Here’s another couple things to think about.
How much time do we spend researching, and sending submissions out? In the amount of time that would be spent choosing a market, writing a cover letter, getting it bundled up, sent, again and again over and over, how much more could I have written? Quite a bit more. And when a story gets published, how long does it take to actually reach its audience? I had a story once take three or four years to get published. Genres have come and gone in that amount of time. I had even forgotten that it had been placed by then. This submission and resubmission process is similar to what the film industry calls “development hell.”
I lose the familiarity with the current market that I’d have if I kept buying and researching magazines, but I don’t really do too much of that anyway, and I don’t pay much attention to what the market does. I prefer to pay attention to what my mind does. I know, that isn’t what they recommend, but it’s how I work.
Obviously I’m grinding obsessively on this. That’s my personality. I’m going to make a decision by the end of the weekend.
Some advice I was given by Jean… Submit to first novel competitions. That way, you know that you’re being read.