Some of my first submissions and first sales were to penny-a-word markets. I have only made a few submissions to pays-in-copies markets. To date, I have a better than one sale to every three submissions average (with articles and stories written by request somewhat tainting these statistics), and only six of these sales could be considered pro rates (two stories, one article, and three poems). I did the numbers in April of this year and found that, at that point, I'd made 158 submissions, made 29 sales through slush submission, received 103 rejections, pulled 27 stories after no response (or after learning markets closed), and sold 22 pieces by request of editors. All but one of these paid (or promised to pay) actual money. That one paid in copies.

With the above numbers taken into account, I have a better than 1 in 6 chance of getting real money any time I send a manuscript into the world. Pretty impressive, right? Well how did I do it?

As I said, I started sending to semi-pro or low-paying markets (as well as some pro markets--my nonfiction sale to Dragon was originally subbed around the time of my first sub to a semi-pro market). Made a few sales, got a few rejections. Got confident and increased the number of subs to pro markets, decreased the number of subs to low-paying markets. Made fewer sales, received more rejections.

It was a pretty obvious trend: The fewer semi-pro markets I subbed to, the fewer sales I made. There were, I believed, two ways to correct this trend.

1. I could have raised the standard of my writing. I could have worked harder to improve, and fought for my place in those pro markets.

or

2. I could have raised the number of semi-pro markets I submitted to. I could have still subbed to the pros, but I could've also gotten the much-needed quick gratification of the semi-pro sales.

I chose option 2, justifying it by saying I would also continue to work on option 1 as time permitted. I found I did "correct" the sales-to-subs ratio, and in many ways I don't regret subbing to so many semi-pro markets and getting these "lesser" victories. It was money in my pocket and additions to my bibliography. I was (and still am) proud of many of the semi-pro places in which my work has appeared. Unfortunately, I haven't been as proud of my work that appeared there.

But here's what I was doing. I'd finish a story and start to work with it, pushing myself toward (hopefully) a higher level of craft. But at some point, as I tired of the work and as I longed to move toward the next one, I thought, "why bother improve it? It's good enough for [semipro market]." So I subbed to [semipro market] and sometimes it sold and sometimes it didn't.

Looking back, it doesn't matter so much whether it sold or not. In terms of my writing ability, I lowered the standards to try and make those sales. I didn't push myself or my writing as much as I should have. And I firmly believe that my choosing gratification over improvement has kept me from getting into the pro markets, more even than my failure to submit to them as often as I should have!

Now maybe I was lucky. All this was just in the first two years of my submitting manuscripts for publication. It's now been about three since my first sub, but the last sixteen months haven't exactly been productive for writing or subbing. So maybe I didn't ding my head too badly on this lower branch. But I still wish I'd chosen a different path.

That said, 3 (cents per word) is not the the magic number, but rather a stepping stone toward whatever will give me food and shelter. 3 cents per word means if I sold 83.3 short stories per year (a dream, if an unreachable one) of 4000 words each (a suitable length for a short story), I'd have made ten thousand dollars before taxes. Enough to live on? Yes, so long as my computer never breaks and I never get sick. So 3 cents even is but one step above 1 cent per word. I know I can sell a penny-a-word story. I've done it many times before. If I can do it again, it means next to nothing. Once I've sold a few barely-pro stories and know I can do that, I'll start striving for more. Money has never been the ultimate measure of my ability, but it is a measure.

This is the only danger that semi-pro and free markets pose, at least that I've seen: those of us without discipline might never strive to make it "pro," if we start believing that the sale (no matter how small or worthless toward our goals) or the number of sales is the end-all.

May those who are satisfied with placement in non-paying publications continue to be satisfied with it. There must be thousands of such writers, because competition in some of those non-paying markets can be fierce. Free markets couldn't exist without those willing to write for free. So if they exist, that means they can exist. They are not a danger to those who are comfortable with the agreement.

For those longing to live off their writing, however, I will say that writing for free markets (with a few notable exceptions, including some of the greater literary magazines) won't help you toward your goal. And in fact--if you lack discipline as I did--it can deter you onto a most unrewarding sidetrek.

I will probably continue to submit to semi-pro markets, especially those I enjoy reading, and particularly my favorite literary magazines which pay little or pay in copies. I still actively market a few of my reprints to semi-pro markets. But they are never my first market for a new story. And I hope I never mistake what it means that I've made many sales, but few at 3 cents per word or better.

And on the subject of pro mags getting hurt by their non-paying cousins:

To those who believe that free (and thus non-paying) ezines can be a threat to the pro mags, I will say without apology that much of the best work I've ever read is available for free, online, in a manner where the authors were neither notified, nor paid a dime. It's also legal.

I'm talking about Project Gutenberg and other free texts online (is "Public Domain" the correct term?). It's just as ridiculous for pro mags to worry that people would choose to read the classics (where name recognition can KO just about anybody Asimov's puts on the cover) over their pub as it is that they can be threatened by any other freely available online publication that doesn't invoke the name of Shakespeare, Twain, London, Shelley, Marlowe, or Stoker, much less any modern well-loved author.

And I'll ve the first to admit I haven't exhausted the classics. Why would anyone pick up a copy of Analog when s/he hasn't yet read every great work by every great literary craftsperson?

The answer (I think) is preference, and it's dependent on editorial style almost as much as it is on genre.

Filed under Journal, Prose and Poetry

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