If you’re looking for a compromise solution, stories submitted to the Grantville Gazette Universe Annex (Baen’s magazine) are submitted by being posted on a password-protected forum (Baen’s Bar) that anyone can get an account for, where readers can critique them, then a subset of those are purchased and professionally published in the magazine. Posting a story on Baen’s Bar is generally (some people say explicitly, and it appears to be the consensus unless I’m making a horrible mistake) not considered publication, and stories posted there don’t appear in Google searches.
You’d want to do more research into this, but if you’re interested, it might provide you a base to work off of.
Welcome! I’m happy to help.
If you’re looking for a compromise solution, stories submitted to the Grantville Gazette Universe Annex (Baen’s magazine) are submitted by being posted on a password-protected forum (Baen’s Bar) that anyone can get an account for, where readers can critique them, then a subset of those are purchased and professionally published in the magazine. Posting a story on Baen’s Bar is generally (some people say explicitly, and it appears to be the consensus unless I’m making a horrible mistake) not considered publication, and stories posted there don’t appear in Google searches.
You’d want to do more research into this, but if you’re interested, it might provide you a base to work off of.
(Their submission rules; warning, mildly arcane: https://grantvillegazette.com/universe-annex-submissions/ )