The lovely Margo also appears at FableCroft talking about small/indie press.
She is more moderate than I.
Where I wave my arms about, gesticulating wildly, Margo gestures gently. Where I stand on a soap box ranting, she puts the soap neatly into the box. She is entirely more ladylike 
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Indie presses—an extremely author-centric view
The recipe for building a career in speculative fiction publication is as follows:
- You write your half a million apprenticeship words.
- You send out shorts to magazines and anthologies large and small, with gradually increasing likelihood of being published in higher and higher-status publications and even, sometimes, paid.
- When you’ve racked up enough hits, you put together a novel, or a collection.
- You send it out, listing all your credits in your covering letter.
- The publisher sees that other people besides you think your work is okay, and takes a second look instead of slipping a form rejection in the envelope and shunting it back to you.
The rest is here.