The Evolving Short Story Market from 2024 Nebulas Conference
Image by Fathromi Ramdlon from Pixabay
In addition to catching up on WriteHive panels, I’m also working through my list of panels at the 2024 Nebulas Conference that I didn’t get to watch at the time they were broadcast online. (If you have a 2024 Nebulas membership, you can watch the saved videos and more; if you don’t have one, you can still purchase one after the fact for access to the online panels!)
One of the panels I watched recently was one titled The Evolving Short Story Market. The panelists were authors and magazine/anthology editors who talked about themes they’ve seen come up more frequently in the past ten years, along with themes that have persisted. They also recommended a number of lesser known markets that are worth submitting to.
One of the most important parts of the panel from my perspective was Arley Sorg talking about how readers and writers can support markets by signal boosting social media posts about story and magazine releases and subscribing to speculative fiction magazines (or donating to those that offer stories online for free). He noted that a lot of authors write and submit in the hopes that they’ll get stories accepted, but they don’t necessarily support the magazine that they’re hoping to buy their stories.
And though it’s not possible for most authors to support ALL of the genre magazines out there, picking one or two a year to subscribe to helps those markets stay afloat. The markets generally need the support of readers and authors to keep going year after year, as very few are operating in the black. And most magazine editors who are operating in the red aren’t able to continue doing so indefinitely, which can be a reason that markets fold. (I’ve seen this first-hand, from our days of running Mad Scientist Journal. It was expensive to even run a token paying market!)
While I am very much in favor of money flowing to authors, that doesn’t mean that authors shouldn’t support short story markets. Because without those markets around and healthy, it becomes harder and harder to sell your stories to paying markets!
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