- Joined
- Oct 2, 2005
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- 4,422
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- Metropolitan District of Washington
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- www.linda-adams.com
They choose to go that route because, like you, they've been led to believe that's what you're supposed to do. As a beginner writer, I thought that too. I thought paying markets would need to see a long list of publications before they'd consider you.
Either that, or they don't think they're good enough/ready for paying markets yet. In some cases, that's perfectly valid.
Very true. When I started writing for professional publication, that was a pretty common thing to see. Granted, I think it has its roots in a time when getting published period meant something more. Now, anyone can pay for a website and create an online magazine, so there isn't any quality control. Now professional writing organizations have to post names of magazines that qualify for membership, and they didn't have to do that before.
I did write for free in short stories for a while because I was trying to figure out where my writing fit. But I didn't realize that the short story market is extremely limited--the genres I later gravitated to were never available to me via short stories. I always ended up writing things that were outside what I preferrered.
But I stopped writing for free when I kept seeing magazines with the expectation that they didn't have to pay. I'd hit the guidleines and see things like, "We can't afford to pay you, but we'll post your bio and a link." Yet, they were charging for subscriptions. I also saw a lot of anthology calls where it was pretty clear that the "editor" was hoping to get all these manuscripts from writers for no cost and make lots of money off them. A lot of them make it sound like they're doing the writer a favor by publishing them, and that's a huge problem.