A Variety of Markets

Today I’d like to introduce you to two markets which accept non-fiction and two markets looking for fiction. In the attempt to build a freelance career, I’ve been doing mostly research on non-fiction markets lately–since all my finished short stories are out to different competitions–but fiction will always be my passion and I suspect the great majority of you prefer to write fiction too.

Let’s start with the boring stuff to get it out of the way…

The Non-Fiction

Vibrant Life is a bimonthly publication promoting a healthy lifestyle and mental clarity. They’ve got lots of different sections and accept articles about any aspect of health or well-being. They’re looking for articles of no more than 1, 000 words, and shorter pieces are always in more demand. They also accept personal stories that fit with the theme of healthy living. Vibrant Life prefers that you submit finished articles to them. Payment ranges from $100-$300.

Divine is a Canadian women’s magazine, covering fashion, healthy living, love, and entertainment. They’d love to see articles about anything of interest to Canadian women, including careers and money management. They accept both queries and finished work, and they accept work from unpublished authors as long as it meets their standards of quality writing. Unfortunately, they don’t mention exactly how much they pay.

And now on to the good stuff…

The Fiction

Arc is a science fiction magazine looking for stories written in the near future. They want fiction of 3000-5000 words, and seem to be running a competition. First place wins five hundred Euros, and five honourable mentions win two hundred each. Seems like an interesting competition; if you write science fiction, don’t hesitate to submit.

Lamplight Magazine is a brand new quarterly looking for dark speculative fiction and horror. It’s published as an ebook and they pay a flat rate: $50 for flash fiction and $150 for short stories. They read year-round but have specific due dates for each issue. We’ve just entered the submission period for their winter issue, which ends on October 15th.

Hopefully one of these markets looks right for something you’ve been working on–or has inspired you to write something new. And don’t forget that if you keep writing, editing and submitting–in that order–you’ll eventually break through to the other side of published writer.

Market Listing June 22nd

I finished school two days ago and my brain was too dead to think up a theme for today’s listing, but I do have three markets for you which accept fiction AND non-fiction, so I guess that’s a theme of sorts.

And, without further ado:

42 Magazine Any fan of Douglas Adams will enjoy the title of this magazine, and maybe even the rest of it, too. What’s cool about this magazine is that they’ll accept stories written in any genre, of any length–though I’m sure they’re less likely to take stories beyond 10K–and from anyone who can write well. They also take “Extras”, which can be anything from political essays to how to articles to cartoons to video games sent on CDs to their subscribers. They’ll pay $20 for anything you can dream up–and do well.

AE Sci Fi–The Canadian Fiction Review is looking for short stories between 500 and 3000 words in length, and they’ll pay you six cents per word, which is one cent above what the SFWA deems a ‘professional market’. They also accept non-fiction, primarily interviews and profiles of important science fiction authors, preferably Canadian ones. They also have something called capsule reviews, which they pay $7 for. Articles get $20, and an interview will earn you $30–but remember to query first, because they don’t take unsolicited non-fiction.

Black Warrior Review is looking for poems, short stories of under 7000 words, and non-fiction of under 7500 words. They also accept artwork and comics, though it seems they take fewer of those. Being published in Black Warrior Review nets you a one-year subscription to the magazine and an unspecified amount of money.

Remember that while I tell you a bit more about the magazines than their names–what they pay, what their word count limits are, what genres they accept–it’s still important to read through all the guidelines on their page and make sure you understand it. The number one reason why stories are rejected is because the author didn’t follow the guidelines in an obvious way. Each editor wants you to format your story a little differently from the next–don’t hurt your chances of publication by not paying attention.

When was the last time you submitted work? Where did you submit it to?

Anthologies

Today I’d like to share three themed anthologies with you. Not all of them will pay much for your story, but they’ll all pay something. The best part about these anthologies is that they’ll allow you to see your name in a book–if you’re stuck in novel revision like me, it’s probably the only way you’ll see your name in a book for a while.

Each of these anthologies have a theme. Some are more specific than others. I’ve stayed away from anthologies which are tribute to famous(usually dead) authors and their mythologies, but there are usually a few of those published each year if you’re interested.

Please remember that I do not post full guidelines here and to read through the websites thoroughly before you submit.

Mermaid Tales: An Anthology will be published by Lucky Thirteen. They want stories of up to 20, 000 words about mermaids–other than The Little Mermaid, that is. Being a start up, they can only afford to pay $10 for stories of up to 10, 000 words and $20 for stories of up to 20, 000 words. However, this looks like a fun little anthology to be involved in and contributors will also be allowed to buy copies at production cost for a certain period of time.

The Inanimates I is seeking stories of between 3, 500 and 15, 000 words in which one of the main characters is an inanimate object with the fears and feelings of a human. They don’t want any dolls or dummies though, so be creative. They’ll pay an unspecified flat rate for each story and a contributor copy or two. Again, this sounds like more fun than profit.

The Mothman Chronicles is the highest paying of these anthologies, prepared to pay five cents per word up to 4, 000 words for stories involving the mothman. The stories do not have to be in known mothman territory. They do however have to be sent in by July 1st, so start brainstorming your ideas tonight.

Remember to thoroughly read the guidelines, to edit your story until it sparkles, and to enjoy the process. Themed anthologies are a fun way to get your name out there and to see yourself in print–so take advantage of them this summer and submit to as many as you can write stories for.

Young Markets

If you’ve ever used Duotrope’s Digest to find a market for your work, you’ll notice that beside the name of some markets they’ve put the word “fledgling”. The word indicates that the market is less than six months old. Six months is used as the marker because most new markets fold within the first six months.

Today I’ve gathered three new markets that would love to see your work and will even pay you for it.

Specutopia is a brand new magazine looking for only the best speculative fiction. Their definition of speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy and everything in between, but doesn’t include horror. If they like your work, they’ll pay you one cent per word. They’d like to pay you more, but starting up a magazine, even electronically, costs money and they need to pay for their bandwidth. Oh well.

Abomination Magazine is a slightly less new magazine that, unlike Specutopia, would love some horror stories. In fact, they’d prefer you to scare their pants off. So much so that they won’t accept your story if it doesn’t scare them. However, they’re still only going to pay you one cent per word because they’re broke too.

Fantastic Frontiers Magazine I think this is the oldest one on today’s list, and this market is also the highest paying. They’d like to see your fantasy and science fiction stories of up to 2,000 words. Unlike the other guys, they had some proper money to get themselves started, so they’re willing to pay you three cents per word instead of one. Don’t you feel like you’re moving up in the world? Well, that’s only if they like your work.

Don’t forget to keep submitting your work. Every time you get a rejection, send that story back out. Every time you get depressed, write something new and send it out. The only way to get published more is by writing, editing and submitting more. Quite a number of writers spend months working on the writing and editing part and never get to the submission part. Start submitting now, and you’re one step ahead of all of them.

Markets that are…Still Open

It’s somewhat sad how many literary magazines close after six months, a year, five years because of financial constraints or health problems in the people who run them. As I’m digging through a very old list of markets looking for a couple to share with you, I’ve discovered quite a number of these now-closed magazines. Some of them have kept their websites; others have sold their domains and moved on to bigger and better things–or at least we hope they’ve moved on to bigger and better things.

Luckily, there are new magazines appearing all the time, especially eMagazines like Penumbra, which give us both a place to send our work and an enjoyable reading experience.

Today, however, I’d like to share with you a couple magazines that have withstood the test of time:

Ramble Underground Doesn’t pay very much, only $15 for fiction of up to 4000 words, but the layout’s pretty and they’ve been around since 2008. They show no signs of stopping production any time soon, so your manuscript is safe with them.

The Threepenny Review I’m not too sure how long this magazine’s been out, but they don’t seem to be hurting for money and they’ll pay you more than twice as much as Ramble Underground. They pay $200-400 for pieces depending on length and quality, and they look like they’re in it for the long haul.

The Sun Magazine Has nothing to do with the Sun newspaper in Toronto, and is the oldest market on the list. They’re been publishing poetry, essays, commentary and short fiction since 1974. And they pay over $300 for fiction. This is a market to dream about seeing your name in someday.

I hope that you’ll consider submitting to at least one of these markets. Remember that we all have a story worth telling and that the world will never see our stories unless we submit them–but don’t forget to edit and polish your work before sending it off for judgement.

What was the last market you submitted a story to?

Canadian Markets

I’ve always been proud to be Canadian. Maybe it’s because Canadians are polite. Maybe it’s because Canada’s really, really pretty. Maybe it’s just because at least our politicians, while not the most intelligent or trustworthy, aren’t warmongers.

Whatever it is, I’ve noticed that Canada isn’t really given the recognition it deserves. Many of the best modern musicians, actors, artists and especially comedians, are from Canada. Here in Canada the arts thrive, aided by hundreds of grant programs, government-funded arts education programs and library-run creative programs. We may not have the same level of control over the mainstream media as the Americans, but with a tenth of their population, how can we be expected to?

More importantly, us Canadians like to do it ourselves. With a fondness for literature and a do-it-yourself attitude stolen from the pioneers, Canadians have created hundreds of magazines, dozens of which are specifically looking for fiction. Over the last year or so I’ve discovered many of these markets for writers, some of which pay small fortunes.

Today I’ve decided to share with you three not-so-famous Canadian magazines that will pay quite a bit for your fiction.

Descant Literary Magazine is a Canadian magazine, coincidentally run by the same people who run Now Hear This, the literacy company I worked for last year. They accept short fiction, short essays, reviews and poetry, and they pay $100 flat for accepted works. They prefer paper submissions and they do mention that it could take a long time to get a response and to go from acceptance to publication.

FreeFall Magazine is a quarterly Canadian magazine accepting poetry and prose. They also run occasional contests. FreeFall will pay you $5.00/printed page for published works.

The Fiddlehead claims to be the oldest literary journal in Canada. I can’t tell you for sure if this is true or not, not being well enough educated on the history of Canadian literary magazines(maybe I should do some research…) but what I do know is that they’re looking for short fiction up to 6,000 words and poetry. The other thing I know is that they’ll pay you $40/printed page when your work is published.

On my journey to discover Canadian literary culture, I’ve learned that Canadians tend to give fiction and poetry quite a high monetary value. Some of these pay rates made my jaw drop the first time I found them. I dream of someday being published by one of these magazines–maybe you should make it one of your goals, too.

If you’d like a more comprehensive list of Canadian literary journals, you can find one here.

Markets Looking for Weird Fiction

Today’s publications are all a little bit off the beaten track. They’re looking for weird stories–stories that just don’t fit anywhere else. One of them is even looking for pieces of stories. For those of us who struggle to work within the normal confines of fiction–length, story arch, those who refuse to write in plain language–these are markets to remember.

It can be quite hard to find a home for our work sometimes. When stories get past a certain length it becomes harder to find markets for them. When stories are half prose, half poem, it becomes harder to find a market for them. I’ve been known to sit for hours looking for a good market to submit to. Other times, markets have just fallen into my lap.

I hope these markets will help you get some of your weirder stories out into the public eye.

Jabberwocky Magazine–This magazine is looking for your mythpunk–something I’ve never heard of before but which you can find out more about here–and your purple prose. If you like to play around with pretty words, this is the magazine for you. They pay $0.01/word for fiction and $10.00 per poem.

Miscellanea–This is one of the cooler projects I’ve encountered recently. Inspired by concepts such as the library in the Unseen University of Pratchett’s world, Miscellanea hopes to be a library of books from all dimensions. They want snippets of no more than 300 words of any sort–memoirs, fiction, poetry, even dedication. The stories should be alluring and should make people want to read more. Think of each story as being a random page in a random book. They pay $10.00/story.

Mad Scientist Journal–I just found this magazine and I love the concept. They’re looking for “scientific” papers written by mad scientists–or at least fiction that resembles such papers. They’ll accept pretty much every genre, so long as it fits their qualifications. Some things they might be interested in are fictional newspaper articles, first-person accounts of mad scientists or witnesses of strange scientific experiments. Upon acceptance, they’d also like you to write a fictional author bio to keep with the feel of a “scientific journal”. They’re currently a token paying market–$10/short story–but they sound like a lot of fun to write for and work with.

Of course these aren’t the only places looking for strange fiction. There are magazines which expect you to work in a world that they’ve created, other magazines which want Lovecraftian fiction, and still others which specifically ask for weird fiction in the guidelines. On top of that, new markets are coming out all the time, so if you’ve written something you can’t find a market for now, stash it on your computer and maybe one will appear later.

Happy hunting!

What is the weirdest piece of fiction you’ve ever written?

Market Listing February 24th

Today’s markets all offer token payment–averaging about $10/per story, varying from magazine to magazine, these payments certainly will never pay the bills but they are nice. They let you know that somebody really appreciates what you’re doing. Always aim for the higher paying markets first, but don’t be afraid to send your stories to these places once they’ve been rejected elsewhere. After all, it’s better to get paid a little bit for your work than nothing at all, right?

Tales of the Talisman This magazine pays $10 per story and they accept science fiction, fantasy and horror of up to 6000 words.

Witches and Pagans Publishes stories with neo-Pagan elements and protagonists only. I’m not sure the length of stories they accept because it isn’t too clear, but they pay $0.025/words. (For those of you who hate numbers as much as I do, that’s two and a half cents per word.) Read the guidelines thoroughly first and query if you think your story’s too long or too short for them.

Nine: A Journal of Imaginative Fiction This is an ezine with a cool concept: writers are paid 9% of the royalties for the issue which their work is published in, with a minimum payout of $40. They accept stories of up to 10, 000 words.

As always, don’t forget to read the guidelines thoroughly and follow instructions. By putting your best foot forward and showing that you’re going out of your way to give them what you want, you give the editors a better impression right away.

Good luck on your adventure towards publication!

Market Listing February 10th

Once upon a time, short stories were the most popular form of fiction. Novelists became famous writing serial stories, short stories that if read together connected into a longer piece.

Nowadays, the market for short stories, especially serials, is shrinking. Ebooks have made it possible to sell your short story to the whole world anyway, but for those of us seeking validation by exclusive magazines, the markets are dwindling. I’m noticing this as I look for markets, both for my own stories and for this feature of my blog. A few of the markets sitting in my bookmarks have died. In the four years since I’ve started paying attention to magazines that publish fiction, many have come and gone.

There will always be a need for good writing. It might turn out that by the end of this year I’ve run out of paying magazines and ezines to mention to you. But don’t give up hope. There are always ebook publishers–and the number of those is probably going to grow sporadically–and of course, your next story might find a home if this one doesn’t.

With that said, on to today’s markets:

Scapezine takes Young Adult fiction, poetry and artwork. They pay one cent per word and they take submissions by email. Don’t forget to read the guidelines thoroughly and maybe a couple of stories on the main site to get a feel for what they publish.

Encounters seems to take stories of the length I seem to write–3, 500 to 10, 000–in the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres. Make sure you read their guidelines thoroughly. They offer token payment.

Freefall is a Canadian magazine which publishes fiction and pays $10.00/printed page. They accept submissions from all over the world, but they try to keep their content 85% Canadian. Yay Canada.

Hopefully these markets will help you along your writing journey. If you get a bunch of rejections, that’s okay–I’ve got a big stack too.

Anthologies

Today’s market listing is focused specifically on anthologies. Anthologies are a great way to join a bunch of other writers in creating something and to get your name out there. They almost always have specific themes, so unless you happen to have something suitable on hand, you’ll probably have to write a story specifically for the anthology you want to submit to.

The Fantasy Faction Anthology Created by a well known speculative fiction blog and forum called Fantasy Faction, this anthology will contain several non-fiction articles as well as stories written by well known authors. For those of us who aren’t so well known, they are holding a contest which includes six publication places and three cash prizes.

Shanghai Steam This anthology is an attempt to delve more deeply into steampunk from an Asian point of view. It looks like a really cool concept anthology and they pay $0.03/word up to 3, 000 words.

Bibliotheca Fantastica Dagan Books is looking for stories about books–rare, weird, maybe even magical books–of up to 10, 000 words. I think this is a great idea for an anthology and I’d love to get it in my stocking, even if I’m not really sure I have anything to submit to them. They pay two cents per word.

Dark Faith 2 Run by Apex books, the same people who run Abyss&Apex the magazine, this anthology is looking for the story that only you can write, something that’s both deeply personal and universal. It’s a good idea to read the first one before submitting to this one.

I hope you find at least one of these anthologies to be worth submitting to. Don’t forget to go through the guidelines thoroughly and to make sure the deadline doesn’t slip past you. If you miss a reading period for your favourite speculative fiction magazine, there’s always another one, but it doesn’t work that way with anthologies. While some of them are annual, it’s best to assume that it’s a one off and that you only have one chance to get into that market.

For anthologies, I suggest reading the guidelines three times. The first time is when you find the anthology. The second time should be after you finish the story you’ve written for the anthology, and the third time should be right before you submit, after edits. No matter how awesome your story is, if you don’t read the guidelines, your story might be formatted incorrectly and it might just end up in a trash can, virtual or real. You want to always give your work the best chance possible.