BJT’s Folksy Wisdom

I follow SFWA guidelines for story length (below).

Short Story:  to 7499 words.

Novelette:  7500 to 17,499 words.

Novella:  17,500 to 40,000 words.

Novel:  Over 40,000 words.

Flash Fiction:  I personally consider flash fiction to be 1000 words or less, but markets vary in what they require regarding lengths of very short work.  Extreme flash fiction is called a drabble (100 words), or a double-drabble (200 words).

IMO, never give your work away for free.  I applaud you for contributing your work to help publicize a charity, but there’s no harm in remembering the piece can be sold to another market and republished later for money (depending on your contract with the charity). 

Except for the occasional high-end writing competition, never pay for your work to be considered in short or long form by editors, publishers or agents!  SFWA’s long-running blog, Writer Beware, is diligent, and a handy tool for scams you should avoid.  Writer Beware is available to the public, not only to SFWA members.  It’s frequently linked at the On Call Writers Group on Facebook.

Authors Publish Magazine online is good about noting possible problems with markets they sometimes list, and it’s free.

As a professional short fiction author, I usually don’t submit my work for under .01 per word, although I make exceptions if a particularly interesting market appears—and I’ve made sales.  Adding to your bibliography and your bank account are the ultimate goals.  You achieve those two things, you win!

After I submit titles to the big pro markets, it makes no difference to me if a market is small press. And if a small press market attracts my attention for whatever reason, I may submit a story to it first under some circumstances. What this means is that I appreciate small press as much as pro markets–of course there’s a gulf in payment/exposure/number of hard copies available, but many small press publications or individual stories published in small press are reviewed or win awards. Online markets have been the great equalizer in my lifetime, but now that there are so many, your chances of encountering amateur editors is higher.

My definitions of amateur editors, which is a generous way to put it, are:

1. The ones who ask for your publishing history yet obviously never read it by how disrespectful they are (I dare you not to prove you know more grammar than I do).

2. Critique a reprint submission that’s already been published (“No thanks” will suffice to prove you’re not as stupid as you seem).

3. After missing obvious story content, declare in outrage that some random thing “is not what I want to see portrayed in fiction!” (your personal pique is irrelevant).

4. Publish rejections online including author names, with or without your bullshit commentary.

5. Post racist rants on social media risking the reputations of authors who have previously published with you. FIRST DO NO HARM should be an inviolate oath for editors and publishers as well as doctors.

6. Add your voice to our narratives and then publish the story without permission, apparently to show us how we “should” have written it–if only you’d thought of it first, you unoriginal thinkers (ask for a rewrite from the author, or reject it). This blackest of editorial sins warrants a complaint from me to SFWA’s Grievance Committee, who are, I admit, focused on markets which haven’t paid authors.

Note: not all examples above have happened to me, but earned a mention from the high degree of gross unprofessionalism.

You can friend me on Facebook.  BJ Thrower is a closed group.  Warning:  I’m a Democrat and you certainly don’t have to be, but far right-of-center, GOP/Trump cheerleading and what-about-isms are only welcome if you wish to encounter brilliant, fact-based, left-of-center opinions and subsequent sarcastic put-downs by some of my friends (I’m sarcastic myself, but don’t claim to be as brilliant as they are.)  There’s other stuff posted on my FB page besides politics.

My Facebook blog “Looking for Nessie” became too time-consuming, but I still use it on Facebook to announce my sales or other interesting things concerning my modest writing career.