Resources for New Writers
Hi There,
I do not consider myself an expert, but some people have asked me about how to get their short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published. This advice is based on my subjective experience and opinions, but it may be helpful for new writers or writers looking to get into publishing short work for the first time.
Note: there are probably exceptions to every tip I give here. Ultimately, the world is chaotic and strange, and advice can only get you so far.
Writing Tips
1. If you're just starting out as a writer and need some basic advice/ideas to get you started on your story, there are a lot of nice websites with general advice on grammar, outlining, and inspiration.
2. A "good" Story isn't always a marketable story. You might have been top of your creative writing class, or maybe you get a lot of praise at your writing circle, critique group, tabletop group, or from your friends about your stories and writing. People might love a story you've written when you show it to them personally. However, it doesn't mean the story is going to sell. When someone has a personal connection to you or another motivation (they're your teacher or classmate, etc,), they have reason to keep reading a story that might not initially interest them by the premise or engage them within the first few sentences.
A random reader or editor for a publication reading an unknown or little-known writer does not have any outside motivation to care about a story. They might not keep reading if they aren't hooked immediately, or they may not feel like their readers will keep reading unless your story hooks readers immediately.
What this means is, if you aren't a particularly famous writer, you probably need to write stories that hook people immediately and are culturally relevant/cognizant. A story about a plague might be a good story, but it might not sell during a pandemic, etc. If you know that people are interested in dinosaur stories, you may want to write one.
You may want to lean towards stories that are faster paced, especially early in your career. Once you reach a certain level of notoriety and people trust your writing, you might get away with writing less to the market and more to whatever tastes you have. However, early in your writing career, unless you have the trust or interest of a publication already, it's worth considering the marketability of your story. There are, of course, exceptions to this advice and I'm heavily generalizing.
3. If you can, put a story away for a at least a few days to a few weeks or months before reading it again to edit it. If you're not on a strict deadline, I suggest not looking at something for at least a few days before you edit it again. The writing high/inability to catch errors after finishing a draft is real.
4. When self-editing, try putting the story in different fonts or making the font a lot bigger or smaller If you can't put the story away or just don't want to, this can also really help look at the piece with new eyes.
5. When self-editing, try reading the story aloud to yourself
6. Find other writers or readers that you trust, offer to exchange stories/editing with them The fact is, most people can't catch all the problems in their own writing by themselves. You sometimes need other people's opinions. Be open about wanting to exchange writing. You might find that your friends or acquaintances also have an interest in writing. You might make good critique partners with someone, even if you aren't particularly close friends. Many local libraries also have writing and reading groups where you might be able to find someone.
Give your new critique partner some time to get to know you and your writing--you want to find someone who is encouraging but honest. They should understand your work and help you achieve your goals with your writing, not impose their specific tastes onto your work. For example, if you want to write romance with some erotic scenes, someone who is extremely sex-averse or who prefers sad stories, is probably not a good critique partner. Someone who isn't used to reading epic fantasy is not going to like your story with twenty characters all with weird made-up names. Getting a partner who is reading outside their typical genre isn't ALWAYS bad, but I would be cautious about only having readers who have little to no experience reading your chosen genre.
Having more than one potential reader is also good--someone might be a better reader for one piece or another.
7. If possible, use sensitivity readers, especially if you are writing about cultures, countries, or experiences very much outside your own experiences To the above point, if you're writing a realistic story or something set in the real world that heavily focuses on experiences that aren't your own or even concepts you do not have lot of research experience in, it's good to find someone who does. Sometimes sensitivity or expert readers want payment for their services. This isn't unreasonable, considering the time they might have spend on your manuscript. You have to decide if you feel like their services are worth paying for, which may require some market research. If your reader does want to be paid but you can't afford to do so, you likely need to do some soul searching before you move forward with the project. It might not be the right story for you to write, or something about the plot needs to be changed so that it's more within your wheelhouse.
8. Accept that you will never find every typo, grammar mistake, or unclear sentence It happens to everyone. Obviously, proofread your stuff, but if an editor rejects your manuscript for a couple of typos or some weird sentences or some minor continuity errors, they probably aren't whom you want to work with, anyway. If they are that picky, they will likely also will find it very hard to to work with any authors!
9. Accept that you might not always be the best person to tell a certain story or you may not be in the right place in your life to tell that story yet. I personally don't believe writers can't have characters who are different races, culture, sexuality, have different mental illnesses or traumatic experiences etc., than the writer. However, keep in mind that if you are going to make a marginalized identity or traumatic experience a center point of your story, and you're writing about the real world, you should approach these topics carefully and respectfully.
For example, if you are a white writer who wants to write about a character of Asian background in the USA, make sure you are doing your research, reaching out to readers with that background, and that you've thought about this aspect of your story from multiple angles. If the character's race or culture is important to the story, enough that you want to explore it, why is it important?
What issues are you trying to explore? Could these issues be explored without focusing on racial or cultural issues that you might not have the best understanding of? Look at the core themes of your story. Does going into detail about the character's racial or cultural background add anything to the issues explored or is it just 'salad dressing'?
How long is your story? Do you have time to explore multiple issues with the depth they deserve? For shorter pieces 'salad dressing' might be okay, a short story can't be expected to touch on every issue or question, but you should still be thoughtful. If you bring up the character's background multiple times in a short story rather than mentioning it once or twice, readers will likely expect you to be saying something about how their background affects their experiences or society, etc., and then you need to deeply understand what it is you're trying to say.
Furthering the above example, if you are a white woman with a short story about an Asian woman and in the story, you write about sexism and bring up the character's race many times, readers might have the expectation that you are trying to discuss or depict how an Asian woman experiences sexism. The white writer may want to ask herself if she has anything accurate or worth saying about how an Asian woman might experience sexism. It's possible the writer has some insight or reasoning behind her choices, but if she's basically written about how a white woman experiences sexism but her character is Asian, the story might feel strange, shallow, or even exploitative or racist to readers. Or she might be pushing a narrative that might not be welcome by Asian readers by erasing how they might experience society differently than a white woman, etc.
No one is going to be perfect (I am definitely not), but you should be asking yourselves these questions and be open to criticism from the groups of people you are writing about. Also, if you do get sensitivity readers, and they tell you something you've written might be harmful for their community or people like them, please listen with an open mind.
Furthermore, even if say, race or culture isn't the main focus of your story, it's still important to be aware of how it might play into certain plot points. For example, because of the history of ballet, a Black ballerina character might have a really different experience than a white ballerina character, so if you are a non-Black writer and you choose to write a story about a Black ballerina and set it in the real world, be prepared to do research on what that experience might be like. If you don't feel ready or want to engage with race and racism in your story, and/or you are not ready to talk to Black women in ballet, etc., it might not be the best story for you to write. That doesn't make you good or bad! It's better to be honest about our own limitations.
I am using race and culture as examples here, but I think being conscious of how your character would fit into the real world and literary world applies to many aspects of your character, like her disabilities, appearance, class, sexuality, sex, gender expression, weight, etc. Sometimes, even when writing fantasy/spec fic,, you should give some thought to demographics and descriptions as fantasy tropes carry their own baggage and history. Some fantasy races have strong associations with real world stereotypes of marginalized people.
To use a different example, if you have a short story about a war veteran, if the story isn't that long you might not have to go too deeply or comprehensively into how that experience might affect that character, but if you have a longer story, especially a novel, you might need to consider how their thinking, their emotions, their relationships, their reputation. or even their legal status, opportunities or lack thereof in the society you're writing about might be affected by their status as a veteran, or even which war they're a veteran of, and how that might change aspects of their experience.
In sum, just make sure you give your characters some thought, especially if you are writing work that engages in sensitive topics or longer work that has time to engage more deeply into things (for example, I don't think a 5,000 word story should be expected to engage too deeply in all aspects of a character's life or experience but a whole novel probably should address more aspects of how your character operates in the world). Writing diverse people and experiences can be a great thing, but just be conscious and thoughtful of the different nuances you might be engaging with in the types of characters you choose to depict.
10. Accept that some of the people closest to you may not be interested in your writing or be interested in it all the time. I think people in all creative fields can struggle to make the people close to them invested in their art. For better or worse, reading a story requires more effort than looking at a picture or listening to a song or watching a dance or a play. A lot of people don't like reading, too, and have their own baggage attached to reading. Not having the interest of people close to you in your writing doesn't make you a bad writer, or doesn't necessarily make those people bad friends or family members, sometimes you just need to find people that want to read about the things you write.
11. Read the genres you are writing in often, when you can. Some people like to brag that they never read fantasy but they've written an "elevated" fantasy novel or that they "hate" romance but they wanted to write a romance they could like. However, every genre is broad and you probably aren't bringing anything new to a genre that hasn't already been written by actual genre fans. If you don't read and keep up-to-date on the trends of the genre you're writing in, you might end up looking like an ass or arrogant or just not able to sell much because you're engaging in ideas/plots/characters that are old hat and already overdone. If you really want to innovate a genre, you won't get there by not reading it or looking down on it.
12. Read multiple authors To the above point, re-reading only Tolkien is not going to make you a fantasy expert. Reading Julia Quinn and nothing else will not help you write better romance. You need to expose yourself to multiple people and styles because you aren't going to be the next Neil Gaiman. You're going to be the next you, and reading the works of many authors is going to help you get there.
13. Accept that writing isn't fun all the time
14. Accept that sometimes you write a bad piece. It doesn't mean you are overall a bad writer
15. Accept that your writing style or chosen genre, etc, may not be "for" everyone Everyone has different tastes. There are bad pieces of writing, but a lot of how a piece of writing is judged is extremely subjective. I've had rejections for multiple stories that have called my work boring, but those same pieces have been loved by other editors. This isn't to say you can't grow and become a better writer, you definitely can, but don't take every criticism as a sign you have no talent or future.
16. Have some understanding of what audience you want to write for
17. There are plenty of "good writing" cliches and pithy advice phrases you will hear a lot. Some of them are true, generally, but in my experience, there is no cliche piece of writing advice that is ALWAYS true for every writer or story. What I mean is, you'll hear "show don't tell" or things like, use "said" more than other dialogue tags, avoid using adverbs, avoid long info dumps, etc. These aren't necessarily bad pieces of advice, in fact, these are generally good rules to keep in mind as you're writing. But no piece of writing advice is true 100% for every story or every writer. It's okay to do things your own way sometimes while being thoughtful of your goals and what you're trying to accomplish.
Resources for Finding Markets
Once you've written something, it can be hard to find a place to publish it. Luckily, there are some websites out there to help you!
Free to use but donations are encouraged. You can make an account and search for open markets by word count, genre, how much they pay, and average response time. They will also flag any markets that charge a fee for submissions or any odd or suspicious contract terms or practices that users flag. You can also suggest new markets. It will build a spreadsheet for you and also track responses from any market you've submitted to for you. This is the website I generally use. The creators are speculative short fiction publishers, so the markets listed are a little biased towards speculative short fiction publishers, but there are plenty of markets for other genres, including non-fiction, poetry, and novel-length works. These markets are open to authors without agents.
This is a paid service (I believe starting at at least $5 a month). I don't personally use it, but it offers similar services to Submission Grinder. However, I think its pool of markets and offered stats might be more robust than Submission Grinder's. You can sign up for a free trial. Duotrope and its submission manager tool Duosumo also allow you to search for agents, not just publications.
If you are looking for an agent to represent you and your novel with major publishers, you may want to use this service to find agents by genre and whether or not they are open to queries. You do not need an agent to get a novel published, but generally if you want your novel to be published at any of the major publishing houses, you generally need an agent. There are plenty of smaller publishers that will take novel submissions from un-agented authors, but you may not get the best contract, etc.
This is an emailed newsletter that comes every week or so. They list new calls for submissions, either new magazines, magazines that opened to submissions if they were closed for a while and new anthologies. They also will list contests and share info on writing workshops, quick articles on publishing, and writing advice.
This is a website tracking calls for stories in the horror genre.
This is a submission manger used by many publications and you will likely need to make an account here to submit to certain publications it will confirm that a story has been received and you can easily withdraw or add notes to your submission through this platform. You can also use it to look for open publications, but its not as robust a database as Submission Grinder or Duotrope, because it will only show open submission calls from publications that choose to use the service.
Ray is a short story writer who submits a lot and makes lists of submission calls every month. If you are looking for markets, you may want to visit his blog and see what's on his list each month.
Tips for Submitting Writing to Markets
1. There are some markets that charge fees to submit to them. You do not have to submit to those markets to be a successful writer. It's up to you if you feel as though it's worth it to pay to submit to a market and it could be an important source of revenue for that market. But if you do not want to pay to submit there are numerous and plenty of prestigious markets with free submissions. Some markets do offer expedited submission responses or detailed feedback if you do pay a submission fee. Again, it's up to you if you feel like that service is worth it. It might be if you really respect a certain publication and editor and it can be a way for small markets to stay open. However, you shouldn't expect your submission to have a better chance of being accepted because you pay a submission fee (required or optional). It is possible that markets that require fees may have a smaller pool of writers submitting work, so you may have a better chance. It's difficult to say.
2. Make sure you read submission guidelines carefully. Some markets are very picky about how you format your work, whether you send it as an attachment or in the body of your email, and what info to include in your cover email/letter. Failing to follow submission guidelines will definitely hurt or totally ruin your chances of getting published by a market. Reading submission guidelines carefully will also help you pick up on any red flags or odd requirements.
3. Consider your total word count carefully. Many markets do not want short pieces under 1k-2k words. However, the number of markets that will consider short stories over 5k words is fewer than the ones that will consider stories of 2k-5k in length, and even fewer will consider the story if the story is more than 7,500 words. There only a few markets that are regularly open and will will consider stories more thank 10k words but less than 20k words (at 20k you enter into Novella territory--there are a growing number of markets that will consider those!).
When starting a new short piece, you may want to have a word count in mind from the beginning so that you have a piece with numerous markets that are open to it. It doesn't mean you should never write longer "short" stories, but just keep in mind the marketing potential for each word length.
4. Consider how you time your submission. Many markets do not accept simultaneous submissions (submitting the same piece to more than one market at the same time) and may hold your work for several months, even almost a year. While I generally don't think it's good practice for a market to not accept simultaneous submissions AND make writers wait more than 2-3 months for a response, there are markets out there that operate that way. Some submission calls to new anthologies or certain magazines are only open to submissions for a short window, so waiting for a response may upset your chances to submit your piece to certain places.
You could just ignore the no simultaneous submission requirement, but it doesn't look great if you break submission guidelines. Indie publishers and editors often to talk to each other, so if you have a habit of breaking market guidelines, they may not look favorably on submissions from you. For markets that do allow simultaneous submissions, it's good to inform the other market(s) you submitted that piece to that it's been accepted elsewhere as soon as possible.
5. Do not respond to rejections except in rare cases. Definitely never respond with an angry or resentful response. If an editor is very rude or unprofessional, it's still usually better to not engage with them but maybe make a note to not submit again there and flag it for other writers, as well.
But even if you want to say, "thank you" if the editor gave you helpful feedback, I think generally it's better not to. Editors are busy and have a lot of things to respond to. You responding to them can just clog up their inboxes more. If the editor asks questions or engages extensively with your work and their response implies they want a conversation/response, then you can respond However, most of the time, it's probably better not to.
6. Expect rejection. Unless you are very famous for writing or for something else, most writers, even very talented ones who've been published before, often have a less than 10%, even less than 5% acceptance rate for paying markets. Pro-paying markets often accept less than 1% of work submitted to them. Getting rejected is NORMAL. It does not mean you are a bad writer or no one will ever want to read what you've written.
7. You don't have to submit to every market, you can decline an acceptance, and you can pull your work from a market. If you visit a market's webpage and think it looks ugly or unprofessional, don't submit there just for the sake of submitting. If an editor says something you don't like on social media or rubs you the wrong way in a rejection letter, you don't have to submit there! If you think a market doesn't market or promote itself to your standards, don't submit there! If you think they pay too little for what they want, you don't have to submit there. If you don't like the other stories they publish, don't submit there. There are many markets out there and if you like writing, you will write many pieces.
Getting an acceptance is nice, but don't feel the need to submit to any and every market just to get an acceptance. If an editor does something you don't like or sends you a contract that isn't good, you can pull your work. When you compile your list of previous publications, you want something you can feel proud of.
8. Read contracts carefully. Before you agree to a publication, make sure you read the contract carefully and are okay with the terms. Note that most places will ask for exclusive rights to your story for a term, sometimes three months, sometimes six months, and sometimes one year. This means you can't publish the writing anywhere else during that term. This generally also includes putting the story on your personal blog, website, or social media. Be careful of what creative licenses a publication asks for and make sure you look those up and understand what they mean.
9. Think before you post your writing on any personal blog, website, non-paying market, or social media. Many paying markets will not consider or will pay less for "reprints." For most markets, posting your writing anywhere where it can be read by the public, even if your website has no hits, makes the writing a "reprint" and means they won't consider the writing or will pay less for it.
10. Some markets will pay a lot, some a little, and some nothing at all--it's something you need to think about, but low-paying or even non-paying doesn't necessarily make a market bad. Non-paying or low-paying markets aren't necessarily bad, but all markets should be transparent about how much they pay in their submission guidelines. If a market isn't upfront about what they pay, it's not a good sign.
Running a publication is a labor of love and completely voluntary for many small presses, so the fact is, some markets can't afford to pay their writers or pay them at professional rates. That doesn't make them "bad" if they are upfront and transparent about what they offer for publication. It is up to you as a writer if you want to submit to a market that doesn't pay a lot or nothing. Sometimes you have a piece of writing that's already been rejected by high-paying markets and you just want it out in the world. Sometimes you just really enjoy the theme or design or a publication. Maybe the piece didn't take that much work on your part, so you are okay not making money off of it.
It's not always true, but higher paying markets tend to have bigger audiences and better designers and better distribution. However, some markets that pay high rates are just pet projects by people who are well-funded, so it's not always the case that higher pay = more readers.
Selling stories at a higher pay rate can qualify you for membership to different organizations (such as SFWA or eligibility for certain annual prizes.) If you are interested in those things, you should always aim for pro-paying markets (for sci-fi and fantasy this is $.08 or more per word. Different genres have different pay rates, though, so you probably want to search for those before you start submitting).
Unfortunately, unless you are one of the rare talented and lucky people who start selling really well and are able to devote a lot of time to writing, you will likely NOT make enough to live off of your creative writing, especially short pieces, and even pro-pay probably won't totally compensate you for the amount of time you put into most of your work. So I don't know if it's worth it to get totally caught up in how much publications pay you.
11. Read the markets you submit to, or at least try to read the genre of the markets you are submitting to. Be aware of what readers of that genre are interested in. For example, do not submit to romance publishers if your story doesn't have a happy ending. Don't submit to horror publishers if your story ends with sunshine and rainbows (unless that sunshine and rainbows will kill you). Don't submit your un-ironic, very conservative, Bill O'Reilly inspired military space epic to a very progressive publisher. Don't submit really gory, graphic stories to markets that specifically ask you not to submit these types of stories.
12. Usually submission guidelines will suggest a time to query if you haven't any news. If you haven't heard from a market past the suggested response time, you can send a polite email checking on the status of your submission. If they do not give a suggested response time, I generally think around three months for most markets is a good time to check in, but that will depend on genre and the market. Genre fiction publications tend to respond faster than lit magazines. Using Duotrope and Submission Grinder stats can be helpful, especially if you see that the market has responded to a bunch of people recently.
13. Check your spam/junk folder. A lot of submission responses end up there.
14. Always be on the lookout for new submission calls. Don't give up on a piece of writing too quickly, especially if you really believe in it. Sometimes you've exhausted all the markets you can find for a piece of writing, but new calls will pop up all the time, and maybe one will be the perfect fit for a story that you haven't placed yet.
15. Don't think too hard about the type of rejection you receive. Some markets send a lot of personal rejections. Some never do. Some send tiered form rejections (what that means is that some people will get a form that says "sorry we're passing on this" and other people with stories the editor liked more will get responses that say "sorry we're passing on this but please submit to us again"). But some send the exact same form to everyone. Some of those forms are worded more politely than others. Unless you know the editor or the editor is very transparent in their response to you, you can't know exactly why a piece was rejected or how close it was to being accepted.
You can't know things like: if the editor just doesn't like frogs and you had a frog story, if they already have a frog story, if your story was "bad", if the editor was simply tired that day and missed the point of your story, or if they editor just hates people named Joe. Sometimes personal rejections can be helpful but other times they aren't if the feedback is too vague or misunderstands your story. Editors are people too and maybe some 60 year old white lady in Oklahoma might misinterpret a story from a 20 year old living in Papua New Guinea or someone who has never lost a child may not understand the story from a parent who lost their child, or maybe they just have no background in engineering and you wrote a story about building a new car, etc. Sometimes an editor can recognize that your story just isn't ready yet.
You don't have change your story with all personal feedback or criticism. Sometimes you can plain ignore it! That's fine. If an editor invites you to submit again, then prioritize submitting to that market. If they don't say that but they also don't tell you NOT to submit again, don't give up on that market, either, if you still want to submit there. Some people submit to the same market dozens of times before being accepted. If an editor really doesn't want you to submit again, they will tell you.
16. Balancing changing your writing based on feedback from other people and your personal vision and tastes for a piece of writing is difficult. There is no magic answer to how much feedback you need for a piece of writing or which or how much criticism you should apply to your writing. Some people could be better writers if they took more criticism. But some people hold themselves back by not eventually just finishing a piece. If you feel compelled to edit your work between submissions, go for it. But you don't need to edit after every rejection. Sometimes a story just wasn't right for a market or editor. If you picked up any book right now and wanted to be critical, you could point out plenty of things the author could have changed. No piece of writing is perfect for everyone. And that's ok!
17. If a market or editor makes you uncomfortable or suspicious, don't be afraid to reach out to other writers to ask if certain practices are normal before you submit or sign a contract.
18. Do not self-reject! Submit to high paying markets, even if you're a new writer. If you have a story that *might* fit the theme of an anthology, unless it violates something prohibited by the guidelines, just submit it. Often when editors choose a theme, they are looking for broad and creative interpretations. Even if an editor has a very specific idea in their head for the stories they want written for their theme, it all depends on what other submissions come in. For example, if the Editor picked a theme of dust, they might want stories about dust bunnies, but if no one sends a story about dust bunnies, then they have to be open to other interpretations. One of the stories I was paid highest for was only vaguely related to the theme (at least in my head).
19. If a market asks you to use content or trigger warnings, do so. Also, even if they don't ask for them, I would tend to try to include them, especially if your story includes any kind of violence, mental health issues, or death of animals or people. It's respectful to the editors and shows that you are aware of your story and the audience best suited for it.
20. Consider getting a Paypal account if you can and you haven't yet. Many publications pay writers this way and it can be a little time consuming to set one up. It's better to have one set up before you make you first sale, so that if the publisher prefers to pay this way, it can be done quickly. I realize that Paypal accounts are not always easy to get depending on what country you're in or if you've able to get a credit card. If you can't get an account, most reputable publishers will find a way to pay you. Before you sign a contract or agree to let your story be published, check with publisher that they can pay you if they normally use Paypal or another service you can't access. If they aren't willing to find a way to pay you, but they pay everyone else, they probably aren't worth your time.
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