Psychedelia Gothique

A View from the Cheap Seats In most ways, the internet enhances every writers life by making it cheaper and more enjoyable to do what we do. But it complicates life in many hidden ways, especially for writers who have worked for decades to get as good as they are – only to come up against a market that is completely flooded with work by everyone on the planet who thinks they can write – which, in these days of high educational standards and low employment – is most of us in the civilized world. Things Any Writer Older than 45 Will Probably Remember: It used to be that sending out queries for a novel, to either agents or publishers, was an extremely time consuming, labour intensive proposition, and potentially a very expensive one. Imagine having to individually type out every copy of every manuscript. Multiply that by the number of copies created. Spilling a coffee could create several days work, because the last thing you wanted to do with a manuscript was show how ...

The Arcade Fire song, We Used to Wait, got me thinking about how electronic submission has changed the way we live our lives from day to day. The sweet anticipation has gone missing! When I first started submitting stories for publication in the 80s, there was a fun element of suspense to the proceedings, once I got four or five stories in circulation. Everything was done by mail. The top publications, like  Asimov’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s, Ellery Queen’s  and  F&SF  maintained turnaround times of a few weeks with a maximum of around six weeks. Everything quickly settled into a rhythm, where I was averaging about one response per week. With 10 or 12 stories circulating at any given time, very few weeks went by without getting some sort of response in the mail. Slower publications – usually high end literary magazines and small press magazines, could take as long as six months. Very few publications had longer return times than that, and my stories usually sold bef...

Pirates? Arrrr, matie, pirates! And they’re taking over the publishing world. Hold onto your purse because the publishing waters are full of cutthroats. With the ever evolving publishing paradigm, the big publishers have closed ranks – so that it’s harder than ever to get in. If you have a phenomenal track record or (or a really big cannon) ... or present them with a book that seems like a sure-fire winner, you may be able to break down the doors. Otherwise, your chances are akin to a dinghy in a hurricane. So, what options are left for new authors? Small publishers for long fiction or collections are all looking for breakthrough books. So write a breakthrough book. That was easy, eh? But even that may not work, if no-one recognizes it as a breakthrough book. And publishers that can see and cultivate the “potential” in unpolished gems disappeared sometime last century. You’ll need your manuscript sharpened like a rapier – which means spending money on it upfront. Like th...

Type 1: Small Press - non-paying, token paying & low paying markets for fiction, article, reviews, poetry, and art.   I have seen writers and artists get angry at non-paying markets, as if their very existence is an affront! If you are one of those, then please - stop being such an asshole. Sure, writers wanting to give their work away for free can just do it on Wattpad. But, especially when you're first starting out, there’s something nice about having your work selected for inclusion by an actual editor. There is credibility and validation in having your publication at least “juried” by a third party. And every once in a while, works from those publications get singled out for further honours and/or republished in paying markets. For those who consider those markets beneath them – remember that the publishers and editors of those publications are most likely making less than you. Yes –  less than zero ie: paying all expenses out of pocket. Many small press mag...