Thanks for the info. What I meant in reference to reading costs are really submission fees. I use Submittible (
submittable.com) for the most part, which can be searched by genre (sort of), or deadline. You can also order the listings by "no fee." It mostly works well as a place to store your submissions and what exactly you submitted to where/when.
I prefer
Duotrope, but there's a monthly subscription. If I had the money, it would be worth it because it gives you all the statistics on every publication: what they publish, how often, who they've already published, like publications, and it's all highly searchable by genre and subgenre. I don't have a subscription because it's something like five dollars a month. I had an extended free trial for a bit.
I decided to go ahead with the book of short stories and not care about how long it is/isn't. I won't be looking for a publisher for it because I already know I'd never find one. I'll have to self-publish it.
As for my novella, or whatever it turns out to be (pretty sure it will be about 25K-30K words), I may try to find a publisher and have one in mind--though--it's a real longshot. I'll probably end up self-publishing that one too. I'm no one's darling, especially not anywhere in the NY scene.
I've never done an open mic thing and never would. I've never heard of anyone charging for it either. It would indeed be strange, eh? Some desperate poets I guess.