This may sound like a dumb question, but I'm still baffled. I tried a year ago. I entered a contest at www.poetry.com. Let's just say it's really a gimmick to make money for that company. Now I'm still trying to think of a way that maybe my talents can be recognized, and one day realize my fantasy of being a "paid writer." My talents could be utilized in two different areas: 1.) My technical writing skills, such as my tutorials. 2.) My poetry (probably won't get rich off of that) I'd be most interested in the experiences of other writers. Have you been published? What places have you tried, and were you satisfied by the results?

Mornin' Ron. I've found that most major publishing houses have printable submission guidelines on their websites. Try DAW books or Doubleday. I'm sure someone else here knows a lot more and specific to poetry. Each major publishing house has a subdivision specializing in genres. These smaller shops usually accept manuscripts from unpublished writers. The Biggies usually will only deal with agented writers, unless you have published poems/stories in magazines or compilations. I haven't had 1st hand experience. Still polishing up oldies to present here. Good Luck!

I am not a novelist. I imagine I'd have the best chance trying to get my poems published at some magazine, etc.

You can buy the latest edition of the Writer's Market. It has not only book publishers but also has magazines. It usually will list any contests for poetry as well. It is not that cheap but it has quite a large listing of everything. Bill

In the UK there's a publication called the "Writers and Artists' Yearbook" - there must be a US equivalent. It lists most of the likely markets for everything: short stories, articles, poetry, novels... Don't do it for the money. It's not worth it. Very few writers, even the successful ones, can make a living from it. Before you submit anything for publication, make sure you understand your legal position. Competitions are good exposure, but it's common to find a clause in the rules that's the equivalent of surrendering your copyright when entering - DON'T do it, unless you are absolutely certain the potential reward is worth it. If the US market works the same way as the UK, what you'll be selling is first publication rights - which means if you've already published it anywhere, including on the web, you're already on difficult ground. Most publishers will want exclusivity. One other thing to consider - it may be obvious, but a lot of prospective writers don't know it - when you submit for publication you have to be prepared for a lot of rejection, no matter how good you are. A lot of it won't be polite. Even when you do get a piece accepted, an editor might tear it to pieces. If you're not prepared for that, it can hurt. A lot. Working with a good editor is one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had, but initially it can be a real shock to find out how much more work there is to do on something you thought was as good as it could be.

Writers market and writers digest are good for learning where and how to submit items. Poetry.com - a few years ago like 15 or so I entered a Win $$$$ for your poetry all poems published contest. I didn't win and sure they published my poem but.. cost me $85 bucks for the book. gullible me.. Never try anything that says win or guarentted in the writing market.. it's most likely a gimmic

Thanks for the input. I was hoping more people would share some personal experience with submissions or being published. I know about all the publications, but tend to get lost on all that. So has anyone here "been published," and would you care to share your experience, and provide any personal tips? Stormrage, my book cost around $50-60. A friend gave it to me as a gift. Poetry.com then followed that with a whole bunch of great offers (Writer's courses, a cd with my poetry, etc) only available to distinguished authors such as myself. And I've been given some wonderful award two years in a row. Of course I'd have to pay for my own airfare, and a few hundred to attend the gala event. And I'd need to pay extra for my wife. But then I could stand in front of the crowd and read my poem. And I'd get a wonderful prize worth a whole $150. Oh, and did I mention Florence Henderson would sing a song? (The Brady Bunch). They do have a generous offer if you can't afford to attend the event. Pay them a few hundred for a professional to read the poem, and they'll ship you the wonderful award. Bah Humbug.

Ron.. S Let me see I took a children's writing cource back in 90's.. that cost a coool 500 dollars and I got my diploma. Not a lot of good it does me. Bought the poetry book, Got honorable mention in that contest. My biggest prize? The one thing that really mattered to me was working on my school newspaper and having one of my articles published, the rest? just bullshit S I keep away from things I am sure are scams. S

Being the fact that I am a early year baby boomer, (1947) I decided that I was never going to get published the first time without doing something drastic. I wrote a small non fiction book and had it published thru First Books which is a Print on Demand. I know there are a lot of negatives about this but 1. You get your book listed as a book in print and you get a Library of Congress number so hopefully my local library will carry it in their local authors section. I don't expect to do that good. I will promote the book on my website and local TV. But now hopefully a agent won't tell me that you have never had anything published. (I won't bet on that) (the lady who wrote "Legally Blone" first published her book as a POD.) I don't know if you have a whole book with your poetry but I know that Iuniverse will publish for as low as $150. I went another route but saved enough for Poser5 (I hope) At my age, it might be the only chance I get to see a book of mine in print which has been a dream for as long as I can remember. Bill

Attached Link: http://www.amazon.com/

Well, since you were looking for a more personal experience, here's mine: In 1996 I went to Lincoln, NE, and through a long series of happenstance, met a few people who got paid to write. I ended up being up front, and they let me know how they got into it, and sort of dragged me kicking and screaming down the path to publication. They got into games writing for TSR back in the old days, before anyone knew what Dungeons and Dragons were about. They were consistently involved in the RPGA which is pretty much the RPG equivalent of Rosity here. As they spread out and met people, they eventually got into direct contact with TSR ( back when it was TSR ) and said, "Hey, we've got some great ideas for this new product..." A few years later, that group has published 3 modules, 1 expansion, and countless adventures... But I digress to another experience... In 1999 I dated this girl whose mother was a writer of Harlequin Romance. Over dinner she mentioned that I wrote a lot, and her mother took it upon herself to tell me how to "break in..." First thing you need to understand is that most submissions editors would rather be playing golf. This is to say that if you submit a piece of slush ( meaning, an unsolicited writing ) then you'll probably waste the postage. This also means that if you spend time "following the rules" you're likely going to waste a lot of time with red tape that is designed to slow you down while the regular folks get published. First, buy the Writer's Market. It's about 40 - 60 dollars, but it's worth it. This will give you a list of everybody and everything. Ideally, you'd want to get an agent, but not everyone can, and good agents are like good editors... out playing golf. Now, with Writer's Market in hand, set about looking for everyone that might conceivably be interested in what you have to say. This is a lot easier than you think. There are publishers out there for just about anything. Make sure your work is perfect, and meets all submission guidelines, and get ready to break rules. Rule #1: Never send unsolicited material. Reality: If you call the secretary and ask if you can submit a piece for consideration, then just write "Requested Material" on the package. You're in the door and no one's the wiser. Rule #2: Never make simultaneous submissions. Reality: If it takes you 6 weeks to get rejected by one publisher, and you might have to deal with 200, this means you might get published sometime in 2340. Send it to everyone you've called and keep moving. Just be prepared to recall any other submissions if you get an offer you like. Rule #3: It's impolitic to call back and check the status of a submission. Reality: Bullshit. This is the publishing industry's way of taking its time. Just learn to be agressive without being rude and you'll be fine. Get the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People." That's not a joke, either. That book teaches a lot about how to work a conversation to influence people. ( If you've ever talked to a truly successful person, you'll notice that they always have you excited about things and happy about yourself, and they always make you feel important. Learn this trick! ) Well, beyond that, I'd suggest just writing all the time, every day, 24-7. Keep a journal. Another good technique is to set goals. I once forced myself to write 30 pages describing a brick wall without using repetitive adjectives or phrases. Shit like that will improve your work vastly. Hope this helps some. Paul

Thank you very much for the reply. You started off really well with the personal exprience, but then went into the advice (which is appreciated). It would be more valuable to hear more about your writing career, at present, and over the past few years. One of my problems has been to somehow connect the advice to real life experience. One can save lots of time by putting things together that way. I do believe I bought or borrowed the Writer's Market book once. If my feeble memory serves, many of the leads listed were already out-of-date.

Heh. Always buy the Market in December or January of the current year. As for my personal writing experience: I have written for the RPGA, TSR/WOTC/Hasbro Interactive. This was because I found people who were connected and stuck with it. I have published freelance articles in a few magazines, all short fiction, and it was because the magazines probably needed filler. ;) ( j/k. I submitted and got accepted ) I published a poem in the New Yorker because I won a contest. ( Tell anyone I wrote a poem and I'll brain you with an adze. => ) I currently write for the Renderosity Magazine. In fact, I've had a lot of conversations with people heavily involved outside the magazine who are uniformly of the belief that this magazine will be BIG. This means: Get in on the ground level now if you can, and bust your ass to be part of the team, cause it will very likely pay off if you have the talent, dedication, and integrity to handle the responsibility of meeting deadlines, keeping current, and being interesting. Paul

Wow, can't believe I didn't see this forum before! Guess I've been too dead tired lately to notice. Anyway, I am a published novelist (working on number two now) and I'd be happy to share my experience after one small suggestion...save yourself the yearly $60 or so and just borrow the latest Writer's Market from the library if it's available. That's what I always did. Now, on to my personal experience. I started writing "Black Adder" (horror vampire story) back in 2000. It took me about a year to get it finished. Since I didn't have alot of money to get it copied over and over again to submit to lots of publishers, I began looking at who I thought would be most likely to be interested (i.e. small press publishers that accepted horror/fantasy). Vanity press was totally out of the question because A) I didn't have the money to spend on something like that, and B) I never have considered books that are vanity published to be of as high of quality as books from traditional publishers (after all, if you're paying them, you could print anything). My first query and sample was rejected. When I sent my manuscript to Publish America (www.publishamerica.com) it was accepted. This was only my second attempt. I got lucky. Anyway, so far my dealings with PA have been pretty good. They don't take months and months to respond to their authors and those who are interested in joining their ranks. You can coorespond through e-mail, and alot of the work is done through e-mail. They are a print on demand (not publish on demand) publisher, so they give more people a chance at becoming published writers. Anyway, rather than sound like I'm hyping it all up, I'll just suggest that if you're interested, to have a look at the site.

So have you gotten anywhere with the publication? Black Adder seems familiar. I just did a search and noticed Black Adder was a tv series for at least 4 years in Great Britain.

Yes, I know it was a British TV series, but I'd already titled the book before I realized that. Anyway, with Publish America you have to promote the book yourself. Beyond making a website, I haven't had the funds until now so there's been no promotion. I just found a job after a year of unemployment so hopefully I can start looking into some things pretty soon. At least I didn't have to do anything to get my book listed with the online booksellers. PA provided the information to them when the book was available and now it's on all their sites. :)

www.agentr.com. In my spare(ha!) time, I moonlight there as the Submissions Editor. If you have a book you want to see published, email me and we'll go from there. :-) Anthony Hernandez

Attached Link: http://www.bewrite.net/kudos_press.htm