I went back and did a survey of my sales by year, and I found that they really gained traction about five years ago. Before that they’d been hit and miss for several years, some years not recording any sales at all. I’d always heard that if one keeps hacking away at writing, eventually you will reach a point where everything you write (more or less) will sell, and that’s when you’ve made it. I haven’t reached that point by any means, but I am doing better. So, I ask myself, why is that?
Apart from the obvious reason that I’ve finally learned something about writing, I think the greatest reason is the market. When I started way, way back, there were three SF/fantasy markets that I was aware of. This number varied a little, but not much. It was like television before cable came along. Now there are hundreds of markets available, and most of them pay money. It is a boom time, balanced by the fact that there are so many talented writers out there, which is why it is still hard to publish at professional rates.
There’s also the fact that I have more stories to offer now. (Ironically, the more I sell the fewer I have to offer.) But keeping all of these plates in the air is a constant juggling act, because each one of those hundreds of markets has different needs, editorial viewpoints, length requirements, payment rates, and submission windows. Do they take multiple or simultaneous submissions? Do they take reprints? If they do, how old must the reprint be? Can it be available elsewhere? If it’s a podcast, do I still own the audio rights? If the story has only been podcast, will another magazine pay for first print rights?
Whew.
For the most part, this is simply a matter of keeping an updated spreadsheet. My is date-ordered, with a growing number of colors indicating current submissions, sales, simultaneous submissions, potential submissions… In addition I keep a separate list of stories current on submission as a back-up. Accidentally sim-subbing to a market that doesn’t accept simultaneous submissions are very embarrassing (and we’ve all done it). But scheduling is easy. The hard part is determining which of your stories is suitable for which of the markets you’re looking at.
And oddly enough, I’ve noticed that part of my success has been in selling to markets that I really didn’t think were looking for that story. Every market has its preferences, sometimes laid out in great detail, sometimes set forth with maddening vagueness. You have to try to figure out what should go where, because there’s no faster road to rejection than, say, sending sword-and-sorcery to Analog. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.
And yet, most of them will tell you that if a story even remotely fits their guidelines, you should send it in, because you never know what an editor needs at that moment. Sometimes they will even bend (or break!) their own rules for a story they love. This is why so many times a writer can sell a story that has been rejected 30 times. I can tell you from personal experience this is true, and it is one of the reasons for my recent successes, because I have become less shy about pushing the envelope. I have learned that, “Hey, it might work…” is a good enough reason to try. Sometimes it doesn’t work–more than sometimes. But occasionally you hit paydirt where you weren’t expecting to, and it’s even more satisfying than the usual sale, because you know that the editor must have loved your work to bend his own rules.
Don’t get me wrong, I will always try the places I think are the best fit first. But SF and fantasy are the literature that thinks outside the box, and ofttimes you have to think that way too, just to get it to your readers at all.
#SFWApro
