Who wants to HELP! a newbie? Advise or admonishment welcome.

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luke_e_richards

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Here's my life story. The very short version. I have loved - LOVED - fiction since I was a little boy. I have read it, writen it, and lived in it. Three weeks ago I finished at University, and I now look forward to struggling financially as I get screwed by the declining economy (in which young people no longer get a pension in Britain... thanks Tony), and trying my best to become a successful fiction writer.
As far as short fiction is concerned, I admire Robert E. Howard more than anyone. He wrote long, complicated stories. He spared no expense on theme. A dark poetry lingered in the subcurrent of his words. His average short story was a good 20,000 words long.
I don't want to write like him. He isn't the only writer I admire, and I only wish to write like myself. The trouble is, I take one look at the market now and choke. Editors seem only to be interested in stories that are under 5,000 words, and the best paying magazines seem only interested stories in the first person, which in my opinion can be as restraining as it can be effective.
Don't get me wrong. I'm going to try anyway. I was just wondering if someone could point me in the right direction. Is there any decent market for short fiction of the kind of length that used to be popular? What happened to pulp fiction? That's where fiction writers used to start. Are there any magazines that a newbie could get published in that would actually pay something? I don't have any credentials yet, but my stories mean the world to me. They are good. I WILL succeed eventually. At present, I am not emotionally prepared to give my stories to a magazine that won't pay me. I'm even less prepared to sell them to a magazine that will pay peanuts, because I'd find that even more insulting. Do I just need to swallow my pride and realise that peanuts may not pay the rent, but at least you can eat them?

I'm just looking for a few words of advice. If the advice is just to quit my belly aching and buy chest of drawers for my rejection letters, so be it. I mostly wonder if there are any 'middle of the road' magazines that will pay decently, and not expect me to be Salman Rushdie or Tony Morrison. The real question: where can I get credentials without a slap in the face?
 
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Birol

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That's a good question right now.
If your stories are good, someone will publish them. Sell your work to the highest bidder, whoever that may be. There are plenty of publications out there willing to pay for good, quality writing and I do not see a trend towards a preference for 1st person at all. Which is a good thing, since I tend to write in 3rd person.

As for where to find the markets, I'm in the States, but google is still your friend as are databases and publications listing different markets.

Best of luck.
 

Saanen

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I don't know how much you should trust my advice, since in a good year I'll sell exactly one piece (mostly due to my slow rate of writing, though!). Still, my main piece of advice is just to keep writing, writing, writing, every single day. It will keep you mentally balanced if you're anything like me, and even if 99% of what you write ends up crap, it's the only practice you get. We can't all write masterpieces every time.

I also suggest you save all your crap, hard copy so you won't lose it to a computer crash. Many times I've sparked new ideas from browsing old, failed ideas, or I've gone back to check my old stuff and realized I had a gem lying among the dross. And it's also extremely rewarding to look back on something you wrote last year, or five years ago, or more, and realize how much better you've become since you wrote it.

And as for markets, aim high. Once you have a story you like, send it to the top markets first. If they reject it, try the next tier. If it's good, it will eventually find a home; if you can't find it a home, set it aside for a few months and then look at it again. It might need polishing and coming back to it after time has passed will help you see it more clearly.

Don't get discouraged, though, even if you don't make a sale for years. If you're writing, and you know you're writing well, you're doing what you want to do. Eventually you'll break through and start to sell, and in the meantime you'll be honing your skills. One important thing, though: don't think you'll make a living out of your writing anytime soon. That sort of thinking kept me in a series of really crappy jobs for a decade, because all the jobs felt temporary until my big break. I'm back in school for my graduate degree and a "day career" now, and in a funny way that's taking the pressure off me and I find I'm writing much faster and looser now, and I think I'm improving.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Young people in Britain got a pension just for being young? Geeze!

Anyway, the short answer is that very few places want anything that's 20,000 words long. But those weren't short stories, anyway, they were novellas. . .short novels. Novellas aren't dead, but they are darned hard to sell, and there are darned few markets for them. And if you're going to write a novella, why not just write a novel?

TV, movies, and video games, and the internet happened to pulp fiction. And in a very real way, so did paperback novels. Sadly, while people still read novels fairly regularly, not many read magazine fiction. No market, no magazines.

As for selling your stories for peanuts, why not? You don't think Robert E. Howard got rich from writing short fiction, do you? I would say you shouldn't give your fiction away, that's very rarely a good idea, but you sell it to whoever offers the most, even if it's peanuts. The real value of a published short story isn't in how much you are paid for it, but in personal satisfaction, and in how much it gets your name out there to help with novel sales.

Short stories aren't about the money. They never have been. And while it's true that pulp magazines were where many writers got their start, this in no way means they were easy to sell to, or that most writers could manage it. It has always been difficult to sell short stories, and even in the grand old days of pulp fiction, only about one writer in seven managed to sell fiction to them. Some of those pulp magazines were filled with short stories from the same writer, only using various pseudonyms.

And most pulp magazines paid less than peanuts. A great many paid well under a penny per word. A quarter cent per word was fairly common. There were really only a handful of pulp magazines that paid a nickel a word. It's true that money was worth more in those days, but not that much more. Darned few writers ever managed to earn anything like a living from selling short stories, even in the pulp days.

In monetary terms, your stories are worth exactly what the highest bidder says they'r worth. This will vary greater, depending on the size of the magazine and the genre. Writing and money have never been cozy bedfellows, especially where short stories are concerned. The only relationship between the two are whether or not someone wants what you write. It's alwatys been a buyer's market.

Nor is time a factor. I've written stories start to finish in four hours, mailed them the same day, and received checks ranging in size from $1,000 to $1,900. That's an hourly wage anyone would like to have.

But I've also sweated and slaved over a story for a month, and couldn't sell it anywhere.

In truth, I've often wondered whether or not I could earn something approaching a living by selling only short stories. I guess it depends on what you call a living. In truth, I doubt it. At best, putting in a solid forty hours per week, I doubt very much if I could top $17,000 in an average year. Take out taxes of various sorts, including a 15% social security tax, and I wouldn't want to live on the remainder.

If you want money from writing, short stories are the second worst place to look, right behind poetry.

Money from writing is found in novels, scriptwriting, and most commonly, nonfiction.

And what's wrong with a 5,000 word short story. It's a good length, and wa sthe most common length, even in the days of the pulps. If you want to write long, write a novel.

As for first person, I don;t see anything like a preference for first person. Roughly five percent of the short stories I see published are first person. I think this is sad. The only restraints on first person stories are the limitations of the writer. By and large, magazines publish the best stories they can find, and if anything, most editors actually have a bias against first person.

Anyway, if you're looking to avoid a financial struggle, short stories aren't the place to look. They never were.

Write short stories because you love writing them. Sell them, if you can, for whatever you can get. And be happy for it. If you want money, write novels or screenplays or articles, and sell them, if you can, for whatever you can get, and be happy for it.

But get a day job, and keep it until your bank account has at least five zeros in it.
 

WriteRead

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Hi, Luke!


You talk, mainly, about pay vs length, as dictated by the market, which is a very powerful force to reckon w.

Let's put, first, things in perspective, if I may.

Accepted Prose Writing Piece Length NOW:

Under 7,500 words - short story
7,500-17,500 words - novelette
17,500-40,000 words - novella
over 40,000 words - novel

From these numbers, you can see that the range you talk about, 20k w, you're not gonna publish it in the shorty category.

Secondly, you may want to choose what you want to do: be published, or make a living, writing.

For a beginner it would be very hard to buy bread and butter and then fill a family table w it, writing. There are exceptions to this, but they are so far and few in between that it'd be better to get a job and earn your living w it while writing and trying to establish yourself as a platinum bk writer.

I say all this b/c you put your pt in a way in which, so it seems to me, you ask for an advice.

If it's only a "whining", then, right, it's no picnic out there, for us, writers.

I, for one, prefer to (try to) publish, not to make a living of it.

Good luck,

Dan
 

Anaparenna

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As far as short fiction is concerned, I admire Robert E. Howard more than anyone.

I'm a fan of Mervyn Peake (Titus Groan novels). The man could write around a simple hole in the wall for paragraphs, and make me believe I'd enjoyed the trip. Similarly, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Editors seem only to be interested in stories that are under 5,000 words,

Yup. Literary genius runs aground on the bleak shores of the age of instant gratification, scraping her barnacles and putting a big, fat hole in the hull. We're marooned, and that cross-eyed sailor drank all the rum.

and the best paying magazines seem only interested stories in the first person,

The hell? When did this happen? Last I heard most editors hated them, because they're so often done so poorly. Can you refer me to one? I've got some dreck left over from my teen ansgt days that might sell. :)

Is there any decent market for short fiction of the kind of length that used to be popular?

Few, as James said.

What happened to pulp fiction?

It's experiencing a slight resurgance. They just did "Zeppelin Adventures," "Twenty Epics," and now there's a "Spicy Slipstream Detective Stories" (guidelines are straight from the 1930's pulps) in the works. Check www.ralan.com. It's still gasping, but it's catching on quick.

At present, I am not emotionally prepared to give my stories to a magazine that won't pay me.

As well you shouldn't. Do not give them away. Trunk them, and bring them back out later for revision. Don't sell to a magazine that doesn't pay. There are *no* magazines or ezines that don't pay that are reputable enough to make "giving" them your work worthwhile. I did it once. I'm not unhappy that I did. My next submission was a paid sale. But it had nothing to do with the zine I gave my work too, and that zine has since become a paying publication (and they already had a following at the time). I rolled the dice with them, and won. It's a sticking point in which I am the exception to a rule I advise folks not to break. I try to deal with it by drinking heavily. Just kidding. I deal with it by knowing that I investigated that zine up and down, I knew the market they were appealing to, had known it for years, knew they had a unique angle and audience. I didn't jump into it for the simple flattery of being published. (Oh, and my piece was requested, not submitted.)

I'm even less prepared to sell them to a magazine that will pay peanuts, because I'd find that even more insulting.

Let's talk about those insulting peanuts. :) The short story market is a means to an end. You rack up credits, you get reviews, you get your name out there. You establish a slight fanbase on your blog to which to announce your book release, when it happens. And as you get to know your market better, you start to realize there are some (few and far between, but still there) peanut-paying zines which are worth it because of how it looks on a resume or in a cover letter. Of course, that means you have to know your market and how those zines are perceived in the market. Rely on word-of-mouth and reputation for that.

But ultimately, as has been stated, start at the top and work your way down. You never know.

The real question: where can I get credentials without a slap in the face?

Know your market and sub there. Best of luck to you.
 

Mike Coombes

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Did someone tell you you can make a living writing short fiction?

I sold 11 pieces last year to markets paying pro or semi-pro rates. To come close to making an acceptable living I would have to sell one a day.

And there are plenty of mags that will consider longer pieces (although over 10k is rarer). You just aren't looking.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Mike Coombes said:
Did someone tell you you can make a living writing short fiction?

I sold 11 pieces last year to markets paying pro or semi-pro rates. To come close to making an acceptable living I would have to sell one a day.

And there are plenty of mags that will consider longer pieces (although over 10k is rarer). You just aren't looking.

Yeah, but "pro" rate is what, a nickel a word? Outside of SF and fantasy, that's a pretty ridiculous rate. I sell some few stories at eight to ten cents per word (Nearly all mysteries), but most are a minimum of a quarter per word, some are at fifty cents per word, with a handful going a good bit higher.

Many of the stories I sell are fairly short, so to reach the averge income of $33,000 per year, I'd have to sell somewhere around forty stories per year, depending on the exact markets. That's doable, but tough. If I could manage to sell only to my best markets, I could hit the 33K with only eighteen to twenty-four sales, but those are tough markets to depend on.

And if I wished to pay health insurance from my earnings, I'd have to add another eight or twelve sales. Forget a retirement fund.

Earning a living from writing short stories is not an easy task, but I'm told there are still three or four writers who manage it. It just depends on what you consider a living, and on what markets you can hit. And I do believe anything much over $17,000-$20,000 per year from short stories is just asking for burnout and a breakdown. And that's hardly a living.

And a real living? A living where paying bills and having a reasonjable amount left over isn't a problem unless you're a bit too loose with money? Say $100,000 per year. That's tough enough to hit with any kind of writing, and completely impossible with short stories.

There are a fair number of magazines that take stories up to 7,500 words, and a handful that take longer stories, Asimov's and Analog both take novelettes and the occasional novella, but the longer the story, the more likely it is that the editor will want pro writers with recognizable names to fill that slot. With paying magazines, that is. New writers seldom get the chance to fill long slots where much money and circulation numbers are at stake.
 

luke_e_richards

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Thank you

Thank you everyone! I wrote that post with the hope of getting serious advise, and I got it. Truth be told, I have studied the fiction market for a long time, but I wanted to hear from people with first hand experience, rather than that which you can get from reading the Writer's Yearbook.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I see it now, I should focus on selling some shorter pieces before aiming at novelletes and novellas.

Fortunately, I am working on a trilogy of fantasy fiction novels, and in fact my most recent story (currently 17,000 words and not finished) would make a good chapter in the second book. Perhaps I could sell it as a sample chapter for publicity? Any thoughts?

Again, my desire was to bounce thoughts, questions, and perhaps a bit of angst off people with a great deal more experience than me. Thanks for your insight.

I guess I was just plain wrong about the thing about first person. Most of the high end publications on my shelf are full of them, but truth be told, I only have four. (Granta seems to publish them a lot).

P.S. I never meant to say first person is truly restraining, I just think it works for very specific types of stories, and only one of my stories thus far has fit that mould.

Thanks again for all of your advice. Any more advice would be more than welcome.
 
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