A Crafty Business
I grew up reading short fiction. My mom was a science fiction nerd, so she made sure that our library carried the subscriptions to all the trade magazines, like Asimov’s and Analog. The only time we had a subscription for magazines coming to the house was when the new Omni magazine came out. I remembered helping to buy that subscription because the magazine was beautiful. (I kept all of those issues for years.)
While I read novels, I didn’t start out writing novels. I started out writing short fiction. This was in the ancient times when you could possibly develop a career by first appearing in the trade magazines, then getting a novel contract and going from there. (This will no longer happen, BTW. The old ways of creating a writing career are no longer applicable in the least.)
I still write a lot of fiction. I indie publish most of it.
But not all of it.
I still sometimes submit short fiction to various markets. I rarely apply to the trades anymore. That’s too much work. Every once in a while I’ll have a story that I think is good enough, but they never sell.
I’m much more successful submitting short fiction to anthology calls.
Some of this is due to my level of craft. I can write a really good short story, by the given…
