While searching for markets this morning I ran across an article over at Writer's Relief called "Trendy Short Story Topics that Editors are Loving". It sounded good but it was geared toward literary markets, which is okay if you're writing and submitting to that kind of market.
What really got to me was this - "Commercial genres or themes — Many literary journals avoid publishing works that fall into the commercial or mainstream category:
thrillers, fantasies, sci-fi, and romance. However, there are magazines
that exclusively publish sci-fi or only horror, etc. So if that’s what
you want to write, you can! Just keep in mind that you will be targeting
a limited market."
Since when are genre markets limited? I'm more apt to find markets for genre stories than literary ones and the best thing? They actually pay their writers. Very few literary markets pay and in many cases they charge a reading fee. For a professional writer that seems counter productive. Plus, I'm finding that many of the new genre markets are seeking more literary work instead of stories with straight up genre tropes.
What about you? Do you find genre markets limiting or do you feel that they are open to all sorts of writing and themes within the genres?
7 comments:
I'm always envious of horror and sci-fi authors, because they seem to have more opportunities than crime writers. Of course, they probably think the grass is greener over here.
I find that the horror genre is a great match for crime writers who write dark noir stories, Al. Psychological horror doesn't need to have any supernatural elements or even blood and gore to have a good story. All you need is that deep seated fear that sets the reader on the edge of his/her seat. And yes, we all believe the other guy has it better :)
I think they don't know what they're talking about. Literary is a very small market that doesn't sell well. Most magazines don't pay at all. I was offered to write for a military themed call for a literary magazine and turned it down. The magazine didn't pay, and moreover, when I read a sample of the material on the site, I was already writing at a level well above what they were accepting. Yet, there are plenty of places to submit to that pay .05 or more in SF/Fantasy. Me getting paid is limiting?
Exactly, Linda. For some reason the literary world seems to think that getting paid for writing is something vulgar. The odd thing is that what is considered literary today was popular fiction in its own time. Those writers didn't look down their noses at making a living with their words.
I think it's pretty clear that genre markets are less restrictive than literary ones. You can do everything in any literary story in a genre story too, plus a whole lot more.
I write a little of everything. But in general I prefer the genre markets. They are less restrictive most of the time.
You're right, Charles, and you can even tell an actual story with a plot and a satisfying conclusion :)
The genre markets are wide open, Jacqueline. They tend to see past the beautiful writing and welcome great storytelling. It doesn't have to be either or with the genre markets.
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