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 They accept both queries and finished work, and they accept work from unpublished authors as long as it meets their standards of quality writing.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.

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?

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.

Market Listings December 16th

I decided to start with market listings instead of a prompt because I figure there’s a pretty good chance you’ve got a short story sitting around somewhere that really should be sent out–or back out. Or maybe you’ve got a story that just needs one last good polish. Or maybe you’ve just written a story and you haven’t started editing it yet. The point is, you probably already have a story lying around, and I’m hoping you’ll consider sending it to one of these markets.

The First Line Short Fiction Magazine This market is good for those of you who don’t have a story. The First Line gives you the first line of your story and asks you to write the rest. If you write something particularly awesome, they’ll publish it and you’ll get paid. The first lines for 2012 stories are already up, so get to work making something. They pay $30 for short stories and $20 for non-fiction. They prefer short stories between 300 and 3000 words.

The Colored Lens The Coloured Lens will take speculative short fiction of up to 10, 000 words and even serialized novels up to 20, 000 words, but you have to query for the latter. They pay $20 per short story, and for novellas they pay $20 for the first 10, 000 words and $1 for every thousand words after that.

Ideomancer Ideomancer is looking for speculative short fiction up to 7, 000 words, and they will pay you 0.03 cents per word to a maximum of $40. They also publish poetry, and they pay a flat rate of $6 per poem.

These markets don’t pay at the professional level of five cents per word, but quite frankly, very few markets actually pay their authors that much anyway. If you’re thinking of submitting to one of these markets but you’re afraid, that’s okay. Submitting a short story for the first time is scary. But you can do it, and believe you me, you’ll feel much more like a writer after you do.

If you manage to get published at one of these magazines please let me know. I’d love to hear your success stories, and hopefully someday soon I can share one of my own.