I published a poem on an online magazine. I just emailed it in, they liked it and they published it. Weird. Must've been dumb luck at the time. I've found that new writers seem to have a lot more success at online and small press magazines, though, initially, because most of them don't require that you have an agent and also, the majority of them ARE mostly all soliciated manuscripts; some of them are 90% percent (or better) mostly written BY the readers. I've had some published in those as well. My personal opinion is that it doesn't matter so much if you make a lot of money at first; what really matters is getting those Kudos under your belt so that when you go for the big money...big mag....you can pull out your 'refs'.
Also, I highly recommend to EVERY writer to buy (yearly) the new writers digest book that contains all the up to date small press, big press, magazines, periodicals, etc etc with all the new and updated editors, etc. This book is invaluable because not only does it tell you what every single solitary place is LOOKING for, but also their guidelines, their do's and don'ts, how much they pay per word...per article (sometimes this can vary either they pay by word or by article....sometimes they only pay in magazines), etc. Plus it has lots of valuable tips; how to write excellent query letters, etc etc. Another important reason to invest in this book is because quite often the editors of different departments, addresses, emails, etc, may change from year to year. This book is priceless; trust me on this! The new updated ones usually come out in January.
IN ADDITION, I think it's so important to have a group where you can get your work edited, read other people's work, etc etc.....if you haven't found that sort of place anywhere yet, permit me to 'plug' here by saying that 'writing.com' is the number one creative writing site in america...and it's free! Even Ruby knows about it.......it's where she and I MET for the first time.

Quote Originally Posted by Ruby
It's always great to hear about an author on the forums who's published a story, poem or book.

I'd like to hear about the trials along the way.

What worked?
What didn't?
What type of advice can you provide to others?
What are/were your criterias for success?
When did you or will you feel like you've reached them?

So many questions, I'm sure many of you can create a few of your own.

Let's make this thread a place where we can ask each other questions about the publishing market and share the research and experiences we've learned.

Authors wanting to be published: ask away.

Published authors: please share.