Ask Sally #10 Finding the right markets

I've had several questions on the same subject. Where to send work! So I'll put them all together in this post and hopefully answer them all.

How do I know where to send my short stories?

How do I know if my story is suitable for a competition or a women's magazine? How do I decide which women's magazine is the right one for my story?





I'm not just saying this because I've entered the blog competition, but the Writers and Artists Yearbook is a very good source for markets, listing thousands of magazines, publishers and small presses. They give details of what sort of stories, including lengths, the publications accept. Every freelance writer should have an up to date copy of the W&A Yearbook on their desk. In the interests of balance, I can also recommend the Writers Handbook, which is also a good source.

Also, I know I keep banging on about Duotrope, but it really is a good database for magazines that deal with literary fiction and genre fiction, such as science fiction, fantasy, crime and speculative.

However, whilst these are fantastic places to begin your research, it doesn't beat actually reading the magazines in which you're interested. Whilst lit-mags can be a bit pricey, women's magazines can usually be had for under £1, so you could buy one copy of one mag for several weeks and not break the bank.

Womagwriter is really your girl for all things to do with women's magazines. She's not only a student of the queen of the womags Della Galton, but she's also had luck with women's magazines, like Take a Break and My Weekly, that have so far been unimpressed by my stories. But I hope she won't mind me encroaching on her territory for just a little while.

Read all the stories in women's magazines. What sort of themes do they accept? Just as importantly, what sort of themes are missing? What sort of language do the stories use? Sentence structure? Paragraphs? Also look at the advertising, read the letters pages and articles. This will give you an idea of who the magazine is aiming at Only by studying a magazine for several weeks can you get a good overview of what they take.

Different magazines aim at different audiences. The Weekly News will take a grittier story than The Peoples' Friend. Though when I say gritty, I mean Miss Marple and Morse gritty, not Rebus and Trainspotting gritty. Overt (and even oblique) sexual references are a no-no. I recently sent in a story in which I mentioned an 'adult' toy, using that term only. It was turned down as being a bit too forward thinking for the readership. The Weekly News also has a male readership, so stories must take this into account. Therefore, stories with male MC's do very well there. The Peoples' Friend are much harder to crack as they have very specific needs based on their readership which tends to be over 60 (though most 60 year olds I know were into the Stones and Beatles!) No sex, no violence, no divorce, no death (though I gather this can get through if it's handled well). Women tend to be homemakers, or career women who dream of being homemakers. Men are strong and dependable. Children are always well-behaved. Take a Break tends to have more humorous stories and Norah McGrath, editor of TAB and Fiction Feast, will also take a ghost or crime story for Fiction Feast. Characters are nearly always working class with down-to-earth names like Linda, Sandra, Tracy, Maureen. When you send a story to TAB it will also be considered for Fiction Feast.

My Weekly's guidelines are changing all the time nowadays. Womagwriter regularly puts the updated guidelines on her blog.

It can be a bit of a tight-rope walk, to find out which stories will take and which won't. But if you send a story and it's turned down, it's just as likely it's because they've had another similar story recently, rather than there being anything wrong with your writing.

Incidentally (and this is not aimed at the people who asked the questions, who I know are thoroughly nice women, but to anyone else who might be reading this), if the idea of going into a newsagents to buy a woman's magazine makes you think wearing of dark glasses and a disguise then you shouldn't even consider writing for them.

Competitions
As with magazines, the best way to decide if a story is suitable for a competition is to read the previous winners - though it's wise to bear in mind that the judges change yearly so a theme that might win one year won't necessarily the next. However, the readers, those who choose the longlist that goes onto the main judges, usually remain the same, so you can get a good indication. You will certainly get an idea of whether the stories that win are lowbrow, middlebrow or highbrow, or a mixture of all three. A lot of competitions are online now and will showcase the winners. Others have previous winners' anthologies that can be bought at reasonably low prices. As I stated in a previous Ask Sally, Kay Sexton gives good advice on entering competitions, particularly those with a theme. Often there'll be a judge's report to go with competition results. Read that too, to see why stories were discarded.

The advice I'd give though is that if you've got a story that you want to enter into a competition, just go for it! Be bold! I'd never read any Leaf Anthologies or Momaya Reviews before entering those two competitions, though I had some knowledge of the work of previous winners. But I even ignored that (it's always a bad idea to compare yourself with other writers and an even worse idea to try and emulate them) because I had ideas I thought were good and ran with them. It worked.


More Links

Womagwriter

Della Galton's courses

Kay Sexton

Sally's Writing Competitions Calendar