[Writers’ Markets] EveryDay Fiction

EverydayFiction.com sends short fiction to readers via email every day of the year.

Everyday Fiction screenshot

I was really excited when I read about this, because what are writers without readers? It’s all very well for someone to slap up a website and hope readers come, but this one has a built-in distribution system and it has over 2000 subscribers.

They pay $3 per story and take First Internet Rights and an option on First Anthology Rights. They have published two print anthologies so far.

They accept stories of up to 1,000 words and use the standards SFWA boilerplate contract (this is a Good Thing).

from EverydayFiction.com’s guidelines:

We believe in the importance of being paid for your writing, even if it’s only a token amount. At this time, we are able to offer three dollars for each published story, to be paid via PayPal, with the option to donate it back to Every Day Fiction if you are so inclined. In addition, if requested we will set up a free Author Forum for you right here at EDF where you will be able promote your own writing.

More importantly, publication also includes an opportunity to promote your writing beyond Every Day Fiction. We will gladly provide a link to your blog or website, and if you have a book on Amazon, we can link to that as well.

Finally, the author whose story is the most read in a given month will be featured in Every Day Fiction’s monthly Author Interview–a chance for our readers to get to know you, and a further opportunity for you to promote your blog or website and any books or other publications you may have out there.

How It Feels To Be Published

StoryADay alumnus Mart Pelrine-Bacon shares her submission success story: how she worked on the story, how she found the market and how it feels to be published.

StoryADay May alumnus Marta Pelrine-Bacon shared some fabulous news yesterday: one of her StoryADay stories has been accepted for the May 2011 issue of Cabinet Des Fees, a journal of Fairy Tales (and a paying market, at that).

I got in touch to ask Marta to tell us about how she worked on the story, how she found the market and how it feels to have a submission accepted — hint: there was a lot of ‘all-caps’ on Twitter yesterday 😉

Cabinet Des Fees banner

What is the story & when did you write it?

The story is titled The Fear of Apples and I wrote it fairly early during Story-A-Day May.

Have you written others like it?

I thought writing a story a day would be easier if I had a overall idea–in this case, fairy tales. Every story that month was a modern fairy tale.

Did you do much revision after StoryaDay?

That particular story I went over about three times–though I did not make any major changes. Most of my edits were attempts to fix an awkward sentence or add (or delete!) a detail for the plot.

Hw did you find the market?

I found the market when I friend told me about Duotrope. I’ve always been intimidated by figuring out the marketplace, and duotrope made the process seem manageable.

How did you feel when you heard?

Shocked–because I’d gotten so many rejections for other stories. And I almost cried I was so happy, and then I danced into work and told everybody. I am not a cool character.

Are you submitting more stories now?

I will be. This has certainly spurred me to realize publication can happen and not to give up.

Thanks for sharing Marta!

Have you had success submitting any stories the past year? Drop me a line: julie at storyaday dot org or leave a link to your ‘bragging page’ in the comments. Everybody loves to hear how other writers ‘just like us’ are making things happen!

If this has inspired you to write more, or maybe sign up for Story A Day May, take a look at my free, downloadable workbook The Creative Writing Challenge Handbook – 31 Days to A Writer’s Life. It’ll help prepare you for this year’s challenge.