What is the future of the literary magazine?

I’ve been wondering this question for a bit of time now with the emergence of the Internet as the place where everything seems to be centered in writing these days. In the old days, to be a writer, you first finished your education (generally), then you started publishing in literary magazines, then to commercial, high paying magazines, and then you started to work your way into getting that novel published. Granted, some people took an easier path, but mostly this was the formula for success.

The Internet has kind of changed all of that. Now, anyone can claim to be a writer and try to make his or her way without any previous work. This has developed a whole sense of a lot of junk that has been thrown into the mix, making it almost impossible for a writer to get recognized and even worse, that much harder for a reader to figure out what is worth reading. Bookstores start to gravitate away from the old formula, and the next thing you know (or we currently know) bookstores only publish commercial fiction that is churned out by publishers who are only willing to invest in already established names or, even worse, celebrities who are now writing books. Like Nancy Grace’s new book. Or Glenn Beck’s. Or the autobiographies of unimportant important people which were really written by other people. This leads to events like Tyra Banks announcing she’s writing her new book Modelland, which really excited only about four people, all of them employed by Tyra Banks.

Which brings it back to me. It’s my blog, so why not?

At one point, I was actually making a name for myself in the literary magazine marketplace. Editors started to know me. Sometimes they even commented on my published work when they saw me in another magazine. It used to be a really close-knit community, and I was breaking into it.

And then I stopped writing for about a decade and a half due to a really strange relationship I had with a woman. It took me that long to realize I needed to get back to writing, and here I am. But no one remembers me any more, so it’s like I’m starting over again.

Recently, one of those editors contacted me and published one of my later pieces of work in his literary magazine, a science fiction one. A success. Yay. But it leaves me wondering if this old model of publishing is still viable today. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll include it on my vita like I normally would, but I wonder if the publication of this story in this ‘zine is really going to contribute to my eventual success. Oh don’t get me wrong. I’d still have it published there cause I like the editor and support his continued attempts to build an audience for what he does best. But I’m still wondering if there’s a career out there for me because there are so many writers these days, and basically you’re competing with anyone who has access to a computer today.

It makes me wonder if the age of being a writer is somewhat over, unless you already made it famous before or you’re some kind of marketing genius capable of making a name for yourself in the sea of endless writers.