[Writer Stuff] How to Find Where to Sell Your Stuff

I am hesitant to write about this because I suck at it, but I am still of a mind that even as a hobby, writing to a professional standard improves what you do.  Thus, finding places to sell your work can be a good idea.  Some schools of thought say write whatever you want, and there is nothing wrong with that per se.  But I prefer to write to my market, while still making sure that I write things that I enjoy writing and reading.  As you can from this blog, I tend to like the fantastic; either as Fantasy or Science Fiction.

The first thing that I would recommend for anyone writing in such a genre would be to check Science Fiction Writer's association.  Now its true in a workshop, their 'expert' writers treated me like shit, but they do a lot of good including ensure that the prices and pay for a number of venues stays relatively high.  You just need to be able to write a novel or three short stories, which is easier than it sounds but you can do it if you have the talent or the tenacity.  I have little talent beyond raw creativity; and as I explained last week, that does little good by itself.

But I also have tenacity.

You can just google writing venues or also check out (or buy) a recent copy of writer's digest.  All fine things.  What I can tell you is that especially with short stories, if they don't take electronic submissions, they probably arent worth submitting to.   Why pay postage to be able to just get a form letter as rejection? In the old days, of course, this was not an option, but this is 2016, and if they arent with the program, find somewhere else for your stuff.

Two other options are contests and anthologies.  There are number of sites that collect lists of these; but if you are considering which ones you can trust, I would go with someone who has done it before.