Writing For Pay

Go write video games

August 11th, 2007

Doug Cohen recently made an impassioned plea to science fiction fans and writers to subscribe to SF short fiction magazines in order to resurrect the market.

Jeremiah Tolbert responded by comparing this effort to buggy whip manufacturers struggling to save their endangered industry. He agrees that the short fiction market is dying, but thinks that writers should move on:

There is no solution. The public’s interest has moved on. If you’re a writer, go write video games, movies, television, or books, in that order of popularity. That is where the public’s interest is right now, and if you don’t like it, then I’m afraid that you should probably get used to the idea that short fiction is a small, niche hobby of little importance. I’m fine with that. I find that I enjoy writing it, and that’s enough for me. Short fiction for me is a way to learn writing, but I won’t regret leaving it behind if I were to crack another (more popular and better paying) medium, or find some amalgam of several of my own.

I gotta side with Tolbert here.

Entry Filed under: Markets