Any writers?

[Shangas]

Shangas - I wish you luck in getting your short fiction published. I love how the magazines from the Golden Era had so much fiction published in them. A lot of writers made a good living that way.

Thanks!

Yes, a lot of famous writers started out that way - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens among them.

Problem is, I can't find many of the same such magazines/journals here in Australia. I have found one, but I'll need to tailor my writing a bit to fit it into their parameters.

Oh, and I sent off my piece to the Reader's Digest this week after a few alterations and edits.

*Crosses fingers for money*

In the meantime, I'm on the sixth page of writing my new murder-mystery short-story/novella.

[AmateisGal]

Thanks!

Yes, a lot of famous writers started out that way - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens among them.

Problem is, I can't find many of the same such magazines/journals here in Australia. I have found one, but I'll need to tailor my writing a bit to fit it into their parameters.

Oh, and I sent off my piece to the Reader's Digest this week after a few alterations and edits.

*Crosses fingers for money*

In the meantime, I'm on the sixth page of writing my new murder-mystery short-story/novella.

Well done on sending your work out!

Y'know, I had a brainstorm once, to start a magazine dedicated to publishing short stories set in the Golden Era - a real magazine, not an e-zine or online publication. Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere near the money it would take to do something like this. But it sure would be fun. I'd love to give short stories a rebirth in popular magazines instead of just lit journals.

[Shangas]

I wish there were more of these magazines, but they're so rare these days.

Well, back to my desk and pen-pushing on my new story.

[LizzieMaine]

When I was growing up "Yankee" magazine, "The Magazine of New England," published some of the best short fiction in the business, in all styles -- atmospheric, suspense, humor -- and I really looked forward to every issue. And then they got a new "hip" editor who turned it into a glossy "lifestyle" publication for people who want to pretend they were born here, and the fiction was the first thing they dropped. Apparently the kind of people who read magazine fiction aren't the kind of people hip, upscale advertisers want to reach.

[AmateisGal]

When I was growing up "Yankee" magazine, "The Magazine of New England," published some of the best short fiction in the business, in all styles -- atmospheric, suspense, humor -- and I really looked forward to every issue. And then they got a new "hip" editor who turned it into a glossy "lifestyle" publication for people who want to pretend they were born here, and the fiction was the first thing they dropped. Apparently the kind of people who read magazine fiction aren't the kind of people hip, upscale advertisers want to reach.

Short fiction has virtually disappeared in mainstream magazines. Ladies Home Journal used to be huge for publishing fiction - and even whole novels. Same with Saturday Evening Post and many, many others. I think I still remember reading fiction in the LHJ back in the 80s, but it disappeared shortly after that.

There is a much bigger short fiction market in the magazines in England. Shangas, you may want to check that out...

[Shangas]

I have found one magazine based in Australia. I sent an email to the submissions editor or whatever her title was, last year, to ask about sending things in (as some of the criteria on the website were a bit hard to understand).

Effectively, their word-limit for pieces is, in her words, about 8,000 words (by my reckoning, about 16 pages of text).

Which is fine, but my pieces tend to be longer than that, sometimes not by much, sometimes by a great deal.

My last story was 57 pages (and 25,000 words)!!

So if I send something there (and I do hope to, in the future), it'll have to be something really short. And I'm not very good with really short stuff...

[Pompidou]

When I first started writing with the intent to publish, everyone urged me to stick to the short stories I was good at - that there were "lots of" magazines that published those things. Doesn't seem to be true. I don't think the right way to produce a full novel. My stories always want to end quickly. I watch DVDs by skipping to the good parts, and I write the same. If I ever get my poem serial published in a magazine or paper, I'll let you know which one.

Nobody really even subscribes to magazines these days, so it may not be worth it, but I'd welcome the idea of a third party valuing my work, or not - there's a lot to be said for a good downtrodden underdog story, and you don't get one by winning.

[Rathdown]

I started a western fiction magazine (FAR WEST) back in 1978, and over the course of five years (and five golden spur awards for short fiction) managed to loose a little over $500k before calling it quits and killing off the title. Surprisingly people still buy, subscribe to, and read magazines (there are probably 300 titles on sale at my local Books-A-Million store); the difficulty for a publisher comes when trying to balance the cost of production (staff and paying writers, overheads, etc.) and the cost of printing (both ink and paper are petrochemical products) and sales. Most magazines achieve about 30-35% newsstand sales (for every 100 copies put out on the stands about 30-35 copies are sold); printing costs can be as high as 40% of the cover price, and distributors generally take a 30% commission, leaving the publisher with about 30% of the retail cover price-- out of which he has to pay the writers, pay his staff, and -- hopefully -- pay himself. So, if you distribute 100k copies to newsstands, you might sell 35,000. If the cover price is $5 that's total sales of $175,000, of which the publisher receives about $50,000 from which he has to pay all of his costs. A small publisher would probably get by with a staff of eight, with an average paycheck of about $1,000 per week (a low figure for the publishing industry). This works out to a spend of $32,000 per month for staff, which leaves the publisher with $18,000 per month for things like rent, heat, electricity, employee health benefits, and -- oh yes -- buying in the stories that he publishes. A 5% bump in the price of oil, and a publisher can be out of business in 90 days...

[AmateisGal]

I started a western fiction magazine (FAR WEST) back in 1978, and over the course of five years (and five golden spur awards for short fiction) managed to loose a little over $500k before calling it quits and killing off the title. Surprisingly people still buy, subscribe to, and read magazines (there are probably 300 titles on sale at my local Books-A-Million store); the difficulty for a publisher comes when trying to balance the cost of production (staff and paying writers, overheads, etc.) and the cost of printing (both ink and paper are petrochemical products) and sales. Most magazines achieve about 30-35% newsstand sales (for every 100 copies put out on the stands about 30-35 copies are sold); printing costs can be as high as 40% of the cover price, and distributors generally take a 30% commission, leaving the publisher with about 30% of the retail cover price-- out of which he has to pay the writers, pay his staff, and -- hopefully -- pay himself. So, if you distribute 100k copies to newsstands, you might sell 35,000. If the cover price is $5 that's total sales of $175,000, of which the publisher receives about $50,000 from which he has to pay all of his costs. A small publisher would probably get by with a staff of eight, with an average paycheck of about $1,000 per week (a low figure for the publishing industry). This works out to a spend of $32,000 per month for staff, which leaves the publisher with $18,000 per month for things like rent, heat, electricity, employee health benefits, and -- oh yes -- buying in the stories that he publishes. A 5% bump in the price of oil, and a publisher can be out of business in 90 days...

Wow. Thanks for this rundown. I knew it was expensive, but had no idea it could be THIS expensive. I'd love to start my own fiction magazine, but I'd have to already be rich to do it. So, for now, it will remain but a dream...

[AmateisGal]

Time to check in. How is the writing going?

I am currently plotting out the next novel (and can't WAIT to write it), and shopping around the last finished manuscript. I've had some agents bite, but no one has yet allowed me to reel them in...