Question

[BrandonM]

I already posted this question on the Brandon Sanderson thread, but I was asking this: How do you feel about amateur writers submitting to freemarkets for a time, get some experience, then submit to paying markets? Will the paying markets, say Weird Tales for example, frown on free market experience? Or, will they think, he/she has experience?

[Silk]

Bear in mind I'm neither published nor an industry professional. That said, from what I've seen, a publication in a free market probably wouldn't help you anyway unless the market was still particularly well-known and/or well-regarded. I don't really see why paying markets would "frown" on that, exactly, except that you'd probably be giving up your first-time rights to that non-paying market, which means a lot of the paying markets won't buy it. Oh, and some paying markets probably will look at you askance if you try to use that free market as a publication "credit," since it kind of shows that you're not really savvy about the business.

Besides, why not start at the top and work your way down?