Mental Meanderings

A Million Markets

You know it's not until we start to really look into this subject that you come to realise there are a great many markets for poetry around the world. That's what I did with my work hours today. I had a list of markets that I'd gathered from various bio's and from the "Invalid Item" . I'm no where near the end of that list and continue to gather more publication names as I go.

Each publication I researched as well as I could in a first sitting. My first sitting researching involves browsing the submission guidelines and gathering the basic details to add to my Poetry Publishers database. Those innitial details include, Title, Postal, Email, Web Link, Contact, Renumeration, Rights, and Notes.

These details are usually available from the submission guidelines which is the good news. The bad news is that there are LOTS of markets out there. Some of them just won't work for anything I write which helps cut down my lists. Most of the markets don't pay which cut down on how many I bother submitting to as well which helps. These days I submit to the paying markets first and use non-paying as a last resort.

It was heavy but interesting work today. I also browsed a few of the archived publications and there is a great deal of variety being published these days. I think anyone who's interested in publishing their poetry has a chance with the broad range of levels I've seen on the web.

Still, I feel like I'm getting more and more bogged down with all these names and it's still hard to know who to send what work too. Most of the time I just don't have much confidence in my own work to believe any of it is good enough to get published. The feedback I get from WDC isn't a whole lot of help either. The markets and readers don't always agree when it comes to deciding that they like best.

What I'd reall love is my critical feedback on my poetry, real brutal comments that tear it to shreds. I'd love to be surrounded by experienced, published poets who can show me the ropes and help me push my poetry to the next level.

I guess the best I can do is keep plodding away, writing poem after poem, studying the craft, sharing it with the "Invalid Item"  and continuing to gather feedback from WDC members. That's really all we can do, keep at it, eventually things will move along, writer, submit, and write some more.