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Market Watch

Nancy B. Leake

Matching markets with your work

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines the word "promote" as:

to raise or advance to a higher position or rank
to help bring about or further the growth or establishment of
to further the popularity, sales, etc. of by publicizing and advertising

When a writer desires recognition he needs to promote himself in all aspects of the word. Definition number one: relates to job advancement or salary. Number two: to writing skills. And number three: to having a well-known name with the sales that go with it.

Promotion comes in many ways: by writing and rewriting, by joining classes and participating, and by submitting and self-promoting. The first two groups of promotion will help your skills improve. I will be concentrating on self-promotion to increase marketability.

In the beginning, there was a story. The author thought it wondrous, but no one wanted to pay for it. We have all been there. Getting published is easy, but doesn’t always pay. Many sources are available that publish stories for clips, subscriptions, or for advertisement. These are all forms of self-promotion. Free publications lead to a greater chance of the next place paying for publications. It’s a process creating refinement of writing skills and marketing tactics, plus the bonus of clips for your portfolio. Web newsletters and book review sites are big markets for nonpaying promotion. A new site for reviews of many forms is at http://www.Re-Views.com.

Contests are another source of promotion. Various types of contests exist with all level of prizes from books to large cash awards. Some contests have minor submission costs; others are free. Be wary of any contests asking for more than $10-$15. Anything larger should send up a warning sign. Be familiar with the source before paying. Many contests announce the winners in the newspaper or on websites additional promotion.

Get your name out there, self-promote. Become known to your peers and to the consumers in your community or your web community. Critique groups, writing groups, and classes are methods of communication. Write your own e-newsletters or start your own e-groups. At Topica or E-groups, starting a group or newsletter is easy. Just sign up on the main page. Network in your community. Church bulletins, neighborhoods or workplace newsletters are a good source to advertise your writing. Write a column relevant to your expertise or place a low-cost ad. Many bookstores and libraries have writing groups. Meet other writers and work together. Start a web page to promote your work and follow that with advertising for the new venture. I recently did just that: www.writetimewriteplace.homestead.com. On a web page you can play with many ideas and use it as a marketing tool.

However you choose to promote yourself, the only way to get ahead in your writing, increase your wallet size, add to your list of clips, and feel better about yourself is to just "Do It." Sales and fame won’t come to you without effort. You must make them happen.

Remember, when you submit your writing, to always enclose a query letter that looks professional and enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE), if you want a response or want your manuscript returned.

There is nothing fiercer than a failed artist. The energy remains, but, having no outlet, it implodes in a great black fart of rage which smokes up all the inner windows of the soul. Horrible as successful artists often are, there is nothing crueler or more vain than a failed artist
Erica Jong, Fear of Flying

I would like to hear about your experiences in submitting your writing, whether good or bad.

When you send your suggestions to me please enclose:

The name and type of the market
What type of writing they publish and the word count
The guidelines for submission or how to get the guidelines
How to contact the company, and whom to contact
What they pay
If they accept submission from new writers, if noted

Print Markets:

The Three Penny Review (TPR) is a serious and well-regarded "quarterly review of the arts and society." The online version provides work from prior issues. They accept critical articles (1500 to 3000 words), stories and memoirs (to 4000 words), and poetry (to 100 lines). All articles should be double-spaced, with at least one-inch margins. Payment is $200 per story or article, $100 per poem or Table Talk piece, and each writer gets a year’s free subscription. No simultaneous submissions or online submission are accepted. Response time is three weeks to two months. Sample copies are available for $10. Mail to The Editors, The Threepenny Review, PO Box 9131, Berkeley, CA 94709, (510) 849-4545.

Pacific Review, An annual literary publication printed in the Spring is accepting unpublished manuscripts for its April 2001 issue. Guest authors for this issue include: Raymond Federman, Pulitizer prizewinner Mark Strand, and others to be announced later. The magazine accepts fiction, poetry, and essays (to 4000 words). Payment is two copies of the magazine. Submission deadline is January 31. Response time is 6 months. Please send submissions to specific genre editor at: Pacific Review c/o Dept. of English and Comparative Literature, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Dr., San Diego, CA 92182-0295.

FLESH AND BLOOD is a print, digest-sized magazine published three times a year, featuring dark fantasy, the bizarre, and supernatural stories. "The more descriptive and dark, the better!" Payment for FNASR and reprint rights is 1/2-2 cents/word (to 4,000 words). No multiple submissions and no simultaneous submissions are accepted, but reprints are fine. Response time is 1-3 weeks. Send to Editor/Publisher: Jack Fisher, 121 Joseph Street, Bayville, NJ 08721.

The Writer's Voice publishes WV, a quarterly literary magazine, dedicated to promoting the emerging writer. They accept quality fiction (to 7,500 words, longer works of exceptional quality may be considered for serialization), poetry (five poems, not to exceed five pages total), and creative nonfiction (to 3,500 words). Payment is in copies. Notate if the story is a simultaneous submission. All pages of the manuscript should contain the title of the work and page numbers only. A cover letter containing the author's name, address, and telephone numbers should be included. Send to WV Magazine The Writer's Voice, West Side Y 5 W. 63rd St., New York, NY 10023. Please specify the genre of your submission on the outer envelope. No e-mail submissions accepted.

Freelance Markets:

STORYHOUSE.COM, is a website exploring the art and philosophy of coffee and storytelling. It is the Web presence of a Portland coffee-roasting and coffee home delivery service. They are seeking works for coffee labels, art, stories, letters, and articles. Labels are printed for once-a-week coffee deliveries to subscribers. Immediate need is for nonfiction material. Stories are run over several weeks, so chapter or section breaks should be at 1,000 words. They also need poetry, debate, and academic pieces, and graphic art, and good answers to the question, "What is the most important thing you have ever done or seen?" Longer pieces may be used and serialized over several labels. Payment is $25 for 1,000 words, with more flexibility for poetry and graphic art. Additionally, the writer receives one can of coffee and three copies of the label. Rights relate to label use only, all other rights are retained by the author. Sample labels may be viewed on the website. E-mail submissions to mrcoffee@storyhouse.com listing "submissions" in the subject line of the e-mail, or send to Todd and Esther Cowing, editors, 4019 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland, OR 97214; (503) 233-1144; fax (503) 232-2702.

Freelance music review writers to write music reviews on all genres of music: rock/pop, country, rap, hip-hop, etc. Experience and knowledge of music is preferred. Payment $.27/word for 200 to 400 words. E-mail music review or music related samples to John L. Black at jlblack@tcac.net.

Experienced automotive writer to write 1,200-word articles previewing the 2001 models for a general-interest consumer publication. They seek detail-oriented journalist with an engaging writing style and familiarity with subject matter. Payment is $275. E-mail cover letter or resume, plus a writing sample, to falbert@seattlehomesmag.com.

Freelancing4Money.com is seeking a freelancer to provide seven (7) market listings of web sites that currently need or regularly hire writers for freelance work, every two weeks. Each listing would be around 75-150 words, and should contain contact info, needs, requirements, payment, etc. -- everything that would help a freelance writer obtain the job. The freelancer will find and verify web sites that work with freelance writers. Pay is $100 (plus phone expenses) for seven web site market listings, issued bi-weekly. This is an ongoing project. E-mail a letter of interest, work experience, and biography to job34@freelancing4money.com. Do not send as an attachment.

KATE HARPER DESIGNS, seeks quotes that are introspective and humorous (less than 20 words, the shorter the better); lines that take a lighthearted look at life, work, marriage and families. Submit the following themes January through March: Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Graduation. July through October: Christmas, and year-round: Birthdays and everyday fun. Payment is $25. More guidelines available online.

Fillers:

Politically Correct Magazine is looking for facts and gags to be illustrated by the cartoonist, newsbreaks, poetry, and short humor (20-200 words) pays $.01/word. Send a #10 SASE for writers' guidelines to Politically Correct Magazine, Turquoise Butterfly Press, PO Box 750, Athens, OH 45701-0750.

Radiance Magazine On-line, needs short stories ($35-$50), poetry ($10-$15), kids' projects, book reviews ($35-$75) tips, and profiles ($50-$100). Send to Radiance: The Magazine for Large Women, PO Box 30246, Oakland, CA 94604, or e-mail to info@radiancemagazine.com, (510) 482-0680, Fax (510) 482-1576.

Strange Horizons Magazine needs poetry (under 100 words), payment $10-$20. E-mail to poetry@strangehorizons.com subject: "POETRY SUB: Your poem title" in plain text in the body of the e-mail. No attachments or simultaneous submissions accepted.

Web Markets:

Millennium Shift Magazine, has been voted as one of the "50 Best Places to be Published On-line" for January by Writer's Digest. The magazine is looking for "something with personality, with an edge" (to 1000 words). Payment is $10 for each item published, paid on or about the 15th of the month, following the month of posting. You may submit often, to a limit of four items per month. (If items are published in serial installments, it will be considered a separate item, and payment will be made accordingly). Your byline and a link to your e-mail and URL if available, will be included. Payment is for non-exclusive rights for the 30-day period. Each month, one writer will win The Wordhammer Writer's Award, a $20 BONUS (in addition to regular payment) for the best published item, as voted by our readers. During the initial 30 days' posting, an acknowledgement of each month's winner will appear on the home page. Email to submit@millenniumshift.com, do not send as an attachment.

Southern Ocean Review, is a nonpaying, electronic literary magazine published quarterly, containing fiction, poetry, criticism, comments, essays, on any genre and articles about the visual arts and music. "We seek, merely, excellence in writing, whatever its style, content, or subject matter." Send to Trevor Reeves, editor, Southern Ocean Review, PO Box 2143, Dunedin, New Zealand, with International Reply coupons included to the value of the return postage or email to treeves@es.co.nz. No attachments please. They also produce a print version of each issue of the magazine. This will be available at the time the e-mail version is published. For ordering information see the book catalogue page. Additional guidelines are also available online.

Re:Views (Regarding Views), is a new, nonpaying, monthly Internet publication that offers reviews for media, music, and toys (to 600 words); for example, reviews on books, magazines, e-zines, software, websites, movies, television, music, toys, etc. Mail to Digital Images Publishing Studios, P O Box 44894, Columbus, Ohio 43204 or e-mail to submit@Re-Views.com. No attachments are accepted.

Fiction Fix is a monthly Internet magazine about writing fiction for writers and aspiring writers. Articles should be of the how-to variety in a friendly, straightforward, slightly humorous style (8001000 words). "Convey solid, informative material with a light, personable touch." They prefer a query first. Response time is two weeks. Payment for one-time rights and archive rights for one year is $10-$20 for original work, no payment for reprints. Reviews of writing books, opinion pieces, and personal experiences of writing are accepted, but no payment is currently given. First-person essays for The Writer’s Voice can be entered in their contest; check the contest page. Submit articles in text only to Karen Hertzberg, managing editor at ffeditor@coffeehouse4writers.com, query at karen@coffeehouse4writers.com.

Beware:

ComicsOne.com owes payments to freelance writers.

The International Association of GrantWriters & Nonproft Consultants, http://www.iaogwanc.org/aboutus.htm, owes a large amount of money to two writers.

Sneeker.com has snuck off.

Several warnings have come from several writers about http://www.contentwritersneeded.bigstep.com/homepage.html. They ask for a one-time processing fee of $20. There are also horrendous grammatical errors at this web site.

Processing fees for submissions to web sites are out of line. Please do not give people money for publishing your writing.

Alerts credited to "A Byte Out of Crime" newsletter.

Email your markets to me.

All opinions stated in this column are my own and not opinions of T-zero or Writer’s Village University.