Even with all the options available, I keep finding myself falling through the cracks of having somewhere to submit something. Most magazines want less than 5000 words, or they don't pay, or only the big magazines will publish that length and genre but you aren't a known name. Even if you find one that ticks all the right boxes, you might not hear back for months which effectively puts that story in a limbo as multiple submissions are usually a no-no. You can always send things out for free, but I write professionally (non-fiction), and would never sell my stuff cheap, so it is painful to do so when I switch to fiction.
I have mostly been relying on Amazon Kindle which has actually been pretty good and has made me more money than most paying magazines would have done. It is also good practice for when I finally finish a novel and are wondering what the hell to do with it.
One thing I am going to try however, is writing for anthologies. Again, this is helped by Duotrope (I promise I am not being paid for this but I should), as they have a list of upcoming anthologies which are normally based around a theme. Such as - apocalypse brought on by environmental disaster or horny ghosts or comedy stories set at sea, or whatever. This provides a writing prompt, payment and visibility. I will see how it goes and will update here. It will be a while though, these things take months just to read the stories, let alone publish. We shall see.
