Where would psychological horror go?

[FillerBunny]

A publishing rule of thumb is to have previously published short fiction in magazines, anthologies and the like. Editors, agents and companies like to know that among the many idiots shopping around a novel, there are some who can get published. This way, there is less of a risk losing money publishing said idiot's crap.
That said, I tried peddling some short fiction around various magazines found in my Writer's Market. The rejection letters follow. Mostly the "I have no room at this time for...." spiel, but some say that this was a very well crafted story and the reason it took so long to get back to you was we were debating where to put your story, but this kind of subject matter can't fit into what we normally publish....." and so on and so forth.
So, where does fiction based more in human psychosis as opposed to ghoulish supernatural creatures go?

[iamnoone]

Interesting question. I'm facing the opposite problem; having sold over 50 short horror stories through the years, I've manged to at least compile a list of credits, but have unsuccessfully been shopping around several horror novels for the past few years. The feedback has been consistently encouraging, but the horror market in the publishing industry continues to decline. These days, unless your last name is King or Koontz, it's a tough sell just to get anyone to read your novel.

Anyway, with all that said, there's another route you can try to publication. I probably have all the same rejection letters you do in my collection, but then I discovered the small (semi-pro) press. Many of the magazines barely survive for more than a few years, and the majority of them don't pay much at all, but it's still a nice way to get your feet wet and start up a list of credits. It's also a great way to learn the ropes of dealing with editors and deadlines on a fairly steady basis. Once I established a decent reputation in the small press, I was able to start selling to the paying markets and work my way up from there. There's a lot of frustration, sure, but there's nothing like the feeling of seeing your name in print for the first time (and the second and third, etc!) to get your motivation going.

Another route these days is the online publishing world. Though I haven't tried it myself, there are a lot of e-zines out there hungry for work. Again, there probably isn't much money in it, but in the beginning, that doesn't really matter.

If you try a couple of internet searches for small press magazines and guidelines, you can get a few nibbles, and each of those will probably provide links to even more.

I hope this has been helpful to you. The most important thing to remember (and something I still remind myself of all the time) is that a rejection is not a reflection of the quality of your work. It's a reflection of the opinion of a (probably) overworked, stressed out editor who has to read 1000 other submissions after yours. Not every story floats everyone's boat, but sooner or later, your story willl find an editor who will flip over it. Believe me, I know. I once had a story called "Cold Touch" shot down with a letter saying that they felt it was unpublishable. Without a rewrite, two submissions later, it was published, and a year later selected for reprint in a hard cover anthology of the year's best horror. Go figure.

So you never know. Just keep at it. I'm currently working on another psychological horror novel, telling myself all along, maybe this will be the one....


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