Thanks so much to those people who've passed on information, asked questions, or made suggestions, as comments to recent posts. It was also lovely to see people answering questions others had asked and offering encouragement. Here's a quick news summary, along with some stuff from me.
Your Cat magazine seem to be buying true cat stories and fillers at the moment (thanks New Girl on the block). I believe they have enough fiction, so any submitted there will have a long wait before publication (and you'd be required to give up copyright).
The People's Friend editor would like 'event-specific' stories, such as Christmas, Valentine's, Mother's Day etc. (Thanks, Beatrice) This is a market which anyone can submit to, regardless of whether or not you've been published before. They don't take all rights.37,000 word cosy crime novels are wanted for The People's Friend pocket novels (thanks, Sharon Boothroyd.) Anyone may submit one of these.
Woman's World in the U.S. want fourth of July stories. These need to be submitted by 2nd May (which gives you some idea of how far in advance you'd need to submit any other seasonal stories to them.) (Thanks, Carrie) Anyone may submit to this market. Pay is great, competition fierce. I think they require all rights – can anyone confirm or deny that?
Some blog readers have asked for more information on pocket novels. This isn't something I know a lot about so I've persuaded a lovely friend who does, to do a guest post on the subject. Do you any specific questions for Susan Jones?
The automatic acknowledgement system at My Weekly is now working (thanks J.S. and Fancypants) so if you've submitted and not got one, it might be an idea to try again. This market is still closed to new writers.
Love Sunday are still open to submissions. (Thanks Jenny Worstall) This is a non paying market, but it does have a large readership and they'll include a very short for a book, website etc if you ask.
Some people are unsure of which magazines acknowledge submissions, how and when they respond and what to do if they don't hear back. I'll be doing blog posts on these things in the near future.
No one asked about this, but I'll tell you anyway – I'm the People's Friend writer of the week, and Keep It In The Family, a collection of 25 of my short stories, most of which have previously been published in womags around the world, is currently reduced to 99p (99c)
Thank you for all the recent comments!
Apologies if I missed anything or anyone. If I've got anything wrong, or you have more information to add, please do say.
