on the third hand
Dec. 4th, 2009 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyJohn Scalzi and Cat Valente have been talking about short fiction rates (as an outgrowth of John's muck-raking posts about a market which pays 1/5 of a cent per word*), and since my experience as a short story writer has been quite different from either John's or Cat's, I thought I'd weigh in with the view from here.
I should say three things up front:
1. I am both a novelist and a short story writer. (Whereas, in the grossly over-simplified version John is a novelist who sometimes writes short stories and Cat isa short story writer who sometimes writes novels also a novelist who writes short stories. Apologies to Cat for misrepresenting her!)
2. I am not dependent on my writing as the principal source of household income. So, I don't have to sell short stories, nor do I care very much about how much I'm paid for them. I write short stories because I love writing them; I publish them (or try to) because, well, I'm a professional writer. It's part of what that means to me as a career.
3. I do not get commissions anywhere NEAR as often as either John or Cat; my short story career has been all about submission, rejection, submission, rejection, submission, rejection. And, I should also add, I don't write to specification very well. Temperamentally, I'm much more suited to writing the story and THEN finding somewhere to send it. Even when people ask me for stories or invite me to contribute, I most often fail miserably to produce. ::looks guiltily in several directions::
My first ever sale, "Bringing Helena Back" (5,000 words) was to All Hallows: The Journal of the Ghost Story Society, which pays two contributors' copies. I sold another story, "Drowning Palmer" (10,000 words) to them (and, in fact, have sold a third, although I don't know if it's ever going to get published). I submitted to them knowing that they were a non-paying market, and I did so for a couple of reasons. One is that Ellen Datlow recommended them (and later she picked "Drowning Palmer" for the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror XX, so I actually got paid for that one in the end); the other is that those two stories, being ghost stories of a very particular type, were not placing at paying markets. "Bringing Helena Back" had racked up seven rejections by then, which is not the most rejections I've ever gotten on a story, but it's certainly the rounds of the pro markets. You aim for the Moon first, but there comes a point where if you want the story to be published, you have to start aiming for the roofs. And some of those roofs are really stars, as for example:
My second sale was to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, "Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland." 5,000 words, $20. I sold two more stories to LCRW, again with the $20 flat rate. One was 1,400 words and one was 300 words. So that ranges from 0.4 cents a word to 7 cents a word. I've sold to places that paid $10 and contributors' copies, and I've sold to places that pay pro rates, but I have to tell you, most of my sales have been to semi-pro magazines for substantially less than SFWA's 5 cents a word.
Let's balance that against the other side of the ledger: the number of rejections my stories have racked up before they sold.
0 rejections: 3 stories, all three of which were pretty much deliberately pitched at the market which bought them. Two of the three were sales to Strange Horizons.
1 rejection: 5 stories
2 rejections: 4 stories
3 rejections: 1 story
4 rejections: 5 stories
5 rejections: 5 stories
6 rejections: 1 story
7 rejections: 2 stories
8 rejections: 2 stories
9 rejections: 1 story
10 rejections: 3 stories
12 rejections: 1 story
15 rejections: 1 story
17 rejections: 1 story
(That fifteen-rejection story, btw, is "Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veterans' Day," which is one of the two or three things I've written that I am most proud of.)
This is the part of short story publishing that neither John nor Cat addresses, because neither of them--for radically different reasons--has any particular experience with it. But I think it's a more common experience than either of theirs. You submit, you get rejected. You submit again, you get rejected. After two or three rejections, you're out of markets that pay pro rates (especially, I may add, if you are writing horror). So you move onto the semi-pros, not because you don't value your work, but because you do. Because you want to see it published, so other people can read it. It's no good sitting on a story after the pro markets have rejected it, in a sort of You'll all be sorry when I'm dead! spirit.
"Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland," that story that got 0.4 cents a word from LCRW, is my only award-winning story. It is also my most reprinted story, and was my first story to be translated. "Drowning Palmer," which I did not get paid a cent for, made the last Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and you BET I'm proud of that. Most of the Booth stories went for semi-pro rates or less, and yet The Bone Key is quite possibly my most successful book and was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award.
Now, I'm not saying that John is wrong in asserting that writers should value their work and should only submit to markets that also value their work. Because I think he's right. But I don't think that Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, paying a flat $20 for stories in LCRW, don't value my work. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure they do.
It's a balancing act. If you're too picky as a fledgling short story writer, you won't get published. You will simply drown in the slush. But if you're not picky enough--there are some sales I wouldn't make now, because I'm older and wiser, but the only one I really regret is to Naked Snake Online, which not only offered $5 for a 10,000 word story (0.05 cents a word, that), but then never paid me the $5.
But there's a difference between markets that don't pay well (or at all) and markets that are trying to exploit writers. That's the difference you need to learn to see, and it isn't necessarily blazoned forth in the pay rate. All Hallows may not pay, but they love ghost stories as much as I do.
---
*ETA: I am not in any way, shape, or form arguing with John's denunciation of Black Matrix.
I should say three things up front:
1. I am both a novelist and a short story writer. (Whereas, in the grossly over-simplified version John is a novelist who sometimes writes short stories and Cat is
2. I am not dependent on my writing as the principal source of household income. So, I don't have to sell short stories, nor do I care very much about how much I'm paid for them. I write short stories because I love writing them; I publish them (or try to) because, well, I'm a professional writer. It's part of what that means to me as a career.
3. I do not get commissions anywhere NEAR as often as either John or Cat; my short story career has been all about submission, rejection, submission, rejection, submission, rejection. And, I should also add, I don't write to specification very well. Temperamentally, I'm much more suited to writing the story and THEN finding somewhere to send it. Even when people ask me for stories or invite me to contribute, I most often fail miserably to produce. ::looks guiltily in several directions::
My first ever sale, "Bringing Helena Back" (5,000 words) was to All Hallows: The Journal of the Ghost Story Society, which pays two contributors' copies. I sold another story, "Drowning Palmer" (10,000 words) to them (and, in fact, have sold a third, although I don't know if it's ever going to get published). I submitted to them knowing that they were a non-paying market, and I did so for a couple of reasons. One is that Ellen Datlow recommended them (and later she picked "Drowning Palmer" for the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror XX, so I actually got paid for that one in the end); the other is that those two stories, being ghost stories of a very particular type, were not placing at paying markets. "Bringing Helena Back" had racked up seven rejections by then, which is not the most rejections I've ever gotten on a story, but it's certainly the rounds of the pro markets. You aim for the Moon first, but there comes a point where if you want the story to be published, you have to start aiming for the roofs. And some of those roofs are really stars, as for example:
My second sale was to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, "Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland." 5,000 words, $20. I sold two more stories to LCRW, again with the $20 flat rate. One was 1,400 words and one was 300 words. So that ranges from 0.4 cents a word to 7 cents a word. I've sold to places that paid $10 and contributors' copies, and I've sold to places that pay pro rates, but I have to tell you, most of my sales have been to semi-pro magazines for substantially less than SFWA's 5 cents a word.
Let's balance that against the other side of the ledger: the number of rejections my stories have racked up before they sold.
0 rejections: 3 stories, all three of which were pretty much deliberately pitched at the market which bought them. Two of the three were sales to Strange Horizons.
1 rejection: 5 stories
2 rejections: 4 stories
3 rejections: 1 story
4 rejections: 5 stories
5 rejections: 5 stories
6 rejections: 1 story
7 rejections: 2 stories
8 rejections: 2 stories
9 rejections: 1 story
10 rejections: 3 stories
12 rejections: 1 story
15 rejections: 1 story
17 rejections: 1 story
(That fifteen-rejection story, btw, is "Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veterans' Day," which is one of the two or three things I've written that I am most proud of.)
This is the part of short story publishing that neither John nor Cat addresses, because neither of them--for radically different reasons--has any particular experience with it. But I think it's a more common experience than either of theirs. You submit, you get rejected. You submit again, you get rejected. After two or three rejections, you're out of markets that pay pro rates (especially, I may add, if you are writing horror). So you move onto the semi-pros, not because you don't value your work, but because you do. Because you want to see it published, so other people can read it. It's no good sitting on a story after the pro markets have rejected it, in a sort of You'll all be sorry when I'm dead! spirit.
"Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland," that story that got 0.4 cents a word from LCRW, is my only award-winning story. It is also my most reprinted story, and was my first story to be translated. "Drowning Palmer," which I did not get paid a cent for, made the last Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and you BET I'm proud of that. Most of the Booth stories went for semi-pro rates or less, and yet The Bone Key is quite possibly my most successful book and was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award.
Now, I'm not saying that John is wrong in asserting that writers should value their work and should only submit to markets that also value their work. Because I think he's right. But I don't think that Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, paying a flat $20 for stories in LCRW, don't value my work. In fact, I'm pretty damn sure they do.
It's a balancing act. If you're too picky as a fledgling short story writer, you won't get published. You will simply drown in the slush. But if you're not picky enough--there are some sales I wouldn't make now, because I'm older and wiser, but the only one I really regret is to Naked Snake Online, which not only offered $5 for a 10,000 word story (0.05 cents a word, that), but then never paid me the $5.
But there's a difference between markets that don't pay well (or at all) and markets that are trying to exploit writers. That's the difference you need to learn to see, and it isn't necessarily blazoned forth in the pay rate. All Hallows may not pay, but they love ghost stories as much as I do.
---
*ETA: I am not in any way, shape, or form arguing with John's denunciation of Black Matrix.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 02:20 am (UTC)I like a lot of semiprozines, some of which offer flat rates, so for me it also comes down to whether I respect and like the publication I'm submitting to, as well as pay.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 03:25 am (UTC)I'm not pursuing the pro markets for the pay, either. Money is nice, but more than that I want the boost for my bio paragraph in query letters to agents, and eventual membership in SFWA.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 06:55 am (UTC)The issue is that the Black Matrix mags are published as a for-profit business, not a hobby. This isn't a group of fans starting up a new fan-zine. Black Matrix is an LLC that went into business to make money, not 4theluv. Black Matrix seems to be playing on 'rejection dejection' to acquire its raw materials at a deeply discounted rate, thus increasing its profits.
Its magazines are priced higher than, say Realms of Fantasy and Fantasy & Science Fiction. As far as I know, 4theluv mags don't charge as much per issue as the pros, and can therefore justify paying less to writers. When a magazine costs MORE than the pros, I expect the contents to be as good as the pros, but when they pay only 1/5-cent per word, they're not going to be getting very much quality work. Sure the few top-notch pieces they buy and publish will stand out, but looking at this from the readers' perspective, it's just as crap a deal (IMO) as it is for writers.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 02:40 pm (UTC)That said, nobody's making any money running a literary magazine either.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-05 04:05 pm (UTC)Stephen King and others take the position that you collect a lot of rejections, and then make a lot of "sales" to non-paying markets, before you build up enough street cred to make "paying" sales.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 08:19 pm (UTC)I completely agree with the first paragraph though.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-07 05:48 pm (UTC)I think you're right on all other points, though, and I sold the short story of Palimpsest for $20--it went on to be a novel and the anthology won the WFA.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-07 06:19 pm (UTC)BTW, are there more Booth stories? *makes kitten eyes*
no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 05:53 pm (UTC)There are four Booth stories not in The Bone Key
Two of them are online, if you have not seen them already: "White Charles" is here (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/monette_09_09/), and "The Replacement" is here (http://www.sarahmonette.com/replacement.html).
"The Yellow Dressing Gown" was published in Weird Tales and "The World Without Sleep" was published in Postscripts.
I have three or four more in various stages of construction, and yes, I do hope eventually to have enough for a second collection. But it may take a while.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 09:46 pm (UTC)That got me through three hours of useless meetings.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-08 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-07 08:53 pm (UTC)Interesting post. Thanks for sharing :)