Hi Reuben,
Where do we 'have to pay for our submissions to be considered'? I can remember a few like that years ago but they are long gone. If someone asked me to pay for submitting poems to them I'd just tell them to get stuffed. The same applies to those awful ones who offer 'critical services' for a fee, absolute rip-offs - I think there are still a few of those around taking advantage of the same naive folks who keep the vanity presses in business. On the other hand if the magazine doesn't try to get me to buy a copy i don't think it is doing its job. A good editor is not going to ignore a submission just because the poet doesn't offer to buy a copy (they'd just grit their teeth and take the poems if they're good enough) and if they are not a good editor then i don't particularly want to be in their magazine anyway.
Sorting out which are suitable mags for your work and which are not is, again, frustrating and time consuming, but you have to do it. A while back Peter Finch used to publish a Poetry Year Book which was brilliant for that but I am not aware of any similar thing, either in print or on-line, which does that now, which is a shame. They were really helpful, for everyone.
Cheers
Tim A.
On 26 Nov 2013, at 12:07, Reuben Woolley wrote:
We have to pay for our submissions to be considered very often, let us at least reduce our costs and be able to avoid submitting to unsuitable magazines.
