fiction files redux discussion

OK, it's time for me to sh*t or get off the pot. Jonathan and everyone else within earshot has been telling me for over a year that I need to just get my stuff out there and see what happens. And finally, my ego has been beaten into submission enough to really DO something.

SO I have three excerpts that I want to start testing the waters with in the zine world. Or the lit mag world. Or somewhere.

I know very little about how to approach this but I feel like a plan would be a good idea. Or at least a good list of journals or zines that are open to new authors...

I'm a bit worried about submitting longish stuff to online zines because I come from a world where we all believe no one reads more than 150 words on a page. Does anyone else worry about that?

And, while the subject of their relevance overall can be debated I also think that for people like me who need to get their groove for rejection nice, smooth and deep, it's a good place to start.

So ... recommendations?

I have been going from literacy magazines from A to B after typing literacy magazines but they takes five to six months to respond.

. . . here's the most comprehensive and informative databas for literary journals that i know of:

http://www.newpages.com/literary-maga...

. . . it runs a thru z, and offers brief descriptions, links, and submissions guidelines . . . they also review literary journals . . .

nice - thanks JE

. . .yeah, this site was a great resource for me when i was submitting stories . . . a few words of advice to prospective submitters:

profile journals well, really target them, and only send out a few stories at a time . . . if an editor thinks he or she is part of a carpet-bombing campaign, they're far less likely to actually consider a submission . . . thus, in your query letter, express specifically why you think this or that journal would make a great fit for your story . . . be prepared to wait months . . . it's a good idea to have several stories circulating at once, since you'll only be querying a few journals at a time . . .

how long are your pieces and what are they? i mean, subject and form?

www.duotrope.com is about the most helpful thing in the universe. it's a huge database kept up-to-the-minute by submitting writers (be sure to join and report your submissions). you can sort by ten million factors including response time, acceptance ratio, payment rate, subject matter, etc... but be warned, it's addictive!

subject varies but is about a range of things -- the full novel is a kind of a spy novel but with a more character-driven plot... form is short story, length is between 1000 to 2000 words...

I'll check this out and what JE posted - thanks, guys. :)

Ben wrote: "but be warned, it's addictive!..."

and inspiring - another great resource