How I Feel
April 3, 2002
7:33 a.m.
An excellent morning at the keyboard has brought me to be just under halfway to where I think I need to be by the end of Friday. Similar progress tomorrow will make me very happy. [grin]   Achilles, a pseudonym posting on the sidebar, asks an interesting question. How do I feel about publishing in the small press? My reputation, he (or she?) says, is made in higher-tier markets. What's with this penny-a-word stuff? Have I lost my mind? Well ... No. At least I don't think I have. Let's start with some numbers. I am well past 600 submittals for my career (counting only short works), and nearing the 600 rejection mark ... a badge of dubious courage, I suppose. Of those submittals, 40 have been to markets paying a penny a word, and another 44 have been to markets that pay a penny a word as the low limit, but will go higher. This means that something around 13% of my submittals have gone to smaller magazines. I've not done this study before, so these numbers interest me already. Many of those submittals (but not all), I must admit occurred in the first 4-5 years of my efforts. So, yes Achilles, I focus my efforts highly toward higher paying, professional markets--as I strongly suggest any new writer should. But the small press has an important place, too, and I don't think it is wise to ignore it. The key, I think has to do with how a writer views sales to the small press. Some new writers view the small press as if it were a baseball team's farm squad. They think editors will look into the small press ranks whenever they need a new writer, and will call them up to the big leagues. They see the small press as a stepping stone to greatness. Well...this is wrong. The small press is its own league, and the major markets think that is all well and good, but they have their own league, thank you. (Yes, I'm making it all to simple, but give me just a little leeway and try not to consider me too much of a jerk for anything I dash off at 7:30 in the morning on my way out the door to add to the GNP). I think that a writer needs to look at his work before he looks at the publication that might publish it. If a writer believes in a story and that story has seen the major markets without being accepted, the writer needs to look long and hard at the work. Are these rejections truly because the work is not good? If so, trunk the story and go on. Life is too short, you konw? If the writer believes the story has merit and believes in its point, then I think the writer should carefully look for a smaller press that might show it well. In other words, I don't go to the small press trying to pad my resume. I go to the small press because I think I have something to say, and the "Tier I" magazines haven't afforded me the opportunity. When it sells, which (assuming you're right in assessing it as having merit) it eventually will, then the writer needs to put this sale into a proper perspective. Selling my work to Elysian Fiction by itself will not make me a household name. But I like this story, and think it's worthy of a read. I also like Jim Bailey's publication. I like some of the writers that he's working with, and I like the material he seems to like. I purposely matched my work with this market. Despite the fact that this was my first submittal to Jim, I'm not terribly surprised he took the piece. It fits what I thought he was trying to do. So how do I feel about this? Well, I wish I could have seen "Lingering Scent of Lightning" in a bigger place where it might garner a few more eyeballs. No writer in the world would say different, and if they did, then I have to worry about them (or maybe classify them as an academic [grin]). But overall, I'm very comfortable with having people read this work in Elysian Fiction--otherwise I wouldn't have sent it there. Have a great day.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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