Finding a Publisher

Finding a Publisher

10/18/2011 11:53:25 AM

 
I am now looking for information about publishers and submissions. How submissions are handled now is a complete mystery to me. The first interesting site I came up with is "Poets and Writers."

http://www.pw.org/

This appears to be an excellent site that not only has information for writers, it also includes a large listing of publishers, a great many of them surprisingly similar to the small press publishers I've often worked with in the past.

Two things jumped out at me as I browsed the site, the submission process and author's rights. Back when I sent submissions for consideration on paper via the mail, two universal rules were (1) no simultaneous submissions; and (2) publisher's retained North American rights to the story. These rules ensured that when a publisher accepted a story they knew it would be the first time the story appeared in a North American market. Neither of those rules seem to apply today. Simultaneous submissions via electronic means is widely accepted, and most publishers that I checked with revert all rights back to the author upon publication. The main reason for these changes in my view is the fact that electronic content is impossible to contain. It gets copied and shared. Publishers rights don't mean much in that particular case, so why not revert rights back to the writer and let them deal with it if they want? The one new rule that also seems to be universal is that if a piece is submitted simultaneously to multiple publishers, those publishers want to know immediately if the piece is accepted elsewhere so that they can take it off their own list of submissions. I imagine that writers who fail to make those notifications will have a harder time finding a publisher willing to consider their work.

It appears to me that small press publishing is much the same today as I remember it. Revenue is always an issue for any business, and 'zines come and go with some rapidity. Turn around for submissions was an ongoing issue even when dealing in hard copy. I'm sure submissions have exploded with the ease with which someone can write something and drop it via email to a hundred publishers. What a nightmare that must be for those who have to sort through it. Manuscripts would get lost; today, files get eaten by the computer.

The number of niche markets has also exploded. Magazines that I submitted to mainly stayed with Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy, with some finer distinctions being drawn along lines of hard science vs soft, subtle vs in your face horror, etc. Now, I could probably pick any subject, however narrow or specific, and find a magazine that specialized in delivering exactly that type of story. Selecting markets to submit stories to will take more effort and more creativity to get them considered. The story must be good, of course, but it also has to meet the publisher's idea of what is right for his magazine.

My story collection is in the final stretch. Editing out the formatting errors is complete, and every story is ready for the next step. I also finished the last new story for the collection, which is in proof reading now.