The Internet provides many sites where authors can place their work. Its main advantage over paper publications is the large number of potential markets. The payment, if any, can be about the same as that from a small-press print magazine, but online publications usually have a larger readership.
Internet publishing offers several other advantages, such as being able to send electronic manuscripts to online editors and to communicate with them by email rather than snail-mail. It requires only a few mouse clicks to email dozens of electronic manuscripts to potential markets. Compare this to the time needed to print, pack and label a single paper manuscript, then add the time spent standing in a Post Office line to mail it. Plus, readers and fans are more likely to send you a quick email note than they are to write a real letter. If your email address is posted with your writing, it’s possible that you’ll start seeing reader responses only minutes after your work is posted. Such instant gratification can be addictive.
The most basic Internet publication is one where people put their own work on their Web site. They then notify their friends and family to come by and have a look. The purpose of the site is to share material with those close to the author, not to acquire fame. These sites typically contain family histories, personal logs, personal photos and essays, but they can just as easily house fiction, if the owner so chooses.
The next step up is an online magazine or Webzine. In this case people create and maintain what is often a very specialized site that deals primarily with a particular hobby or interest of the owner. The site owners may work alone, performing all the duties of publisher, editor, and writer or they may have a volunteer staff. There’s no money for anyone involved in the project, but, if unsolicited work is accepted, it’s a chance for your writing to be seen by people outside your immediate circle of friends and family.
There are also fan fiction sites. These are usually devoted to a specific TV series, in particular science fiction or fantasy television shows such as Star Trek and the X-Files. Fans write the stories that they would like to see on the show, often involving romantic pairings of the series characters that are not in the original. If the site owner likes the work, it’s published on the site. Fan fiction is often very well written, but the stories tend to violate the studio’s official story lines and character histories. For this reason there is virtually no chance of selling such work as a script even to those rare shows that accept unsolicited material.
There are many, many online equivalents of small-press fiction magazines. Because the cost of online publishing is so low, these magazines don’t need broad audience appeal to survive. They are often focused on a single theme such as vampires or inspirational stories. You’ll get no pay if these sites publish your work, but at least you’ll know that an editor preferred your writing to someone else’s.
At the top of the list are the few online magazines that actually pay their contributors. The lesser ones may offer as little as a fraction of a cent per word or a flat fee of five or ten dollars while even some of the best ones may not pay very much more. These sites are trying to make money by charging a subscription fee for access to the writing or by selling advertising on the site. Unfortunately, Web advertising took a serious dive when the dot-coms crashed, causing many online magazines to either shut down completely or to stop paying for contributor’s work. Many sites that were once free are now attempting to survive by charging an access fee and they may not make it.
How can you find these sites? The online publishing world is in such a state of rapid change that any URLs I might suggest can easily be gone by the time you read this. Your best bet is to open your favorite search engine and try word variations such as "Web publishing", "online publications", or "Internet publications". Skim through the options and see if any of them interest you. Enter "fan fiction" to find those sites, then work your way down among the choices to the names of the shows that you want.
Read some of what’s already on a likely site. If you think your work will fit and you accept the terms, send something in for consideration. The worst that will happen is that you’ll get a rejection email, but, because there are so many sites, sooner or later there’s a fair chance you’ll find an editor that loves your writing.