Freelance Writing

Guest Submission: Publishing Fiction/Poetry in Ezines

Hope Hammond from Freelancing Online has kindly written a piece for my blog informing interested writers about the benefits of publishing your fiction or poetry in Ezines. I hope you enjoy this informative blog post, and take a moment to stop by her website and check out what she's been up to!

Publishing fiction/poetry in Ezines?

A greeting, dear reader’s of Denise’s Blog. I’m the guest blogger from Freelancing Online at http://www.writeontheinternet.blogspot.com/ and I’m hoping you’ll find my short post on publishing fiction and poetry in ezines interesting at best and palatable at the very least.

I’ve found it’s hard to handle the cost of postage needed to keep a constant set of stories and poems floating around to various magazines and literary journals, especially as a new writer. This is why I’ve started making submissions to ezines.

It’s quick and best of all free, because I’m sending my work as an attachment to an email, so no postage, no paper, no ink and no money. If I really wanted to be cheap I could even use the local library’s computers to send work and save myself the cost of electricity and equipment.

I know some readers have all ready gaped in horror at the idea of sending those preciously worked and reworked pieces of poetry and fiction to an online magazine. Why? Well, here are a few of the reasons that I have heard bandied about,

It’s not as reputable.
You can’t honestly list it as a publishing credit (other more writerly writers will laugh at you).
Your work could be plagiarized.
Doesn’t pay anything!

These are all valid concerns, but I can easily create counter-arguments.

1.) There may be a lot of start up ezines created by a guy living in his mom’s basement, but there are just as many ezines and online versions of print magazines that have been around for quite a while. For example: The Del Sol Review at http://webdelsol.com/Del_Sol_Review/ is an excellent literary journal that takes email submissions for their online site and also produces a print journal.

2.) You can honestly list it as a publishing credit. And every writer and their mother has probably posted something on the web at one point or another. At least you were the one to get a piece accepted by a reputable ezine like the Del Sol Review or McSweeney’s Internet Tendency at http://www.mcsweeneys.net/ (although McSweeney’s probably wouldn’t want to be called reputable J) Plus there are graduate school programs that are starting to accept internet publishing credits as part of a graduate student’s applications.

3.) Well, it can be plagiarized. Though what’s to stop someone from copying your story out of the print journal and posting it on their website anyway?

4.) You can find magazines online that pay pretty well for stories and poems, especially if they are genre stuff like sci-fi and romance. Spicy Green Iguana (http://www.spicygreeniguana.com/) is an online listing of plenty of paying genre magazines and ezines or webzines as they call them. You are bound to find something that you can submit work to online.

Dear writers, the longer the internet exists the more likely you are to find good, reputable and well-paying ezines on the web. Lots of readers are on the go these days and they want to get their stories on the go too. The internet is a way to reach them.

Interested in writing a guest piece for my blog? Drop me an e-mail. I always enjoy having another writer's perspective on topics that pertain to all freelance writers.

Denise

Labels: guest blogger, Hope Hammond

posted by Denise @ 9:44 AM