Welcome to the second round of Get Real, hosted by FRiGG editor Ellen Parker, and myself. This time around we asked our panel of writers and editors to give us their thoughts on online versus print publishing. This is what they said.

Some writers only submit to print publications. Others prefer to have their work appear online. What is your preference, and why?

Ann Amodeo lives and writes fiction in Woodstock, NY. Her stories can be found online at Hobart, Ghoti, The Beat, and others. Her novel, “Quiet at the End of the World,” will be finished very soon, goddamnit.

I like both online and print publications, but I prefer to submit to online pubs. I’m not ashamed to say the chances of acceptance are greater, but I’m also glad to be able to send URLs to friends who’d never get a chance to see printed literary magazines. They have a limited lifespan, and then they are gone, but online, you can potentially keep reaching readers. I actually got a hand-written fan letter–my first, I was thrilled, a couple of months back, for a story I had published online at Hobart a year and a half previously. You can’t beat that with print prestige, in my opinion, much as I like the feel of a real book.

Matt Baker is a writer. His favorite snack food is a hardboiled egg with Louisiana hot sauce.

I have no preference. Of course, every writer wants to get published in the top tier publications, which are predominantly print. At the end of the day, having my best work published and accessible for others to read is what matters most to me.

Jill Barth lives just outside of Chicago with her husband and three young children in a house built before the Civil War. She is a recent contributor to Boston Literary Magazine and Virtual Writer.

It seems that a combination of both online and print publication credits comprise the best possible writer-resume.

Online stories are ready-to-read. The average reader can have immediate access to the work and can often click about for more information on the author and additional works. In today’s climate, being online is commonplace, not only in art but in business, news and lifestyle. In order to capture the greatest audience one needs to use the Internet. Many readers will never subscribe to journals; it just isn’t a priority for a lot of folks. Internet however is free, easy and relatable..

Ahh, the printed word. I think that all of the folks in this discussion will admit to loving words on the page, and what a beautiful bonus if those words include our name! Of course we want to be in print and on bookshelves. No question there.

It goes without saying that being associated with a reputable publication & editor are above all the most valuable mechanism to measure success. A shoddy print pub isn’t as satisfying as a connection with an esteemed online editor and a flowing website with high readership.

Digby Beaumont is based in Brighton on the south coast of England. He worked as a nonfiction author for many years, with numerous publications, and his short fiction work has been widely published in magazines, journals, and anthologies.

What I look for in deciding whether to submit my stories to a particular publication is the quality of the work it contains, not if it’s online or in print.

Fleur Bradley is a crime fiction writer from Colorado. Check out her Website.

I used to prefer print publication, and I would submit to those first. But although it’s great to hold a magazine in your hands (especially if it looks good), it’s a lot harder to get everyone you know to read it. Because it costs them money.

Online, I can send the link to every group I belong to, every friend I have. It’s great for exposure, which is what I’m really after at this point.

Mark Budman is the editor of Vestal Review magazine and the author of My Life at first Try. (Counterpoint, Winter 2008)

My preference is the combination of both, of course. Good print magazines will eventually put your submission online anyway, in many cases. So my vote is print.

Dave Clapper is the founding editor of SmokeLong Quarterly. He occasionally writes, most recently appearing in FRiGG and forthcoming in Per Contra.

I strongly prefer to have my work published online. Why? Because, as a writer, I like people to actually read my work. I’ve been in a few print magazines, but I don’t think any of them had a distribution higher than a thousand. Certainly no more than ten thousand. I can’t speak to exactly how many page views online magazines are getting beyond SmokeLong, but I know we get upwards of 200,000 page views per issue. I’m sure that some of the more established online magazines like 3:AM or McSweeney’s dwarf that amount.

Actually, comparing apples to apples, think about McSweeney’s. I would argue that the likelihood of John Moe’s “A Midyear Update from Miss Othmar” (published online in January 2004) being read by someone today are hugely higher than someone reading John Updike’s piece in print issue 13 (published in May 2004) today. Why? The combination of archival capabilities and ease of Internet access. If someone wants to read John Moe’s piece, a quick look at the online archives will unearth it. If someone wants to read Updike’s piece (the title of which I don’t even know, as it’s not even close to being as easy to find online), an order with Amazon is probably the quickest way to get it. Further, if a reader really liked the Moe piece, it’s only a click or two away to find more of his work in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. A reader likes the Updike piece and wants to read more of his work in McSweeney’s print? Good luck finding whether any exists, much less tracking it down to read the same day.

Don’t get me wrong. I think print has its place. I’d rather take a magazine or book into the bathroom to read than my laptop. And I’ll admit that when I’ve done readings in the past, it’s been much easier to read a selection from a print mag in which I’ve appeared, rather than printing something off the Web to take with me. And there is a certain level of prestige to print, I suppose, but I think that’s rapidly changing. More and more editors and publishers are realizing that there are a great many online publications putting out work that rivals any of the print mags. And as dinosaurs fade out of the business and are replaced by younger blood, that balance is going to continue to shift.

I’m sure some folks will think that I preach in favor of online publications because I publish an online magazine. But the causation actually goes the other direction: I publish an online magazine because I believe in online publication.

Ramon Collins lives on the NE edge of the Mojave Desert and is often seen running with a pack of scruffy coyotes.

I’ve been fortunate to be published in both.

It’s my opinion that online writers write for writers–and their duty-bound friends and family–and “print” writers (ISBN and ISSN) write for readers. However, it’s the opinion of pollsters and other statistical doubledomes that US citizens under 24 do not read.

Once I had the opportunity to run an unscientific straw poll of online fiction readers. Typically, from younger readers I got, “That ain’t where the ‘Net is at’” and from older readers I got, “When I want to read, I buy a magazine.”

One drawback to being “published” in e-zines is you have to have a laptop on the coffee table and say, “Hey, gang–anyone wanna read my latest story?”

Of course, when the power goes off so does the story. With “print” you can buy some candles, a dozen magazines and scatter them around the living room.

Katrina Denza’s work can be found in recent issues of The Emerson Review; REAL; Storyglossia; elimae, among others, and forthcoming from Confrontation; Passages North and REAL. Her website is www.katdenza.blogspot.com.

I used to prefer print. Now, I decide where to submit by how much I like and respect the journal. I have favorites in both online and print, and the efforts of the editor(s) and the final product weigh heavier in my decision-making process than whether they’re paper or screen. The advantage of print: long life of collecting dust. Advantage of online: your piece may actually be read by more people than the subscribers of the journal.

Matt DiGangi is the editor of Thieves Jargon.

What’s better about online, as a publisher, is that it’s so much less expensive. You can’t even put a number on it. I think once you have a web site built, it’s also a lot easier to update and maintain a web site than any type of print publication.

However, I think if you’re going to publish online, and you actually want more than a handful of people to read what you publish, you’d be wise to keep the material you run as short as possible. Which is frustrating if you want to work with anything over three thousand (if you’re smart) and five thousand (if you’re stubborn) words in length.

Avital Gad-Cykman’s work has appeared in print in McSweeney’s, Glimmer Train, Other Voices, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prism International, other magazines and several anthologies. It has appeared online in Zoetrope All-Story Extra, Locus Novus, 3:AM, Vestal Review, SmokeLong Quarterly and elsewhere.

I usually submit to print publications because they have been the most solid, substantial part of the literary world so far. Now that technology is catching up with products like Kindle and that we are almost ready to take a book-like computer to bed, things may change.

I have noticed that readers contact me more regarding stories I’ve published online. I am not sure whether it’s the accessibility of the email or the impression that once the writer is online, he is available for an electronic exchange. Such an exchange is highly rewarding.

On the other hand, print magazines and anthologies raise more interest within the literary market than the online ones. The contact between the reader and the writer may not be direct, but readers comment on stories in print in different publications both electronic and not, and most literary acknowledgements are given in this venue.

Bottom line: why not both?

Clifford Garstang is a fiction writer and student of the art of rejection-slip reading who also ruminates at Perpetual Folly.

Although there are an increasing number of well-regarded, high-quality online magazines, the most prestigious publications–the ones that matter to agents and publishers–are still the ones that exist in print. For the most part, too, the stories that win prizes such as the Pushcart and the O. Henry have appeared in print journals, not online. This may be in the process of changing, but it’s true right now.

Because my goal in publishing stories is to attract enough attention that I will one day be able to publish a book, either a collection of stories or a novel, I aim my publishing efforts at magazines that I think will further that ambition: print magazine as high up the literary ladder as I can get. At this stage, it isn’t about seeking a wide audience for me. For the most part, then, I send new stories only to print publications. I have also taken the approach that online publication is my first choice for reprints, and I’ve published several stories online that first appeared in print.

However, because many online journals publish flash fiction or short-short stories, and many print magazines do not, I’ve begun submitting shorter stories to online magazines as a matter of course. Frequently the response time is faster and with a story that is under 1,000 words, it hardly seems worth it to wait the 2 or 3 months it might take a print journal to consider the piece.

Vanessa Gebbie is a writer, editor and creative writing teacher.

I find this an antsy question, perhaps because I’m a Gemini and can see more than one facet of every possible answer.

I appreciate the Internet publications I have had enormously. Work is “out there” to be read in not just the relevant issue, but in the archive.

In the right place, it is a good platform, an opportunity. Of course, I am fond of all the places that publish me.but The Café Irreal has to be one of my favourites. Why, apart from their ethos, their style? Because it has led to my work being selected and translated into Vietnamese (stolen), Japanese (stolen), and Italian (requested). And I get a huge buzz to know I’m being read in those places too.

But that raises one issue that is not so much fun: the issue of plagiarism and theft which is so easy to do with Internet work. I know there are legal safeguards . but what writer at my level in the game wants to spend both time and cash bringing bring lawsuits on publications, unless there is something that seriously damages me personally? I know that at some point I will feel differently, but just now, read. But ask me first, OK?

However. Any Tom, Dick, or Harriet can start up an ezine. I know. I did. The plethora of outlets is overwhelming. And the quality? Variable. And one minute there, the next, shut, many of them.

And the most important question is this: how many non-writers do you know who read ezines for pleasure? I know none. Not one. Repeat. Not ONE.

Print still holds something special. A solidity both real and quasi-illusory. Real because you and readers can hold, feel, share, cry over, lose, write on, collect or throw actual artifacts. Real because many people still want print credits listed and not Internet. (Why? That’s another question, for agents, some publishers, or those to whom I apply for CW work.)

Print still holds a kudos that the Internet does not quite have. Because the “best” publications credits, top ranking in all possibles, are still this: first the print versions and second the Internet versions of those top print outlets.

But the lives of print credits without Internet backup are fleeting except for those who have them on their shelves.

Alicia Gifford is a writer in Southern California. She likes this line: “She would of been a good woman,” the Misfit said, “if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

I believe in a diversified portfolio for financial investments, and something similar for submissions. I love having an online presence; the work is accessible to anyone with a computer. And there’s something very satisfying about seeing your work in print. I tend to send shorter works to online venues, whereas I’ll submit flash or full length stories to print markets. The only thing that makes me balk some are very new markets, whether online or print. I prefer sending to places that have been around for a while, that seem to have some staying power.

Steve Hansen has had limited success as a writer, having published stories over the past 10 years at FRiGG, The Danforth Review, The Paumanok Review, and a few other online “reviews.” He currently spends his time and energy trying to meld the worlds of high finance, literature, and comic books at www.tqrstories.com.

I prefer online because of the convenience. Who wants to put up with SASE and the US mail when they can simply copy, paste and click?

Tania Hershman’s short stories have been published in various publications including Cafe Irreal, Front&Centre, Transmission, Riptide, and Brand magazines, and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her first short story collection, The White Road and Other Stories, will be published by Salt Publishing in June 2008. Her Web site is www.taniahershman.com.

I have to say that while I spend a large portion of my day online, I don’t find it easy to read stories online. It is no substitute for holding a journal in your hands, turning the pages. This is probably why I get a greater thrill when my work is accepted by a print publication. There is something in me that feels that having stories in print will keep them around longer, I will leave a greater legacy than if they are on the Net.

This is not to say that I don’t submit to online publications–I do–and that I don’t also love many of these publications that employ wondrous creativity to illustrate stories, making the most of the fact that they are online. Some publications seem to fit more naturally with the Internet–such as Cafe Irreal, for example: I don’t know whether the irreality of the stories wouldn’t seem incongruous with the tangible reality of a printed page. I also appreciate the comment facility on many online publications, which is obviously not relevant for a print pub.

To sum up, though, it is a publication’s reputation that for me is the ultimate issue–are they highly thought of, do they have a large readership, etc.? And as I am writing more and more flash fiction I can see myself submitting to more and more online publications. That’s the way the world is going … and it is better for the trees, ain’t it?

Debbie Ice lives in Connecticut with her husband, two boys, and English bulldog.

It’s so sad because what we prefer does not matter. If you have a novel you want to sell, or at least want to try to sell, what matters is what “they” think. “They” being the agents who read query letters. “They” tend to be overworked, old schoolish, very dependent upon the academia for additional supply of product. Academia being prints.

I think the lit world, or the world of prints, now depends almost solely upon the wannabe writer and writer market, as opposed to the reader market. Of course the book publishers look at the reader market. Nevertheless, the strategy seems to be to grow this writer market–by waving carrots and offering more schools etc.–so much that the demand will go up because, well, the supply goes up. The demand being also the supply. (Basically it’s OK to sell to yourself if yourself keeps expanding. Kind of like those pyramid companies. I think Amway is still around.)

But I am not sure the pool of readers is shrinking at all. Our desire for a good story will never shrink as long as we remain social animals. What has changed and perhaps will continue to evolve is the reader’s need/desire for variety of delivery systems. The information age has spoiled readers. They now demand fast turnover, quick access to information, multiple delivery systems, all of which will require finger-on-the-pulse marketing. Readers will eventually shop novels online and download with Kindles (only when cost comes down.) Readers will demand books that not only can be downloaded but also spit out quickly-POD. Readers will want to listen to readings (audio files), maybe watch readers (movie files), maybe do it all at once–watch, listen and read. Internet is positioned to service this type of demand.

I wonder if prints may evolve into what services the writer market. Internet may be what will/or can service the reader market.

Michael Leone lives in New Jersey with his wife and baby. His short fiction has been published in Green Mountains Review, North Atlantic Review, The Ledge, and The Jabberwock Review. He also writes book reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Plain Dealer, and the Kansas City Star.

Online magazines are probably going to replace print magazines eventually, but right now the quality of the writing is no match, except for a few that I can think of.

One of the reasons I think is that the competition is fiercer at print mags: you are battling writers who have two, three, sometimes four books out, whereas it seems to me anybody can save a Word doc and hit send. I also think about exposure to literary agents: most agents read print magazines and have no interest or knowledge of online venues.

At every writers conference I have been to the reaction of agents and editors to online magazines was a barely disguised sneer. I’m not saying I agree with their attitude–I don’t–but I do believe the consensus is that the quality in online mags isn’t high enough to merit being taken as seriously as print.

Dennis Mahagin is a poet from the Pacific Northwest. His work appears widely, both on the Web, and in print.

My attitude toward print magazines was shaped, early on, by a couple of unfortunate incidents that, through the benefit of hindsight, I understand were neither “here, nor there.”

For example, there came a situation by which an acceptance I’d received, from a print magazine, was “reversed”–like one of those hideous NFL football replays, where the referee disappears “under the hood”–when the magazine ran into space constraints with the issue they were trying to put out; the other incident occurred when 10 months went by with no reply from a print magazine–vis a vis a poem I’d sent them–and so I sim-subbed the piece, assuming they were not interested in publishing it–which, as it turns out, in the long run, they were. DANG! Then, I was out of luck with that magazine, by virtue of contravening their rule about No Sim Subs. A bummer deal, all the way around.

Life goes on, however, and the passage of time creates the opportunity for new perspectives. What I’d previously perceived as editorial caprice and hubris can also be examined as nothing more than “attrition by exigency”–due to the paste-up/layout, time/labor, and production/deadline constraints comprising a Print Mag Reality. These are constraints which, for better or worse, are not faced to the same harrowing degree by online publications. And so it goes.

Longstanding print magazines–by virtue of their prosperity within a “harsh food chain”–deserve, IMO, every bit of the respect and cachet they command. As such, many of my recent submission campaigns have been geared toward connecting with some of them. My new motto reads thusly:

A Byline is a Byline,
and Bygones be–

Well… You know.

Onward, Scriveners!

Mary Miller’s stories can be found in print at The Oxford American, Black Clock, and Mississippi Review, and online at elimae, Storyglossia, FRiGG, and Smokelong Quarterly.

I prefer print, though I like publishing stories online as well. A lot of print magazines have such small circulations that I wonder if anyone ever sees them. I love books, though, and it’s always great to have something I can hold in my hands.

Jacob McArthur Mooney is a poetry editor with ThievesJargon.com and the founder of The Facebook Review. His first collection of poems, The New Layman’s Almanac, is due in March from McClelland & Stewart. He lives in Toronto.

I have a preference. It’s for good magazines. Sometimes those magazines are expressed through paper. Sometimes through electrons. I have a slight theoretical bias towards the Internet (it allows for economic models of magazines that are closer to zero-financial cost to the provider, it is the more democratically accessible medium because it doesn’t cost anything and it is available to all Internet users no matter where they live…) but it’s not enough to call a preference.

The only thing online publishing is lacking right now is brand-name recognition. There are only a couple of journals that have any mainstream noise on their record (maybe Jacket and nth position, speaking from a poetry perspective). The comparable number of print journals is much higher; in my tiny local library there are sixteen print journals regularly stocked. Still, the dirty little secret in the industry is that some of the most unknown online journals have a greater readership than some of the stalwarts of traditional publishing. So reach is never a problem; the problem is credibility. The Internet publishing scene laughs at the idea of credibility, but it shouldn’t. Every time a successful novelist publishes a story online, that journal’s numbers go sky high and the quality of their submissions increases. Credibility, like everything else online, is both easier to get and harder to keep. All it takes are online editors that are as dedicated and earnest in their approaches as anyone in the print world and mainstream credibility is a given.

Stefani Nellen is a writer of literary fiction and science fiction. She co-edits the Steel City Review, an online quarterly that also publishes as annual print edition.

Eventually, I hope my work will appear in both.

Here’s why I like to continue to publish online: It’s so easy to share work that appeared online. In fact, I think most of my friends would never have read my stories if it weren’t for online magazines. It’s not easy to get a hold of print issues, especially if you live abroad. It’s very easy to send around an email with a link.

So, “spreadability” attracts me to online magazines, and the potentially huge readership. I subscribe to & pick up issues of many print mags, but my shelf space and purse are limited. I can’t read as much print as I would like. This is where online mags come in: They are free, which is great, they don’t take up space, which is great, too. And we all know the power of Google. It’s just incredibly easy to jump from one story to another, from one writer to the next, and to explore the network of writers currently at work. I don’t think I would have made whatever progress I made in my first years of writing without the always available and fresh online lit mags.

And yet, in my experience print has more prestige. The same people who won’t bother to send in a single-issue order request to the Prestigious University Review will nevertheless be more impressed with a credit in said review than an online credit. That’s just my personal experience, the way I perceive my friends’ reaction. (Most of them aren’t writers.) “Oh, you mean your story is going to be in a REAL magazine? Your story is going to appear in print?”

I think print has more prestige because many people still think of literature in terms of books and paper, and the idea of an “online literary magazine” is even more alien to the mind of average people than the idea of a print literary magazine. (I had no idea literary magazines existed before I started writing, except for the New Yorker.)

Personally, I aim for print publications because of the perceived prestige, sure, but also because paper is a wonderful medium. You can take a book anywhere, pick it up again and again, watch the pages become yellow at the edges…yeah, it’s a cliché, but to me it feels that once a story appeared in print, the publication is permanent, even if the only existing copy is my contributor copy. (So, yeah, ironically it will probably be read by a lot fewer people, at least if we’re talking literary magazines.)

I also have the feeling that many University-based Reviews (such as Agni, The Southern Review, etc.) have a publication “system” in place, with a team of editors, a tradition of publishing, an existing business plan, financial support (hopefully)–the wheels might turn slowly, but they won’t stop. They’ve been around for a long time. Editors might change, the layout might improve, an online submission system might be installed, but the journal itself stays around. I’d like to have the feeling of entrusting my story to such a trustworthy publisher. With new online journals it’s sometimes hard to predict how long they are going to be around (same for print, but there at least you have your contributor copy, and paper never dies…).

New Yorker Carol Novack is a former criminal defense/constitutional lawyer, the publisher of the multi-media collaborative e-journal Mad Hatters’ Review , a former grant recipient, and the author of a chapbook of poetry, a play, and several collaborative projects. Recent writings in print may or will be found in journals including American Letters & Commentary, First Intensity, Gargoyle, Fiction International, Journal of Experimental Fiction, Knock, LIT, Notre Dame Review, Salt Flats Annual, and in the anthology Online Writings: The Best of the First Years; links to online publications are accessible via Carol’s blog.

I’m an equal opportunity subber, meaning that I submit to what I consider quality journals, both online and in print. The benefits of online publishing include: (1) a global audience of potentially huge numbers; (2) easy access to links authors can use to display their writings to friends, relatives, putative publishers, putative agents and employers (etc.); (3) the opportunity to expand one’s conception of (on the static page) “literature,” by experimenting with and publishing multi-media presentations, including podcasts and “new media”/e-literary projects, which may well entail exciting collaborations with visual artists, filmmakers and composers..

The two benefits of print publishing are: (1) one can cuddle up with one’s journal and take it to readings to impress people; (2) print journals still (no matter how over-rated they are) have an imprimatur of prestige and validity that online journals don’t yet have, though the times are changing fast. Indeed, as print mags fold and produce online versions in their stead, the perceived validity of print over online will become a stuffy and archaic cliche.

Six of us online publishers/editors will touch upon these topics and others during our AWP panel presentation: Habitable Planets and Black Holes: Mapping the Expanding Cyber-Universe of the New Literary Media Friday, February 1st, 10:30 - 11:45 am, Nassau Suite Hilton, 2nd Floor).

Ellen Parker writes fiction and edits the online literary journal FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry.

Stories and poems that appear online generally get a much larger readership than those in print and they are readily accessible to anyone who Googles the writer’s name. This can be very good and, sometimes, pretty bad. It’s terrific to get a lot of readers–unless those readers include your Aunt Cecily (who’s always looking for proof that you’re a bit “off”), your boss and co-workers, your potential employers, your psychotherapy clients, your ten-year-old kid, your estranged spouse, your estranged spouse’s lawyer. These readers might not appreciate your story’s fearless “adult content,” the “colorful” language you used in dialogue, or the utter lies you were telling when you described with startling verisimilitude the married protagonist’s affair with an alluring stranger. In fact, you might get so much heat from some of these readers that you ask the e-zine editor to please just yank your story the hell off the Web site. Just make it go away!

Now, see, if that story had been published in a print journal, no one would ever have seen the fucker. Problem skirted.

I know a guy in a mid-Atlantic state who got arrested for the fictional material he’d written and posted on the Web. The local authorities saw it (like anyone could) and immediately confiscated his computer.

This writer claims that if this material had been published in a book it might have been a bestseller. He says none of it was any more salacious than the stuff you’d read in, say, American Psycho. There was just a lot more of it, hundreds of thousands of unlovely words, hyperlink upon hyperlink, and it was all posted on the Internet for every person on the planet to look at. This made the authorities nervous. They made him take down his site and they arrested him. Every week for a year the guy had to report to a probation officer. True story!

So . . . this makes me wonder how much longer little print magazines that nobody reads will continue to hold dominion within the literary publishing community in the United States. And the arrogance of some of the members of this community–some of the old-guard literary agents and editors–an arrogance based on their certitude that there is now and for more than 100 years has been only one game in town and they are players in that game (but you, an online writer and/or editor, are not) and this game will continue in the same fashion in perpetuity . . . this arrogance makes me want to get a front-row seat to watch the institutions crumble. Let’s all just park ourselves on some comfy stadium cushions . . . and wait.

We love our books, yes, and our print journals; they’re grand to caress beneath the covers and we love the whiff of their pages. There’s this other way, though, now–and, yep, it’s different. It’s big. It’s populist. It can bring one story, one poem, in an instant, for free, to the whole world. Do we like this? Hmmm, mixed. At the very least, though, we must try to stay humble–and savvy–in the presence of its gathering power.

In the four years she has been writing, Kay Sexton’s fiction has been chosen for over twenty anthologies ranging from Mexico, a Love Story to Tales of the Decongested and recent magazine publications include Ambit, Frogmore Papers, Lichen (Canada), and Mindprints(USA).

True story: I was in London for the day, meeting a friend, and a very senior political figure stepped out of Broadcasting House and stopped dead. “My dear Kay,” he said, “how lovely to see you … etc.” Took my mobile phone number, kissed me, got into his car. My friend was incredibly impressed, even more so when I explained I’d known him 20 years earlier when we’d been “close.”

The thing is, he never called. Many writers “move up” from online publication as though it’s a dirty habit they give up when they get a few credits. I hope never to be the kind of person who takes the number of an old friend but doesn’t call. There are online publications out there that I consider it an honour to appear in: FRiGG, for example, and online publications that will always have work from me if they want it, even if they don’t pay or have much profile, because they pulled me from the slush when I was starting out, the “old friends.” There are onlines that I love even though I would never have anything to suit them, like McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and onlines that I strive for, as a grail, likeBlithe House Quarterly.

When the publishing world is limitless and talent is too, I see no reason to get precious about stories being on paper.

Gerard C. (Jerry) Smith is a southerner. He’s a writer. He writes novels, short stories, flash fiction, poems. His work can be found in a bunch of different print and cyber zines.

I’ve had stuff published (short stories, flash pieces, poetry) both in print and on line and I don’t really have a preference. I will say, however, that I particularly enjoyed being published in Gator Springs Gazette, Southern Hum, Dead Mule, and Quiction, all of which were or are cyber rags.

Now, my novel, yeah, I have a preference. I want print. I want a good house publishing. I don’t have either, but that’s what I want. Why? Because I believe the readership for long works is still with the print medium. Besides, I like the look and feel of the book.

I’m going to go and read a print novel now.

Kelly Spitzer is a writer and an editor with SmokeLong Quarterly.

I look for the following when deciding what journals to submit to:

1. Style. Does the journal publish work that is “like” mine? Sometimes this is hard to discern. Other times, I’ll know immediately that my work isn’t a fit for the journal. If a journal publishes mostly experimental work, for example, or humor, I don’t waste my, or the editor’s, time. This is why it pays to read a magazine before submitting.

2. Consistency. Is the journal published regularly? Do I enjoy reading at least most of the work in every issue?

3. Design. If the journal is online, is it easy to read and navigate? If it’s print, do I like the cover, the font, are the typos minimal, etc.?

4. Response time. If a journal takes a year to respond, I won’t submit to them again. Sometimes the only way to find this out is to submit and wait. And wait and wait and wait and get pissed in the process. It’s understandable if a journal has a submission in the 3-6 month range, as long as they allow simultaneous submissions. If they don’t, they better respond within a month.

5. Reputation. Is the journal well-regarded among fellow writers and people in the publishing industry? Do they nominate for prizes? Great! Do they publish your work without sending out acceptance letters? Boo! Do they refuse to respond to your query regarding the status of your submission? Hiss!

If a journal meets all of the above criteria, I don’t much care whether it’s print or online, or both. There are a few instances when I prefer print over online, however. Long stories are a natural fit for print. I have a hard time reading long work on a computer screen, so when it comes to reading and submitting long stories, I’ll always opt for print. For me, anything over the 3,000 range is long. Another reason to opt for print is to catch the attention of agents, if that is your goal. I’ve heard of agents contacting people after reading their work in a print journal, but never online. I think this will change, eventually. I’d also be willing to bet that after an agent reads a story in print, they hit the Net to see what else they can find by that author. Which is a good reason to publish online, and a good reason to always publish your best work.

Jill Stegman is a high school teacher from California’s central coast. She has published in several journals including South Dakota Review, Isotope, Storyglossia, and RE:AL.

Although there are some fine online journals available, I find that my work, due to its length, is best presented in print. Online is good for stories mazing out at 3500 words or so. I also prefer reading print journals. I don’t like browsing around Web sites looking for good stories to read. I want to sit down at night with Zoetrope (usually) or Tin House.

On the other hand, I know many fine writers have published online, and I commend their efforts. Some have even gone to book contracts without publishing in print at all. I really like dealing with online editors. They usually respond much more quickly and I have also received many more personal rejections from them. Steven McDermott even champions his writers in his blog.

Lesley C. Weston lives and writes in New York City. Her stories have appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Ars Medica, Per Contra, Gud Magazine, The Duck & Herring Field Guide, Night Train, and The Pisgah Review.

I submit to both, and I am proud when my work appears in either format.

What I enjoy about online:

Your work is more visible to a wider audience.
Many online journals publish more frequently than print. (I have to admit, I like seeing my work go live quickly after acceptance!)
This also means there is an increased opportunity to publish with a zine you admire. More issues = more stories to fill them.
Sometimes, they pay.
It’s great to be able to send a link of an online story to anyone interested in your work; it saves money and time.
I don’t have to stand in line at the post office.
If my apartment burns down, I won’t lose my contributor’s copy and have to buy or trade for a new one.

What I like about print:

It is lovely to hold a magazine in your hands, see your name on the page, line them up on the shelves.
There is a certain prestige to publishing in print.
The possibility of attracting an agent seems to be stronger if you make it into a top journal.
Sometimes, they pay.
Sometimes your story ends up next to a writer’s whose work you’ve admired for years.
If my computer crashes, I still have my copy.

Marilyn Marie Wilkins hails from San Antonio, Texas. Her most notable recent accomplishment was being named to Laura Hird’s Best of 2006.

I have no preference, really. In fact, I try very hard to be published in print, but I have succeeded only one time. Otherwise, I have had around 25 or so stories published online since 2004.Considering that I am a 67 year old writer who only plunged in at age 60, I am extremely proud of this accomplishment. In 2007, my goal was to be published only in print and get paid! The result was only two stories to show for my hard work the whole year. I am back to being excited and grateful for any recognition, online or print!

Bonnie ZoBell has received an NEA and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such print magazines as American Fiction, The Bellingham Review, and The Greensboro Review, and online at FRiGG, juked, and Word Riot. She received an MFA from Columbia and teaches at San Diego Mesa College.

I am just returning to publishing short stories because of life getting in the way and because of working on novels, and I have to confess, I’m still pretty thrilled to see my name and all the bright colors and pretty art work up there on the screen. And if my goal is to have my work read by as many people as possible, I can’t help but think that online publishing is the way to go. But I’m still figuring it out myself.

I can easily send my online fiction to family and friends to read, in addition to posting it where other writers can see and read it quickly, and citing it on cover letters. If I need to show proof of publications for various applications, I can’t print it and the often beautiful artwork that goes with it.

Many writers I admire and respect tell me you really need to publish in print. That’s where agents and editors are more likely to see you, they say, and it’s more prestigious. I myself do have print publications from the past, and now that I’m writing longer short stories again, I’ve started submitting to print again.

But I still get this feeling like: Who really reads those little print magazines? I’ve got a line up of them with old stories of mine on my bookshelf, now dusty and mildewing. (Yes, my housekeeping could be better, but I also live in sea air.)

More importantly, if I want specific people to read my print work, I either have to rely on them to look into how to purchase the journal and to actually send away and get it, buy it myself and send it to them, or send the story to them either as a Word doc. or a printed out copy.

Aren’t we going to get more readers online?

To those who say more editors/agents are likely to read print, I have to say I also hear stories of agents, especially, seeing stories they like online and contacting writers. And it seems like if you’re trying to get a collection published, the work has to stand on its own, regardless of where it was published.

I will say that if I’m going to read a longer piece of fiction–a collection or something the length of a printed literary magazine, I’d rather not read it on the screen. But if I’m reading a few stories here and there, the screen is fine with me.

Mainly, I think we’re in the process of changing to more and more work online. As we grow and learn about newer magazines, equally prestigious, both print and online, it seems like the better online mags are going to become increasingly familiar to agents and editors, too. I don’t think print magazines are ever going to go away, but online magazines are going to get bigger.

I guess the answer, from a writers’ perspective, at least for the moment, is to have some online publications and some print publications.


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