A Question on Finding Markets

One comment on my Tuesday’s post asked where I found out about the markets I submitted to. I thought I might take a moment to answer. Although there won’t be any great revelations here, I’m sure.

First, I’m a member of HWA (the Horror Writers Association) and they send out a periodic newsletter that lists market guidelines and provides information on editors and such. Most genres have their own professional organizations, including Westerns, Romances, Mysteries, and SF/Fantasy. There’s even the relatively new Thriller writers groups. If you’re serious about writing in a genre, then joining such a group has many benefits. In most cases, even unpublished writers can join, although they may not necessarily get all the benefits that professionally published members get.

I’m also a member of SFPA (The Science Fiction Poetry Association) and they include marketing information in their official magazine, Star*Line. There’s a link on my sidebar, at the top.

Online forums are also a great way to find out about markets. I’m active at two, Unified SciFi Forums, which is linked on my sidebar, and SF Reader Forum, which I just put up a link to this morning. Both are in my top set of links. My last two short story sales came to markets I found out about on SF Reader Forums.

Another thing I do is check out magazines about genres or topics I’m interested in every time I visit Borders or Barnes & Noble. The magazines themselves might provide potential markets, but they will also contain ads inside for other magazines and, thus, potential markets.

In the last year or so, I’ve been getting a lot of my information about markets from the blogosphere. My last three poetry sales came from markets I learned about by visiting Greg Schwartz’s website. Greg is an excellent poet and although he doesn’t update his blog as often as I’d like, he has links to several markets that publish the same kind of poetry that I like to write. I’ve found markets listed on many, many blogs, though, far too many to follow up on them all.

Finally, if all else fails I “Google.” Searching “Literary Markets” or “Memoir Markets” will give you lots of hits to check through. Some will be out of date or otherwise useless. But a little effort can usually reveal some suitable places to launch your manuscript toward.

That’s pretty much it.