Fear mingled with possibility as I tore back the wrapping on my new copy of The Christian Writer’s Market. This would be where I found all of the periodicals clamoring for my expertise on umpteen dozen topics. With this many publishers just waiting to hear from me, I knew the days of being an unpaid writer had ended.
Then I woke up and bumped my head on my book shelf.
Okay, so they aren’t clamoring. That’s my job. I can get them excited about my writing when I send them my samples, or article submissions. But first homework! I poured through the book for about six hours, highlighting every possibility and dog-earring the best ones. Lots to choose from.
I started with my dog-ears. One had recreated it’s website not replacing the prominent “Writers Wanted” section that they touted in their entry. The website of the second didn’t appear at all. Shame. The concept of the magazine seemed priceless. When my third and fourth websites also came up with a non-existent message, frustration set in. My whole purpose for purchasing this book was to get a place to start, yet it seemed like I ran into windowless walls at every turn. No hints. No options.
After my sixth entry changed to only working with in-house writers, my option dwindled to only one. And that remaining chance seemed slim since they didn’t openly offer writing options on their site anymore.
I’m sure the magazine editors experienced an onslaught of submissions when the 2012 edition first came out in January. My bad for not deciding to broach this opportunity until June. But in truth, the data of the book is dated the moment it is published. At this point, 50% of the way through the year, at least 50% of the information is too old to count on, likely more.
Strike up another lesson learned.
But all wasn’t lost. I found a few online sources of periodicals links. Finding them gave me some hope. The webmaster kept the links updated with notes listed on the entries that had been cancelled or URLs that had been changed. I still found a few that had bad links, but most were good.
Seriously, at one point I had thirty different tabs at the top of my browser. Okay, not thirty. Thirty-one. Not all of them were paying gigs, and not all of the paying ones offered topics I’d want to write about, but I have a half-dozen good options and I only searched through the E’s.
Even now articles are starting to swirl in my head. I found links at:
Marji Laine 