Friday 3 September 2010

Interesting places to fling your thing

I've been scouring the web looking for unusual markets, having found that September is a bit of a sparse month for writing competitions. Two places caught my eye in particular:

  • Firstly, Do Not Look At The Sun - Not just sensible advice, this is also a quirky Paris-based magazine with an interesting approach - they print up their mag and then wander around Paris leaving copies in various cafés, bars, and bookshops for people to discover and take home, for free. It's also available through more conventional means, and you can view most (if not all) of the content of past issues on their website. What with giving their magazine away like happy little literary pixies, they don't have the cash to pay contributors, but they will send you a couple of copies of the issue your piece appears in. Very Bohemian, well worth checking out.

  • Secondly, the quite spectacularly named Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens - This one's an American print and online magazine with a strong taste for the bizarre and surreal. It's a gorgeous site and the magazine seems put together with a great deal of care (quite a few of the back issues are available for perusal on the site, for free). They pay ten dollars and send a contributor's copy.

I thought I'd give Bust Down the Door... a try, and I've sent them a story that I hope they'll think is bizarre and surreal enough to warrant a place in their next issue. Despite a rummage through my folders I couldn't find anything ready to send to Do Not Look At the Sun, but I'll definitely bear them in mind if I write something quirky and unplaceable in the future.

4 comments:

Patsy said...

Your markets have much more interesting titles than mine. Although My Weekly, Woman's Weekly and The Weekly News 'do what they say on the tin' they don't exactly stand out.

Dan Purdue said...

Yes, I suppose the difference is one set are going for the reassuring "You know what you're getting with this magazine" approach to their readers, while the others favour the "Whoa! Who knows what craziness you'll find in here" version of marketing. Horses for courses, and suchlike.

As a contributor (fingers crossed), you just have to hope they know what they're doing.

Teresa Stenson said...

I love the Paris one. Will def send something there. DEF.

Dan Purdue said...

I thought that one might be up your street, Tree.