I Can See Up Your Nose If It's In The Air

Bernita's post made me think today- is there an unbreakable rule that says e-zine stories don't count?

After all, it was only a few years ago that e-books were considered the red headed stepchild of publishing; a short hop away from a vanity press. Now look at them. More and authors are submitting, more and more agents and editors are taking e-book credits seriously, and Ellora's Cave started an entire, though hotly debated, romance genre. Like erotica or not, you can't deny their success. E-publishers themselves are more demanding, with better editing and better results.

Why should e-zines be any different? There's not a big readership, true; but it isn't as if print mediums don't suffer from that as well. I myself had a story under consideration with Arabella, and had to find out on a Harlequin message board that they'd gone belly up.

Part of me says to think of your career. Don't waste time on things that won't advance it, and no editor or agent will take you seriously if all your credits are from e-zines. But is that necessarily so? Are e-zines on the cusp of breaking through to respectability? Someone with more industry know-how than I will have to answer that one.

The other part of me says who cares? Just write. Articles and novellas work well for me and my writing style. I just don't do well with large word counts, and I'm sparing with details. I get impatient or worse, bored, with endless description. Just tell me the house is filled with trinkets; I don't need to know where every single doily is placed. Writing shorts is very fun and challenging for me. If I want to really flesh out a character, I'll do a series.

What about you? Do you consider e-zines less than worthy? Print may be the end all for snobs, but I've read enough print books and articles that made a satisfying thunk when hitting the wall to know that paper is no guarantee of greatness.