where there was a suggestion that the MC , a boy, had sold his body (in that way) to acquire the money to save his best friend, a robot. I haven't actually read the story or the magazine, just recall reading a discussion about it. Maybe read Tangent Online's review of it to see if I picked it up correctly. There might be a market for ya.

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Interzone, I hadn't thought of them for a YA, thanks for the idea-- I'll check the word count in their gl.

Stijn Hommes said:

I think the strong material certainly was a reason for Cricket and Cicade to pass. How many words is it?

You seem to have an awful lot of different stuff mixed in (contemporary suburbia/superhero/fairy tale/sf) and then there is the strong material. What would you call it if you was only allowed 1 or two words to name its genre?

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just under 5K words. Contemporary fantasy.

They didn't say the strong material was the reason for passing though-- they specifically stated that it was because it fell between the two...called it a "cusp" story. They have however previously said no to another of mine they said they liked but which had "edgy" material (nudity, of all things...).

ah, I always seem to be doing this-- writing things that are somewhere between juv/YA or YA/adult......:-(