FTL/Exposure Only

Fruitbat · May 7, 2015

Jrubas said:
Let me start off by saying “Hi, everyone! I’m tickled pink you’re commenting on my post!”

The argument I see some (but certainly not all) of you using is: If you write for exposure only, you’re going to lose your house, your wife’s gonna leave you, and your kids are gonna have to pick up a couple extra shifts at the misery mine. I understand that POV. Hey, money makes the world go ‘round. I think artists understand that most of all. I mean, when you get right down to it, our work falls more into the “creature comfort” category than the “necessary to survival” category. If The Walking Dead happened tomorrow, who would you rather have, a writer or a doctor?

(Something like that.)

Anyway, I’m curious: How many of you here make your living SOLELY from your writing? How many of you would literary go hungry if you gave away a story to Market A rather than selling it to Market B for twenty bucks?

Of course, I wanna get paid for my writing, but I also realize, hey, I’d be writing anyway, whether someone was paying me or not. If a market can expose me to, say, thirty people, then I’m not against sending them something. Then again, I’m prolific. I’ve written close to fifty stories since January. I start at the top, subbing to the best markets, but once they pass, I continue down the line. If I think a story’s too good for FTL markets (and I do, on occasion), I hang onto it (if the big guys reject it) just in case something opens up down the road. If I don’t think it’s my best work, I can bring myself to part with it.

I digress. Again, out of curiosity, how many of you actually make a full living off your writing?

I don't even make a part-time minimum wage income from my writing. However, while I certainly don't turn down money from my writing, I don't need it to live and it's not my main goal. My main reason is just that I enjoy writing what I like to write, and get a sense of satisfaction from it. So I don't much bother writing what sells best and etcetera to go after money with it.

So, along with asking who makes a full-time living with their writing, I'd like to know who is trying to. Which is your main goal, for the love or for the money? I wonder if I'm in the minority or not.

williemeikle · May 7, 2015

Jrubas said:
Let me start off by saying “Hi, everyone! I’m tickled pink you’re commenting on my post!”

Anyway, I’m curious: How many of you here make your living SOLELY from your writing? How many of you would literary go hungry if you gave away a story to Market A rather than selling it to Market B for twenty bucks?

Me. I've been full time for 7 years. Not twenty bucks for a story though. Nothing less than 4c/word will do.

gettingby · May 7, 2015

Jrubas said:
Let me start off by saying “Hi, everyone! I’m tickled pink you’re commenting on my post!”

The argument I see some (but certainly not all) of you using is: If you write for exposure only, you’re going to lose your house, your wife’s gonna leave you, and your kids are gonna have to pick up a couple extra shifts at the misery mine. I understand that POV. Hey, money makes the world go ‘round. I think artists understand that most of all. I mean, when you get right down to it, our work falls more into the “creature comfort” category than the “necessary to survival” category. If The Walking Dead happened tomorrow, who would you rather have, a writer or a doctor?

(Something like that.)

Anyway, I’m curious: How many of you here make your living SOLELY from your writing? How many of you would literary go hungry if you gave away a story to Market A rather than selling it to Market B for twenty bucks?

Of course, I wanna get paid for my writing, but I also realize, hey, I’d be writing anyway, whether someone was paying me or not. If a market can expose me to, say, thirty people, then I’m not against sending them something. Then again, I’m prolific. I’ve written close to fifty stories since January. I start at the top, subbing to the best markets, but once they pass, I continue down the line. If I think a story’s too good for FTL markets (and I do, on occasion), I hang onto it (if the big guys reject it) just in case something opens up down the road. If I don’t think it’s my best work, I can bring myself to part with it.

I digress. Again, out of curiosity, how many of you actually make a full living off your writing?

Aside from saying literary when I think you meant literally, I think your problem might be trying to publish work you don't think is very good. Do you really want that kind of exposure from any publication?

I don't have a job outside of writing, but that's because I am in an MFA program and receive a stipend. The reason I wanted to do an MFA is because I really wanted to give this my all. But having or not having a job has nothing to do with where I want to publish. I still want to publish in the best places I can. If they pay, great. If they don't but regularly put out impressive issues where I would be proud to have my best work, that is great, too. But I don't want to publish just for the sake of publishing. Having bad stories out there with your name on them will not help you regardless of if you were paid or not.

Jrubas · May 7, 2015

When I look at one of the big markets for submission (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nightmare, Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine), I don't see dollar signs. I don't think "I'm gonna make me some money on THIS one." I think "It's prestigious, it has a wide readership, it's published some of my favorite writers, and being published by them would look good on my resume."

The money is a nice perk, but it's not a consideration if the figure is under fifty bucks. Pragmatically, what's twenty bucks? Thirty bucks? A nice dinner. Great. I work a job, my girlfriend works a job. Our bills are paid and we have a little left over at the end of the week. In other words, we lead a stable life and don't really want for much, so I'm not hard up for cash. I learned long ago to never count on my writing to make enough money to pay bills. Unless I'm going to be making good money from a sale, cash isn't a concern.

Jrubas · May 7, 2015

gettingby said:
Aside from saying literary when I think you meant literally, I think your problem might be trying to publish work you don't think is very good. Do you really want that kind of exposure from any publication?

I don't have a job outside of writing, but that's because I am in an MFA program and receive a stipend. The reason I wanted to do an MFA is because I really wanted to give this my all. But having or not having a job has nothing to do with where I want to publish. I still want to publish in the best places I can. If they pay, great. If they don't but regularly put out impressive issues where I would be proud to have my best work, that is great, too. But I don't want to publish just for the sake of publishing. Having bad stories out there with your name on them will not help you regardless of if you were paid or not.

All writers have great works and, below that, good works...works that serve their purpose, but don't make the reader stand up and say "WIN!" Lovecraft has stories that I love...but wouldn't classify as "amazing." You can't bat 100 every time. With my own writing, I have works that I consider "amazing" and works that I consider "good." Whether they really are is beside the point; that's simply my perspective. When I go to submit my work, I won't settle for FTL for something I consider "amazing," but I may settle for exposure when it comes to stories that don't define me as a writer, to the stories that didn't make me stand up upon completion and go, "Suck it, Hemingway!"

Jrubas · May 7, 2015

Of course my end game is to make money, but I'm not against foregoing pay for exposure, if, of course, the exposure the market offers is good exposure, and not "Ten of my closest friends will see it."

RedWombat · May 7, 2015

Yo! Full time writer/illustrator here.

I have put plenty of free stories on my blog so that people can read them, on the same principle as putting up a sample chapter of something. If somebody likes the writing, they know where to find me. And sometimes I write a neat bit of something for fun and want people to read it right away.

I don't give it to OTHER markets for free, though. An unpublished story has value--as something to drop in a personal anthology, where you want X amount of new content, or as something to sell to a paying market.

I don't mind donating a thing of value to a good cause, but I don't just give stuff to strangers so that I can have the honor of saying "I gave a thing to so-and-so!" I don't write enough short stories that they're piling up around me, and I can easily use the ones I've got, so there's no reason to hold them so cheaply.

Fruitbat · May 7, 2015

Jrubas said:
All writers have great works and, below that, good works...works that serve their purpose, but don't make the reader stand up and say "WIN!" Lovecraft has stories that I love...but wouldn't classify as "amazing." You can't bat 100 every time. With my own writing, I have works that I consider "amazing" and works that I consider "good." Whether they really are is beside the point; that's simply my perspective. When I go to submit my work, I won't settle for FTL for something I consider "amazing," but I may settle for exposure when it comes to stories that don't define me as a writer, to the stories that didn't make me stand up upon completion and go, "Suck it, Hemingway!"

Ha, that's interesting because so often what I considered my best work, no one else did, and vice versa.

Also, not directed at any one person but in general, I think people need to worry about their own business. If writers want to give away their writing for the exposure or just because they're having fun and not taking it all so seriously or any other reason, that is completely up to them. No, they're not taking anything away that rightfully belongs to other writers. When you choose to try to make money off something that so many others will do for free, them's the lumps that you signed up for. And let's not assume writers who want to give a story away are dim, being exploited, or not good enough to be paid. For one thing, if you write in a popular genre there simply are many more paying markets than, say, for literary fiction or poetry, so the bar to entry is lower. For another thing, submitting stories to paying markets does not grant anyone extra IQ points and neither does snobbery.

Samsonet · May 7, 2015

I don't think that's the right question, because a lot of people who make their living writing aren't writing short stories to magazines. They write novels, or ghostwrite, or do business and/or technical writing, or all of the above, or all of the above in addition to writing short stories for magazines.

Personally I don't submit to non-paying magazines, because my family is poor and we could use the money. That said, I don't really care where anyone else submits -- it only becomes a problem to me when the "editor" of the magazine starts talking about how this is a Great Opportunity for Young Writers to Get Their Names Out and Fulfill Their Dreams of Being Published!1!! which feels really condescending and not entirely in good faith to the writers.

Though that doesn't really have to do with exposure/paid as it is my pet peeve of people thinking teens are stupid, so.

If I had a story that was rejected by my first choices of where to send it, I'd probably be more likely to submit it to a place that was respected and upfront about being a non-paying market than a newer place that tries a bit too hard to convince me that exposure is worth more than money.

Jrubas · May 7, 2015

Fruitbat said:
Ha, that's interesting because so often what I considered my best work, no one else did, and vice versa.

Ha! I know what you mean. I submitted a story to a market I had been trying to get into for ages, and they actually accepted it, and I didn't even like it all that much. That is, it's one of my good ones rather than one of my great ones.

Jrubas · May 7, 2015

Samsonet said:
I don't think that's the right question, because a lot of people who make their living writing aren't writing short stories to magazines. They write novels, or ghostwrite, or do business and/or technical writing, or all of the above, or all of the above in addition to writing short stories for magazines.

True. I AM talking about short stories here, rather than novels, etc.

Fruitbat · May 7, 2015

Where did this come from that there are all these markets out there who try to convince writers to submit to them for exposure only? I have not seen any non-paying markets that do this. I think they're mostly too swamped with submissions to bother begging writers for stories. Even the free ones with small readerships reject far more stories than they accept.

Jrubas · May 7, 2015

Fruitbat said:
Where did this come from that there are all these markets out there who try to convince writers to submit to them for exposure only? I have not seen any non-paying markets that do this. I think they're mostly too swamped with submissions to bother begging writers for stories. Even the free ones with small readerships reject far more stories than they accept.

Neither have I. They exist, as any other market, and it's really up to the writer to submit.

Jrubas · May 7, 2015

To hear some tell it, non-paying markets are like drug dealers."Hey, you, yeah, you, writer...I got somethin' for ya!"

Fruitbat · May 7, 2015

Jrubas said:
To hear some tell it, non-paying markets are like drug dealers."Hey, you, yeah, you, writer...I got somethin' for ya!"

Yes, and writers who deal with them are, like, slutty or something. LOL!

Samsonet · May 7, 2015

Fruitbat said:
Where did this come from that there are all these markets out there who try to convince writers to submit to them for exposure only? I have not seen any non-paying markets that do this. I think they're mostly too swamped with submissions to bother begging writers for stories. Even the free ones with small readerships reject far more stories than they accept.

Every so often, on a forum aimed at teenage writers (which shall remain nameless for now) there will be calls for submissions from brand-new literary magazines that talk just. like. that. I'm exaggerating a bit to say there are a ton of 'em, but it sure feels like it sometimes.

For what it's worth, the most professionally-done of these magazines was non-paying, but it was pitched as more of a community thing than a "you'll get your name out there!" thing.

Jrubas · May 7, 2015

Fruitbat said:
Yes, and writers who deal with them are, like, slutty or something. LOL!

"Don't play with those "free" writers. You don't know what you'll catch!"

Filigree · May 7, 2015

I see 'free' markets all the time on Craigslist.

Liosse de Velishaf · May 8, 2015

I've worked on non-paying short story and poetry markets. The really good ones just tell it like it is. They don't talk about exposure, although some do promise to pay at some point in their lives.

However, I have encountered zines that hype the wonderful "exposure", or had people email me asking for stuff or email people I know asking for free stuff and promising "exposure". Those places do exist, and they are not uncommon, even if there are a comparable number of non-paying zines that don't condescend or attempt to deceive. Or, more likely in my mind, really, many of these "exposure" zines just don't know any better. I've definitely seen some of those, and I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't a larger percentage of them than I've experienced.

eyeblink · May 8, 2015

Up to a point. While I have sold short fiction professionally, I have also sold stories for copies. That's usually if I think the market deserving and should be supported. A couple in the last year were mainstream/non-genre stories I couldn't sell to a SFF market and other than competitions had run out of places to send.

But if I do think a story suits a pro market, I will try it there first.

Jrubas · May 8, 2015

But if I do think a story suits a pro market, I will try it there first

I try most of mine at professional markets first, but, like I said, in theory, I'm not against "exposure" if the "exposure" is decent.

Liosse de Velishaf · May 8, 2015

There are definitely prestigious markets where it's more than worth giving them the story "free".

ebrillblaiddes · May 11, 2015

I'd do it if I had a reasonable expectation that it could pay off. For example, if your situation is such that this would be OK rights-wise, "exposing" a tie-in short story, or an excerpt that works on its own as a short story, if you get to mention that it's related to your novel, is basically free advertising (and the excerpt in particular would be a minimal time investment, again assuming no rights conflicts), so, if they get decent circulation, probably worth the effort.

Fruitbat · May 11, 2015

Meh, if a call for submissions looks fun, I'll probably submit a flash story or two even if it's no pay and no big audience. If I wanted to do the cutthroat career thing, I'd go back to work.

Jrubas · May 11, 2015

Funny thing: I once subbed to a market I found on Craigslist. Hey, it was good for 25 bucks.

FTL/Exposure Only

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