Finding Markets For Your Writing

The old way of finding new markets

In yesterday's post, I talked about marketing being the biggest step after you've written what you hope will be a publishable piece. I mentioned studying market guides. But let's go a bit farther today and see where you find some of these markets that are just dying for you to submit your work.

In the old days, libraries carried market guides that looked akin to the Sears catalog in size. Or you could order your own from places like Writer's Digest, the Institute of Children's Literature and others. It was nice to have those guides at your fingertips but there was one big problem. They were outdated almost as soon as they were printed. Editors changed, guidelines changed, dollars offered changed. If you purchased a new one each year, you ended up investing quite a bit of money to help you earn through your writing.

Then, along came the internet and what a boon it's been for writers in finding markets for their work. They can:

1. use a search engine with keywords like markets for fiction writers or markets for memoirs

2. sign up for writing newsletters that list markets as a part of each issue

3. sign up for newsletters that are strictly for marketing

4. find writing groups that share market information with members

5. check websites that put out a Call for Submissions on a regular basis (ie: Chicken Soup for the Soul)

One of the newsletters I subscribe to is Aerogramme Writers Studio which gives a good listing of literary magazines and ezines looking for submissions. They also list many contests. This is an Australian based website but the markets are international. We can all submit to markets in other countries if we have a paypal account, which is the way payment is handled when two countries are involved. I fought it for a long time but when I started selling children's stories to a magazine in China, I caved and set up an account and it's worked just fine. It was also easy to set up. I did open a new checking account which I use only for paypal transactions and I would recommend doing this.

If you're a fiction writer, you might find some marketing help here.  Here's one for memoir or personal essays. Do you write poetry? Look at this website for market advice. For children's stories, Evelyn Christensen offers a fine marketing service. Check out this page for help.

I've listed only a very few. Take some time to look at the links I've given you and then spend time on your own searching for more places that will give you some market guidance. Google can be your best buddy if you learn to use keywords.