I was a little taken aback the other day when a writer said he didn't consider zines a professional market. Yes, I know that some of them are only set up to showcase a writer and his friend's work, and yes, I know that many of them don't pay. But there are many zines out there that do edit the stories they publish and they do pay the writers for their work. And they pay the standard required by the MWA to qualify the writer as "professional".
Then I read a post over on Michael Bracken's blog where he disagreed with another writer as to what professional rates for a story were and I asked him if he could give us his take on what makes a writer professional. He very kindly did so. Thank you so much, Michael, you have a gift for making things much clearer to those of us on the beginning of this trek. You can find both of Michael's posts on his blog at http://crimefictionwriter.blogspot.com/
If you're looking for editing tips you won't do better than Alexandra Sokoloff's tips over at her Dark Salon blog. Ms. Sokoloff touches are editing items you might not think need editing. You can find her post here http://thedarksalon.blogspot.com/2009/06/top-ten-things-i-know-about-editing.html
And lastly, the premiere issue of 10Flash has gone live with a nice selection of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror, and Suspense stories from some familiar names in the world of flash writing. You'll find stories by Oonah V. Joslin, Jordan Lapp, and well, me. The theme for this issue was a librarian vacationing in a foreign land. Go check it out at http://10flash.wordpress.com/ And while you're there check out the guidelines for the next issue's theme because they're open for submissions.
I nearly forgot this one. With a hat tip to Paul Brazill, Brian L. Porter has put out a call for poetry submissions. Mythica Publishing is putting together an anthology of Survival Poetry. You can find all the details here http://mythicapublishing.ning.com/forum/topics/call-for-submissions-survival
11 comments:
The world of zines is so vast that it's hard to put a definite thumb on it. If a zine has at least some sort of editorial guidance and submission guidelines then it tends to sway closer to the wannabe magazine side of zineland, if it has no guidelines and prints anything then the quality may be so poor nobody wants a copy. It's a really tough call!
I submitted a piece to a zine recently and they got back in touch to say they were going to print it without reading it, madness!
Andrew Culture
My Zine Distro (CornDog Publishing)
My button badge/ custom band merch thing
I'll pop over to Flash 10 as soon as.
That is madness, Andrew! Most of the zines I'm familiar with read the stories, and do reject if they don't fit what they're looking to publish. Many of them also edit and take great care to make the zine as professional looking as they can.
You won't be sorry, Paul, there's some great flash pieces over there.
To be fair, I was 'storytelling' a bit there, it's totally true that the zinester published it without reading it but I know him pretty well and he took this course because he wanted the pleasure of reading it from a zine! It's a project I've been running for years whereby I'm writing a memoir of a rural English childhood with each chapter being published in a different title. I'm up to chapter nine so far, and looking for a home for chapter ten!
Andrew Culture
My Zine Distro (CornDog Publishing)
My button badge/ custom band merch thing
I thought it was a little strange but I've seen some pretty off the wall zines that look like they just throw anything at the screen and hope it sticks.
Sandra, this reminded me of when I recently taught a workshop and people were so uptight about sending their stories to markets or contests. It's like every story is golden (or a golden egg, I blogged about this)and can only be submitted to "Holy Grail" markets. But they're short stories! Sell them where you can and write more!
(Although I do limit myself to markets that pay something.)
Ah, that's interesting. I'm currently at the stage where I've had countless things published in many zines all around the world, but nothing that has given me any money. I could modestly say I've developed something of a reputation putting in hard slog in zineland (I was invited to do a reading tour in Australia today!), and I'm about to start making my first tentative steps into the commercial sector.
I have nearly completed my first book and will shortly be punting it out to agents.
Hmm, I've lost the point of this reply, I guess I'm feeling conversational!
Andrew Culture
My Zine Distro (CornDog Publishing)
My button badge/ custom band merch thing
Conversation is good, Andrew. And Conda, I've gone both ways with my short stories. I think for beginners the non-paying zines help build up their courage for submitting, and some of those non-paying zines have such a high profile that they'e worth being published in even if you don't get paid. I believe that part of publishing in zines is about giving the writer a higher profile and readers who will follow them if they ever make it to print.
But each author has to weight the pros and cons for themselves.
Wise words, I wish I'd kept track over the years, my CV doesn't look too impressive! Lookie www.andrewculture.com
Andrew Culture
My Zine Distro (CornDog Publishing)
My button badge/ custom band merch thing
Good points both, Sandra and Andrew. I've been professionally published for a long time, so I feel like I gotta be paid--something--and also that my short stories are "product." If it doesn't sell, I tweak or rewrite or just use the idea and submit again. I just realized that I've finally come to that place with my novels, since I'm on my fourth. With my second, which found an agent but didn't sell, I was "oh no, no SMALL publishers. With this one, I won't self-publish, but anything else is fair game.
Being with a small publisher isn't all bad, Conda. From what I've read, some of them are pretty decent to work with and, if I remember correctly, James Lee Burke got his first novel published through a small press.
I read an article recently, can't recall where, that small presses are now publishing more books than the bigger New York houses. But again its up to the author which path to take.
I checked out your web page, Andrew, and it looks like you've been keeping pretty busy. Keeping track of your publications is basically your writer's resume.
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