Tip: Does Everybody Know About Writer's Market?

Well! After a L-O-O-O-N-G trip back from France, much jetlag, a business trip to San Francisco, and a bout with flu, I am back to blogging, shamefully late. (That all sounded very jet-set, didn't it? That'll pass -- it ain't my normal life, I promise.) France was essentially incredibly cool except that one of the dogs we were watching was an eight-month-old husky puppy. During hunting season, when it was as much as this puppy's life was worth to go out unsupervised, her be-all and end-all purpose was to get out -- tunnel under fences, slip her leash, etc. They're smart dogs, too -- I watched this one turn a doorknob to get out a door, I swear. A friend said, "So, essentially, you were outsmarted by a dog?" Yes. Yes, I was.

So, home now, and back to tips: It occurs to me that I've mentioned Writer's Market, assuming that everyone knows what it is. But if you're a beginner, you may not. It's a book, the industry bible of where to sell your work, a sort of master list of publishers. magazines, etc., with addresses, contact information, needs and demands of the various publishing outlets, who is buying what, etc. It comes out every year in August, and is used by beginners and established professionals alike. There is one basic Writer's Market, which pretty much lists markets for everything: articles and other forms of journalism, essays, ficiton, nonfiction, short stories, novels, poetry, etc. There are also specific books for specific markets, such as children's books, poetry, and of course, fiction. For fiction, the one you want is Novel and Short Story Writer's Market. They have also just begun in the last couple of years to have an agents' section in these books, which is very useful.

The Writer's Markets also have reasonably helpful little interviews with professionals as filler, sample query letters or query letter hints, guidelines for what you send in a proposal package, and so on. You can get them from Amazon, in most bookstores, or off of the publisher's website, www.writersdigest.com. (The website is also fairly useful, with tips and hints and lists of promising markets.)

Writer's Market doesn't list absolutely every publishing possibility there is, but it does list a very large percentage of the outlets who are buying. The 2004 versions should be in the stores now. They're an excellent resource. Warning: don't try to send to everyone listed! You never could. You could also never subscribe to all the literary reviews who say you should subscribe to them to see what kind of stories they publish. Go through the entries, pick ten to twenty likely possibilities, and start sending. If those all come back, pick ten to twenty more. Just keep going. Hang in there!