I'm surprised not many folks from Escapepod seem interested in this opportunity. Can I ask why? (honestly)
With so many writers out there with good ideas, don't writers want to have their pieces exposed to a steady growing audience?
The two primary tools I (and a lot of other writers) use for market-hunting are Ralan.com and Duotrope.com. You're not listed on either one.
But even if you were ... okay, go to Ralan.com. Click on the "Semi- & Pro Markets" link. Think of this list as "Markets People Will Submit To Before Submitting Stories To Me."
Next, click on the "Paying Markets" link. This is "MORE Markets People Will Submit To Before Submitting Stories To Me."
Finally, click on the "4theLuv Markets" link. These markets would be your contemporaries, save that you're not actually listed there. So this is "EVEN MORE Markets People Will Submit To Before Submitting Stories To Me."
So that's the first reason I'd say your slushpile is so lonely -- people won't submit to you if they don't know you exist.
But let's set that aside for now -- -I- know you exist, even if the EscapePod forums aren't typically the first place I go looking for new markets. I've taken a look at your market, and I won't be submitting anything to you. Here's why:
At first glance, the website (
http://web.mac.com/normsherman/iWeb/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html) is all right. It's no-frills, certainly, but I certainly don't see that as a BAD thing. It's cleanly-organized and easy to use. But then I take a closer look, and certain problems start to make themselves evident.
First, your submission guidelines. If you'd like people to submit anything to you, you're going to need some submission guidelines. This:
Welcome! Here you’ll find flash fiction stories of an unusual nature narrated by Norm Sherman. Short and fun. Nuggets of happiness.
Nuggets.
Enjoy!
Send stories and such to
goatkeeper@hotmail.com
... does not represent adequate guidelines.
What's your definition of flash? How many words? Could you give us anything clearer than "of an unusual nature?" What kind of file format do you prefer? Anything?
If by the time I'm done reading a market's guidelines I'm not 95% sure whether a given story of mine has a fighting chance of being accepted, then the guidelines are inadequate. By virtue of not existing, I'm afraid I have to file your guidelines under "inadequate."
Next, I note that you have comments set up for each story. Of the 15 stories you have posted, 5 have a single comment. The rest have none. And your site counter indicates that just over 800 people have loaded this page. The overall impression I take away is that few people are listening, and even fewer care.
Finally, there are the by-lines. Of the 15 stories you have posted, 4 were written solely by you, and two more have you listed as co-author. When 40% of a market's stories are by the market's editor, that's a pretty serious danger sign that this whole enterprise is just a vanity project.
So before I've listened to a single story, my opinion of your market is pretty negative, and there's nothing there to counteract it; I recognize none of the non-you authors that you've run so far, I've had no writing buddies tell me what a wonderful up-and-coming market you are, etc. But just to be fair, I downloaded and listened to your five most recent stories.
#14, "Mouse," was all right but unremarkable. And I liked the idea behind #11; I've never heard a story about hypno-pandas before. Otherwise, it was a washout. #11's execution left me unimpressed, and I flat-out disliked the other three stories, strongly. (You almost had me with #12; I was so disappointed when I learned that the Killer Super-Animal Reality TV thing was just the intro and not the actual story.) If you really want I can go into more detail about why they didn't work for me, but the short version is that based on these five episodes, the answer to the question "Are these stories I'd be proud to have one of mine associated with?" is a resounding "No."
If you're serious about improving this market, I advise you to:
1) Get a real URL. Is "drabblecast.com" taken? How about "thedrabblecast.com"? Or ".org"? It not only makes you look more professional, it improves your word-of-mouth advertising. Right now if I wanted to tell anybody about your podcast, I'd either have to email them the URL or tell them to look it up on Google.
2) Set up some submission guidelines. Make it clear what you do and do not want.
3) Get yourself listed in Ralan.com and Duotrope.com. With Ralan, you'll have to ping him and he'll ask you to link back to his site. Do it. I know a lot of other places (Duotrope included) use Ralan as the basis for their own listings, so that's an excellent first step.
4) Pay your authors. Yes, it ups the level of complexity to the enterprise and forces you to bring contracts into the mix. Yes, it costs you more. Do it anyway. Even a token payment of $5/story gets you out of the "4theLuv" dregs and in the company of some well-regarded markets. It will cost you no more than $25/month, and if that's too much to spend, then please reconsider whether you really want to be doing this.
5) Beat the bushes. Palimpsest is absolutely right; identify authors whose work you enjoy and hit them up for contributions. Shoot, if you read something you think would be PERFECT for Drabblecast, ask if they'd be willing to sell you that story! Writers are an egotistical lot by nature, and having an editor explicitly seek you out is validating as hell; I'll bet you get some good stories this way.
6) Stop running your own work. Seriously. Just stop, right now, cold turkey. It's indulgent and amateurish; once you've established your market you can run your own stuff every once in a while for special occasions, but 6 of your first 15 ... no.
(Or, ignore me entirely and come up with your own way of improving the quality of the fiction you run; I note that "Air Out My Shorts" suffers from several of the deficiencies above [no guidelines, no pay, not listed anywhere], but they seem to be pretty well-regarded. Ping the folks behind that operation and ask how they got it done.)
Your market is not without redeeming qualities. It looks like you've been posting one story a week for fifteen weeks now; that kind of consistency matters, a lot. Your production quality is a little rough, but acceptable; listening to you on my way in to work, I didn't have to keep monkeying with the volume control to hear what was being said, and I have to think that's only going to get better as you gain more experience.
But I really think you have some work in front of you if you're serious about making it worth listening to.
Or worth submitting stories to.
Same thing, really.