The first Wednesday comes fast this month, so for the first time, I'm not prepared the week before! Life has been kind of crazy in my world. May and June are full for my little family with two birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and our wedding anniversary. In addition there is Summer Solstice and plenty of other things to celebrate and it is all quickly followed by Independence Day. Lots of grilling, package deliveries, and baking.
This month, the theme for our blog hop is regarding the industry. I am to discuss the changes I would like to see in the next decade. As I know minimal about the industry, I am not even sure what I would want to change. As always if you want to visit the blogs of other writers, please click on the badge at the top of this post for a list of links.
Since I am not very knowledgeable, I want to use this post to mention a few ignorant questions and/or desires in hopes that some of my more knowledgeable IWSG friends can guide me.
My first question is about writing coaches. If you have used one, tell me the best and worst part of your experience. Did the coach help you navigate the industry, or just help you stay on routine and answer personalized questions about writing?
Question two, if you write short stories, how did you market them? Did you use an agent, send them to online venues, or self-publish?
Third, it would be awesome if there was a professional reader site. A person would request an account and review a set of standard works. Their reviews would be critiqued before allowing them to have an account. Once the person is accepted as a reader, they can choose from a database of "pre-published" works and leave feedback for the author. The author can then leave a rating for the reader to ensure that the feedback is valuable. Does this exist, or did I just come up with my own business idea?
Lastly, the industry would issue small time control devices to working writers so they could split their days and spend one timeline sleeping at night, then directly after that, travel back to bedtime and spend the night writing without interruption. This really would be the best improvement upon the industry in my humble opinion.
It's 6:40. The husband left for work, the kids are still asleep, by some small miracle, and I have an hour and a half before I leave for work. It is time for my cup of tea! Have a great day!
Don't have a coach but when I used to write short stories I submitted them to magazines, many of which no longer exist. But there are still a lot of avenues for short stories and you don't need an agent.
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoyed your tea!
Thank you. I'm new to short stories, but want to broaden into them. I have enjoyed the ones I'm working on now. The tea was perfect :)
DeleteHappy Anniversary!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of that time device. :)
For short stories, I suggest google searching short story submissions, possibly specific to genres you like to write. You can sign up for a site like Duotrope which is a database of both magazine and small press publishers. It's helpful, but it costs some money. When I first started sending out short stories and poems, I looked at the bios of writers I liked and submitted works to the places they had been published. I still do this, sometimes. Not every place pays professionally, but while some authors snub non-paying markets, I think it's nice to get your feet wet with some kind of publishing experience. Give yourself a goal - like in a year, having a short story published in a paying market. Then, go for it. It might take 10-25 submissions to various markets to make it happen, but it really is a perseverance game more than anything else.
Happy Writing!
Thank you! I also like to look at how favorite writers were published. It is good to be inspired and led by those we admire.
DeleteI think you might've just developed your own business idea. :) There are some Goodreads groups that allow you to post review requests, but other than that, I don't know of a site or service that does anything quite like how you explained it.
ReplyDeleteFor my short stories, I did not use an agent. I found a publisher, The Wild Rose Press, that published stories as eBooks in my word count range. There are small presses out there that publish short stories and novellas. For flash fiction, I submitted those myself to online magazines.
I've come across a few smaller publishers and wondered if that was an avenue to consider. Thanks for the feedback. How do these smaller publishers market/sell?
DeleteYou're right about the new month coming up fast. I almost forgot to write for IWSG myself and so didn't remember until the day of!
ReplyDeleteI can't answer your question about writing coaches because I never use them. But I have submitted plenty of short stories to magazines. I've often heard that an agent isn't needed for submitting short stories and, in my opinion, to hire one would probably be more costly than it's worth. Mshatch is right about many magazines no longer existing while there are yet a few out there that do take stories (both digital/online and print). Because there are so fewer magazines than their used to be (sadly), I've also started submitting to anthologies. However, I've had better success in self-publishing my short fiction in my own collections than I have selling them to magazines. Now, how many copies of my short fiction collections I sell is another story (no pun intended).
Thanks for the advice! I never really considered doing short stories until I saw the IWSG contest and thought I'd give it a try. I enjoy reading collections of them, so it makes sense. We will see how it goes and if I can keep them up.
DeleteOh, and Happy Anniversary to the two of you!
ReplyDeleteI have never used a writing coach, so I'm no help there!
ReplyDeleteAs for the reviews, I may be misunderstanding, but there are a few services that are a bit similar. Net Galley is a place for published authors to list books they need reviewed, if you're looking to be a reviewer. Watt Pad allows unpublished works to be posted and and readers can leave feedback. I've posted stories, but never got a huge amount of feedback.
If you're looking for feedback, I've had the best luck by asking writing friends to beta read. I have a few I read for and they will read for me. You just have to catch them when they're not busy.
Short stories. I've only done a few and they were for anthologies. Publishers will put out a request for stories and you can submit them. The IWSG has a short story contest happening now. You could submit a story there. And IWSG Admin, Juneta Key publishes an anthology of shorts and is always looking for submissions.
I hope you enjoyed your tea. And Happy Anniversary!
Thanks. I am actually working on a short for the IWSG contest. Since I'm unpublished I've had virtually no feedback on anything I've written (not including things I wrote in college fifteen ago). Time to get some writing friends!
DeleteI've never had a writing coach so I can't help with that.
ReplyDeleteHave you checked out the WEP (Write Edit Publish) bi-monthly contest. It's for Flash Fiction under 1000 words based on a prompt. Info is here https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com - next one is in August and the prompt is "long shadow"
Thanks! I'll look into that.
DeleteHi Steph,
ReplyDeleteThere are so many markets for short fiction. It depends on your genre but if you have some great stories, definitely think about publishing them in magazines. I haven't sold much (and haven't made much) but working with editors and the process has been a great experience worth it for that alone IMO. My tips would be two-fold, to find magazines/publishers you like, to read what they publish (preferably for free - and there are so many digital options these days!) There are so many markets out there depending on your genre.
Thanks for sharing something of your writing journey and thanks for visiting my blog!
Thanks for the advice. I know that I have a lot of work to do, but I plan to enjoy every bit!
Deletetime control devices would be AWESOME!!
ReplyDelete