Short Story Publishers

Many people take writing as a hobby or as a more serious undertaking later in life - maybe even after what would be retirement age by many. This article focuses on how the older writer can compete with younger rivals on an equal footing.

Here, you're sitting at your finished manuscript research. It probably took at least a year - perhaps much more - to get to this point. Now, you say, it's over! Sorry to correct you here - but it is not. It will be finished when it is published in book form, and sitting on a shelf in a bookstore where people can buy.

Then send your manuscript, you bracing - You've been warned about this - for rejection. You can be happy and have accepted your work: if I take my hat off to you! It is much more likely that the work will be returned. If the reason is that it is fashionable or not right for that particular publisher, or simply badly written, then you can do something.

Sometimes, however - and this is an old, unpublished writer pitfall - your age may work against you. I know it's wrong - but there is. You may have written a great book, a truly exceptional piece of work - but an agent or publisher, being business people hard-headed, must ask themselves two very crucial issues. These are:

1. In this writer that the book got more in them? In other words, is this something that you book took a long time - perhaps years - to bring to a conclusion? If yes, have any more ideas or are all your guns fired?

2. But this is not the greatest thing to dwell on - but how long will you be around? Say you're a good lady of 70 years. You could, these days, reasonably expect another fifteen or twenty good years at least. How it works with your writing career?

Well - a book - a book - can take five years from first draft to publication. Three years is going well. Because you can write a book at a time (unless your name is Simenon!) This means that you might hit 90-plus, if a publisher gave you a five pounds - with overall sales and marketing investment that implies. When they look at these kinds of figures that you can understand - even if you disagree with - their concerns.

So - that leaves us with the old problem: how to print? Well, an excellent way is via the new market, including those published in popular women's magazines. Hey, what if - what your age in this environment? Is it not still hold that it can count against you?

Fortunately, the answer is a resounding NO. magazine publishers do not offer a contract beyond purchasing publishing rights from you - just a big investment - so concerns regarding your longevity are not present! In addition, many older writers find they have depth of experience on the human condition so essential to many stories found in the pages of this type of magazine.

Then there are other types of magazine - the history of science fiction is a type enjoying a readership eager as popular today as it was there seventy years. Maybe this is not your thing - but it is worth considering!

The other thing short stories is that they are, compared to a novel, fast write. You could probably write twenty or thirty short stories in the time it would take you to write your book. Too, they give a new writer great exposure. It is fair to say that buyers of women's magazines are probably not do it just to read the hidden history backwards - but they do not read magazines and some readers to hundreds of thousands. If you have sold as many copies of your novel, it would be a bestseller!

Perhaps the best Thi.