Know Thine Audience

The first dillemma I'm facing between me and getting rejected from magazines is finding magazines that would potentially publish the sort of work that I produce. There's sort of a complex rubric involved in finding the "right" magazine to make a debut, and among other things, what I look for in a publisher is:

• The genre and "culture" of the publisher. Somehow, I have this silly idea that a magazine named "Glimmer Train" would be terribly interested in a crime fiction story. Likewise,
  the Strand Magazine won't be quite interested in more the thoughtful outdoorsy works that made Faulkner famous.
• Respect. In the end, being able to say "I've been published in the New Yorker once", is way more impressive than being able to say "I've been published in a crapload of magazine's you've never heard of. One thing that I have to look at as a freelancer, even at this time, is how I'm going to build a resume that advertises the fact that my writing is a hot commodity.
• Compensation. A lot of these magazines demand exclusive printing rights in exchange for about 25 bucks, which sucks royally. (See? There's a pun there, if you look hard enough.) Personally, I'd like to be able to recieve adequate compensation for my work, so aside from standard submissions, I'm also looking into contests that could not only prove that I'm way better than everyone else, but also hand me fabulous cash prizes that go a long way to helping motivate me to write more.

Really, trying to find a publisher is like looking for foster parents for your child. My stories are my babies, as creepy as that sounds, and I'm not giving it to just anyone for anything.

Then again, this might be the same reason I'm single at the moment. I have issues with standards.