I wrote a little about an online anthology that I did a while back called Bradley Sands is a Dick and linked to a download of it. I talk a little bit about why you shouldn't submit your writing to just anything.
I like this. I hate going through Duotrope and seeing terrible sites with poor design and shitty concepts have high reporting rates. The quality of markets won't get any better unless people stop submitting to terrible ones.
I think the concept of Bradley Sands is a Dick was hilarious, though, and you mentioned that Bust Down was closed at the time -- I really think that probably contributed to the high rate of submissions, because it was a great magazine and people probably really wanted to submit to it.
Thanks.
I think it may have been closed. I'm not entirely sure. I think most of the submissions to Bust weren't sent due to the journal's high quality considering the majority were always totally inappropriate, so those people never read it. I think a lot of writers just pretty much fling their shit all over the place and see where it sticks. Those kinds of writers will never succeed, although they will be published in many places that go unread that people have never heard of.
Makes sense. I really base my submissions on two things: 1.) The likelyhood of my work being a good fit (and accepted). and 2.) Does the site look like someplace I'd go to read fiction?
I want a sexy looking site to show my stories, not some place that looks outdated that I'd be embarassed to show my friends and family. I also take a look at the recent fiction that's been published. If I think the writing is not very good, regardless of what genre it is, then I will not submit.
Great points. I try to maintain a top-down approach to submitting (read: getting rejected): I submit first to the big-time markets--i.e. ones that I've heard of, long reputation, ones that pay 5c/w+, then ones that have published authors I'm a fan of (for example, Shotgun Honey, even though it doesn't pay). To date, I haven't reached the bottom of my lists for the stories I'm submiting.
I talked about submitting to publications in a recent interview and contracted myself a little: "It can serve as a training ground for new authors. Publication is a good motivator for getting people to write. It’s nice if a journal is part of a “scene” where the people who are reading it are also the people who are getting their writing published by it. The people involved in a scene are friendly with one another and give each other positive reinforcement."
Read the rest here: http://slityourwristsmagazine.com/2012/12/28/bradley-sands-snorted-my-brain/
