A GUY IN A WOMAN’S WORLD

by John M. Floyd

All of us know about the heavyweights in the land of short crime fiction: AHMM, EQMM, The Strand, etc. Those publications have been around a long time, and for good reason. They have great stories and great editors, and just about every mystery writer I know, famous or aspiring, has submitted something to them. (I’m afraid my rejections there still outnumber my acceptances; anytime I manage to publish something in one of these magazines I do a little victory jitterbug and thank my lucky stars.)

Attention K-Mart shoppers . . .

Today I’d like to talk about a short-story market that many of my fellow writers haven’t yet tried. It’s not that it’s not well-known—the place I’m talking about has a circulation of around two million readers; it just doesn’t sound at first like a crime-fiction market. The fact is, though, it publishes one short mystery story (and one romance) in every issue, every week of the year, and pays top rates.

The magazine is Woman’s World. That’s right — it’s the one you see on the racks at the grocery store checkout lines, or in supercenters like Wal-Mart and Target. The one that usually has a picture of a lady on the front, along with a message like GET SKINNY EATING GOOD CARBS.

Many mini’s

Why am I, who wouldn’t know a good carb from a bad one, such a fan of that magazine? Well, over the past ten years or so, they’ve published almost three dozen of my short stories. Two dozen of those have been installments in a mystery “series” using the same characters; the rest have been regular standalone tales, most of them mysteries as well. Several were romance stories, but even my romances have little plot twists that I associate more with the mystery/suspense genre than anything romantic.

An interesting point about WW is that their short stories are really short: 700 words max for mysteries, which must also include a “solution box.” (They used to be called Mini-Mysteries, and after a format change five years ago became “Solve-It-Yourself” Mysteries. I preferred the mini format, which was more like traditional storytelling, but the more interactive SIYs are still fun.) Most are light and easygoing, which—for a writer at least—can be a nice change from the gritty stories that we sometimes turn out.

Another thing I enjoy about writing for Woman’s World is that they pay “on acceptance” (a couple of weeks after you return the signed contract to them) rather than “on publication.” I also like their fiction editor, Johnene Granger. This lady is professional in every way, and a true pleasure to work with.

Back from the Futures

For anyone who might be interested, my next story there is scheduled for publication in early May, and will feature new characters, or at least new to WW. They are Sheriff Lucy Valentine and her bossy mother Frances, who divides her time between crimesolving and trying to find a husband for Lucy. More than a dozen of my Fran and Lucy stories appeared several years ago in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine under the series title “Law and Daughter,” and were written in the same lighthearted mood as my Angela Potts/Chunky Jones mysteries in Woman’s World. (At Bouchercon 2008 I was thrilled when two ladies noticed my nametag and told me they loved Angela Potts. Yes, this was near the bar, and both my newfound fans seemed to be swaying a bit, but still . . .)

Tootsie without the wig

A final point: The WW experience has convinced me that you don’t always have to have a pseudonym to write for different kinds of markets. It is indeed possible for males—myself, Herschel Cozine, Stephen D. Rogers, and others—to occasionally sell stories under our own names to a magazine with a predominantly female audience.

How can that be? Who knows—maybe we just understand women.

(And if you believe that . . . then I must be pretty good at fiction after all.)