Nov 23 2008
Writers Market Online
If you are ‘of a certain age’ and love to write, you probably remember buying a copy of Writers Market every year so you could look for places to sell what you’d written, or so you could find editors to query about article ideas. Now you can get all that same info online at www.writersmarket.com. You do have to pay an annual fee to join, but it’s no more than the book used to cost, and there are lots of other cool features at the website that the book couldn’t offer; like forums, profile pages, and helpful advice on how to market your work or find an agent.
I’ll be honest: I joined writersmarket.com six months ago but haven’t done much with my account there at all so far. It’s easy to get so caught up in writing online that time runs out and I never do get any writing done for old-fashioned paper publications. I’m hoping to spend more time in the coming year on that kind of writing. It’s much more difficult to be published on paper, but it also tends to pay better (when it pays at all).
Writersmarket.com also lists nationwide writing contests, some of them with fairly decent cash prizes, and gives instructions on how to enter them. A writing teacher from my college days said that early in her career she made quite a good income by winning short story contests, and that winning these contests also helped her get published in other venues. Keep in mind that many of these contests do charge a reading fee; in other words, you have to pay something to enter. In the beginning you may want to stick with free contests.
Another down side to writersmarket.com: Sometimes the publishers with websites don’t even have websites anymore, and sometimes the info about the publications isn’t updated very frequently. Some of the best-selling and highest-paying publications do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Many little literary magazines pay in copies only.
Still, if you are just getting started writing professionally, joining writersmarket.com is not a waste of money of time. You can learn a lot just by poking around there, reading the descriptions and the profiles of other writers.
Writers Market was a good resource ten years ago. It still is a good resource today.
Great article….
Good information! Doing it online is going to be so much easier than finding a home for that huge book!
I came across an interesting thing the other day - I used an article published in a magazine as the basis for a blog post. When I checked with copyscape my copy failed and when I checked the duplicates the very same article, with the same byline had been published on 2 different websites - prior to the magazine being printed. Obviously the author can sell in both markts but I am amazed that an upmarket travel magazine will pay for something that was already published online!