FAQs About The Tower

Why did you start building The Ivory Tower?

This project started as a necessity.  I needed a reliable data base of writer's markets where I could submit my work but I found that a great many of them on the web were poorly maintained.  More often than not you would click a link only to find it dead or redirecting you to a different site.  When the links did work, they put you on the front page of the periodical, which left you having to look around the site to find the Submissions Page.  The Tower's links are different in that they take you directly to the Submissions or Guidelines pages, putting you right up there in the...

So what is with the name of this site?

The Ivory Tower, is a tongue-in-cheek reference to that place where writers often think editors live--up in their ivory towers looking down on all us poor struggling authors.

What about the genres listed (Mixed, Literary, Poetry, etc.)?

I have found that categorizing periodicals can be difficult unless the editors specifically ask for a certain genre or subject.  For instance, Modern Drunkard Magazine wants stories and articles specifically referring to the act of getting loaded and Fantastic Horror wants...well, you can guess.  But what does a great magazine like the Michigan Avenue Review want?  Well they want everything including music, movies, hypertext stories, and art/photography.  I put them in the Literary Category (plus the Visual Arts category) simply because most magazines with the word "review" in their name tend to be of a literary nature.  Mixed Markets periodicals are just that, they want a mix of genres.  So if you are a poet and you can't find something in the Poetry section, look in Mixed Markets and in the Literary section.  The Poetry section is for periodicals that emphasize poetry, but they are not the only ones who accept it.  Most of the rest of the categories are pretty much what the seem to be, but look around, there is a lot of stuff here.

I just counted all the markets listed, why is there more than what the Market Meter says?

Well, if you did, then you need to seriously look into getting a life.  The truth is that I am a real nice guy, no matter what you heard, and so I sometimes drop a listing into more than one category if the periodical really seems to want more than one genre.  Like every Visual Arts listing has a twin somewhere in the writer's markets listings.  Sometimes there are even triplets.  

Just how high are you going to build the Tower anyway?

I will build it until I run out of markets or until my fingers fall off.  Feel free to send me markets that you know of that are not listed here and I will add them to the data base.

And you are?

My name is John Darling and I am an author just like you (but probably not as good).  If you want to read some of my stuff, go here:

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