Hey guys, I hope everyone is doing well So I have spent the last few months sending my short stories out to different magazines, but to no avail. The reasons are usually the same. Something along the lines of 'it does not fit in with our other stories'. At this point I really want to just get it out there but that would mean trying to promote my blog to a wider audience which just isn't my thing, hence why I opted to initially send my stories out to magazines in the first place. I've sort of made up my mind about this, but wanted to know what everyone thinks of this strategy (Worth doing? Should I persist with sending them out?) and if anyone could provide me with tips. I would really appreciate your thoughts and input!
I wouldn't want to put my stories that don't sell out there. I would rather write better ones. And then if I have to even better ones. There's a lot of competition, and I don't think you are going to find the kind of shortcut you're hoping for by just putting stuff on a blog. Putting stories out there that the publishing world didn't think were ready or good enough probably isn't going to help you reach your writer dreams. Again, just putting stuff out there on a blog is very unlikely to have the effects you are looking for. Every now and then people start threads like this. Let me ask you this... Can you name ten blogs off the top of your head where you know you can always turn to for a good short story? I sure can't, but I could easily name ten publications that always blow me away with what they publish. You said you already have your mind made up. Good luck, I guess?
I know that dealing with publishers can be frustrating, and believe me, it is the worst experience of this whole process. But you should try to stick with it. That's not to say that we should always put things on a pedestal just because they have survived this process (this was published! Must be super good) because it simply isn't true. Inferior stories make it past these gatekeepers all the time. But because yours didn't make it doesn't mean it isn't as good. Yes, you should always strive to get better, but you should also keep trying with the ones you've already got. If you love it, someone else out there will, too.
I agree with @deadrats about the efficiency of a blog. Yeah, it's easy enough to produce a blog, but it's not all that easy to get people to read it regularly. If you're happy with a small audience of close friends, then by all means, do a blog. (If that's what you mean by 'out there.) But as deadrats points out, how many blogs do you generally turn to yourself, in order to read good stories? Like self-publishing, blogs are no indication of quality. They can be great or god-awful. The problem is raising the profile to where people who don't already know you will take note of your writing. It helps if you have a focus or a theme that isn't just 'I write stories.' I think most short story writers these days have an online presence, and that's often a blog. But they don't usually rely ONLY on the blog to get noticed. Their work is actually also published, usually in magazines. If I were you (and I'm not) I would continue to polish your work to an extremely high standard, and continue submitting to publications. If you are accepted by any of them, this can be included in your blog, which will give your writing that extra bit of gravitas. I suspect that building a good reputation as a short-story writer is a long, ongoing process, and in some ways, more difficult than building a following as a novelist. A novelist has more tools to promote their work before the novel ever gets read, including cover art, back cover blurbs, genre groupings, etc. A short story writer, however, is constrained by people actually needing to read their work before they find out what it contains. Publications can mean anthologies as well as magazines, although I think most anthologies choose their work from what has appeared in magazines. But anthologies can be another route, especially if your writing is genre-specific. I know I don't read many short fiction magazines (other than the Canadian-produced Geist), but I do read things like the yearly Mammoth Book of Sci-Fi, edited by Gardner Dozois, etc. In fact, that's how I discovered many of my now-favourite sci-fi authors, including Kage Baker. However, the Mammoth books are compiled from offerings that appeared first in other publications ...so we're back to square one. I haven't yet heard of any Mammoth stories which got selected for the yearly anthology via a blog.
Thanks for the advice guys, I really appreciate it The general consensus is obviously to stick with trying to get it published. After reading what deadrats said, I figured that would be best. I was taking these rejections the wrong way. I thought if I persisted with trying to get them published, I was becoming a slave to the idea that my worth as a writer was dependent on other people's opinions of my work. But I guess that will just fuel me to improve my craft even more!
