How do you get there? Short story magazines take forever to get back to me, and mostly give me rejections. I’ve read that this is par for the course; one article said they take 4 months on average to respond and accept only about 2% of short stories submitted. With my poetry, I get higher acceptance rates than many (or so my friends published in the same magazines tell me), so people who read the magazines where I’m published recognize my name. Even someone who hates my work (and hates those same friends) referred to me (writing in a guest blog post somewhere) as a regular in one of the bigger magazines (where I’m published every two weeks) after I was published there about a dozen times and wrote something he really hated. (I thanked him and told him I was honored.) However, given the low acceptance rates for short stories, I don’t see how I could similarly make a name for myself and build up a regular audience in any short story magazine. Has anyone been able to get around this conundrum? I’m wondering if my best bet is to hope a few get published in magazines and then self-publish the rest with them in a chapbook for my poetry readers (I’m not trying to make money, so copies would be given for free).
The best way (the only way) to sell short stories is to write some killer stories that are better than all the rest of the submissions. Not only better than the regular submissions, but better than the work these publications solicit. Good writing gets noticed and gets published. There are no shortcuts. This is how it works! It might seem like some lesser-known publications might be easier, but, honestly, there's a lot of competition at every level. My first short story sold for $1k in a very well-known and established publication. I am pretty selective about where I send my work. I think all writers should be by familiarizing themselves with the places they are sending their work. I stick to the pro and semi-pro places for the most part, though, I won't rule out some places that pay less and a few that don't pay if they are connected to an MFA program and still have some name recognition. If I'm going to list previous publications in my cover letter or query, I want those publications to be at least somewhat familiar to the agents or editors reviewing my work. Also, the good places already have a built in readership, and that's something important to me. Also, something to keep in mind is that some of the journals won't publish anything by you for two or three years after they publish you. They're not all like that, but I've seen a good amount with that policy. I want to also say that this is a slow process. Once you have a story accepted (months or maybe even a year-plus after you made your submission) It will still take a few more months for the issue to come out. During that time there is likely a lot of editing that goes on between you and the editor. At one place it took about a year before the issue with my story came out, other places still took a few months. I'm the one who started the rejection thread. If you look at my first post that kicked off that thread or even the fist couple pages, I think my frustration comes through. I received over 400 rejections before selling my first story and several years of dedication to writing short stories. The truth of it is this is way harder than people who don't submit short stories think it probably is. Again, there are no shortcuts. All it takes is good writing, and that's on you. Good luck! Edit to add: Four months is a pretty short wait time. If they like your story it will probably take longer. I have found the longer my work is held and considered, the better my chances. I have one story that's been out 600 days. That is not normal for them. I have queried and they told me it's still under consideration. I don't know if this was stupid of me, but I told them to take all the time they needed. And, though I am losing my mind a bit, I know that just waiting now is the best thing I can do. This is one of my dream publications. But even at this point I know it could go either way.
Keep submitting. Like... If publications allow for simultaneous submissions, submit to multiple places. With the exception of the 4 years i was in grad school (i wasnt writing creatively), ive had stories published each year since 2015. Also, submit to places you would read work from
Read the best-ofs for your genre so you know what the high water mark is. Read the publications you're aiming for so you know what they're currently publishing. Tone, word count, etc. Get a mass of stories out at once. At least a dozen. It depends on the speed of the publications, I suppose. Make a spreadsheet so you can track what you've sent and where you've sent it. It will keep you sane. It also gives you your batting average. If you're clever with the data you put in there, you can even see your improvement over time, which helps keep you going. Be honest about your own weaknesses.
I think what @Seven Crowns is saying is that sometimes our writing isn't where it need to be to get published in really good publications and that's something we have to be honest with ourselves about to be able to get to that level as a writer. Just sort of guessing here. Sorry if I'm way off on this. But this is something I went through. I think it's easier to blame a publication than think the fault is in our writing, but that won't help anyone. Reading the publications is key. And then you have to really ask yourself if the stories you're writing are at the level. And I wanted to be at that level so badly. For me, it took a lot of work and getting an MFA to reach it. I'm not saying anyone needs to get a degree, but I needed to go through that kind of program to get to where I'm at. I could write before that, sure, but I wanted to be apart of the literary conversation taking place in the journals and magazines I loved reading. Don't get me wrong, most of what I write gets rejected most of the time. I think that's true for any writer. Maybe that depends a little on where you want to sell your stories. And where you want to sell your stories should matter. Honestly, I probably would have sold a story sooner if I didn't care where it was going and just wanted to publish for the sake of publishing. I'm glad I didn't do that. And now that I'm a better writer and have better stories, I'm also very happy that my earlier works were not published. I think it's a good thing for a writer to ask themselves what they might be doing wrong. I still ask myself this question all the time. I am in no way trying to say you or anyone else is doing anything wrong or implying anything about anyone's writing abilities. Just sharing some of my personal thoughts and experiences.
Two stories a year?! I’m getting 5-10 poems published a month! I only got one short story published (a Twitter piece in Nanoism right before it closed) this year, and that’s half of “a good thing?” My stories are usually under 1,500 words (longest was 2,500), so it would take years to get enough published for a chapbook, let alone a collection! Yet Carly Berg has a collection of 100 of those (Coffee House Lies). People say my short stories are good, but I’ve considered the possibility that, unlike my poetry, they may not be up to the standards set by the magazines and contests (I’ve had over 70 poems published in 9 magazines and one anthology and placed 4th or higher in two contests), and that my talents may be better suited to poetry. I may be able to develop my short story ability to that level, but my writing time is limited, and I want to put it to the best use. It sounds as if, because I write to provide an alternative to mainstream culture’s worldview as a service for my readers (for which several have expressed sincere gratitude), my best strategy would be to concentrate on my poetry and still submit the short stories I’ve written and even write more as I’m inspired, but with the knowledge that it will remain a minor sideshow. Because I’m in the process of self-publishing chapbooks, I’m asking around so I can evaluate my writing strategy going forward.
You also have to consider the publication type.... Is it print, digital, or both? How often do they publish? Mine have been in print (tho i've had 3 digital). The print ones publish sometimes twice a year. Digital, they can publish a lot more often, like in a rolling basis. Thats another reason why short stories take so long, also. The amount of time dedicated to reading X amount of words and then the process of formating for print. I was a lit magazine editor in college.... And i also went through the formatting thing with this most recent print publication. It went through a reader (got selected), then went through an editor (sent back to me with suggestions), then a copyeditor, then a formatter (sent back to me to approve). Now its going to print and will be published in september. It got accepted in December 2022
You need to be able to examine your own work dispassionately and admit its mistakes. Many people who are submitting to pubs are convinced they're already masters of the written word and their false confidence sets an obstacle they can never overcome, that obstacle being themselves. Many will just say "that's my style" when they don't want to make adjustments and so their improvements come very slowly. Humility is the key. At the same time though, you shouldn't blindly accept all advice offered. I think the best, and most brutal, advice will come from yourself. You're the only one with the guts to say it. You have to be able to look at the finished product from a distance, as if it wasn't your own, and sacrifice any part to improve it. For you to be in a position to judge your own work, you'll need many superior examples which you've studied in detail. That's why I say to seek out master works, best-ofs, and published examples. You have to be willing to enumerate shortcomings in your own work to reach a superior level. And by the same token, you should also admit your strengths. A different sort of problem . . . My acceptance rate is pretty high, but that's because I don't aim for the litfic pubs like deadrats does. Those are impossibly tough markets. I would love to be in Tin House. It would be a lifelong dream to get an O Henry Prize. I'm always watching that award and the markets it draws from. Right now that's out of my league. I'm strictly genre published. The genre pubs are easier, and there are more of them, I think, but most of them seem to be spec-fic related. Not a problem for me. . . I've slowed down lately though. My last two acceptances were at pro pubs. (Once was at Flame Tree Books and the other was at Pseudopod audiobooks.) Considering my old acceptance rate for pro pubs was about 3%, submitting twice and being accepted twice tells me I've either gotten much better or much more lucky. If it's luck, that's almost like calling a roulette wheel spin twice in a row. For semi-pros, I started at about 20% and improved deep into the 30%'s, close to 40%. I can almost always get out of the slush pile no matter what the market is. That's one of my strengths. But the big editors usually bring down the axe, and I try to learn from that. Anyway, I need to step up my submissions and get those dozen stories in submission queues again. Oh, and keep in mind that you don't need to fill a collection with published stories. Have some of them published and some of them new. That's totally reasonable.
Yes, getting poetry published taught me all this in spades! I find that a lot of publishers have very different tastes from my own when it comes to stories, so it’s a bit hard to write what they consider the best. Many of my short stories are science fiction, so my influences there are largely the science fiction classics. It was science fiction that introduced me to the short story in the first place. But I find that a lot of today’s science fiction, even the winners, doesn’t measure up to these classic short stories. I try to write like the classic writers, just like I do in my poetry. My poetry has been accepted by editors with very diverse tastes. When I started, my influences were the classic poets only… then, once I discovered The Society of Classical Poets, I found two contemporary poets to add to the list (Susan Jarvis Bryant and Brian Yapko—themselves influenced by the classic poets). Elaborate? With poetry, few of the top literary journals accept metrical or rhyming poetry, so that forces me to submit to the lower-level, non-paying ones, which is fine because I’m more matched to the readership. I did get published in some prestigious magazines such as The Lyric and Snakeskin, but these are the minority of my poems, and not even part of the bread and butter. The Society of Classical Poets accepts the majority of the poems I submit (started at 60% and has steadily increased as I’ve developed my skills), and my friends who are published there tell me that’s unusually high. How do you get out of the slush pile with short stories? I’ve read that even the non-paying markets have acceptance rates consistently around 2%. That’s good… sounds like it’s similar to poetry in that regard. I’m self-publishing a chapbook of 16 poems, 7 of which are previously unpublished. (One of those 7 is the favorite of much of my female readership, but editors, being male, weren’t interested.) So, it’s about half and half.
Those are some amazing ratios you've got, @Seven Crowns. I dabble in genre, and I've gotten some pretty cool feedback from some of the good genre pubs in the past, but never any takers. And writing about the world ending and zombie stories are my guilty pleasure when it comes to writing. I challenge myself to make my take on these things in crazier ways than I thought I could and just sort of let loose, playing around a lot with form and structure a lot too. But I'm not sure that genre publications are all that easy. They've all rejected me. It's funny because the last story I had published was in a great literary journal. But get this. It was one of my zombies stories. That's the first story I sent out to genre publications with any confidence, but like everyone rejected it. And the bad thing is is that the genre publications tend not to allow simultaneous submissions. I think I tried the genre scene for two or three years before sending to literary journals. I was wondering if you might be able to recommend any good genre pubs to read that have at least at times published zombie-esk or end of the world stories. I'm first interested as a reader. Also, congratulations on your success! It sounds like you must be a really great writer.
I really don't think you should say things like because an editor is male or female has anything to do with submitting and publishing our work. Honestly, it's a bit of a slap to the whole industry to say things like this. I think this also comes back to being honest with ourselves as writers. I've never read your stuff so I know nothing about your writing, but saying your work was rejected because the editors you submitted to were male sounds like nothing but an excuse. Personally, I don't like to point fingers or blame my rejections on anything other than I'm just not there yet or I haven't written something that they need to have. It's part of what makes me work harder and be a bit prolific in terms of writing at times. I think it's good to have that sort of drive inside of you. And I've got to say something else that I've said other places, but many really good literary journals are publishing formal poetry. I know this from reading them. Really, I think the last thing a writer should do is try to justify why any place wouldn't publish their work. This is a hard business. Every time I am rejected I know that the place I sent it to didn't think it was as good as other submissions in front of them. I mean that's the one truth I think we can take away from any rejection.
eh, I have my moments. Most of my pubs are in anthologies, which of course are one and done. I've had good luck at Apex. I think the elite sci-fi mags are the toughest. I can't get Clarkesworld to take me seriously and so have completely given up with them. I'm done wasting their time. Asimov's seems more available. At least I was able to talk to some editors there. (Though I couldn't get in.) Metaphorosis is good too. I was really close to getting in issue #1. Not sure if they've gotten tougher in that time . . . Lightspeed is another that I feel is possible with the right piece. Zombies are tough sells. I think the genre has been overwritten and so publishers are moving away from them unless you have something very new. Your best bet is an anthology specifically looking for them. Though my favorite horror story of all time, "The Good Husband" by Nathan Ballingrud is zombie based. Just talking about that story makes me want to read it again. . . You should watch Flame Tree really closely. If you get in there, your story will be on the shelf in Barnes and Noble. I went for that one because my kid collects those books and I thought it would be funny if I snuck onto his bookshelf. They put out anthologies, but they do it all the time so you can keep trying. It took me two attempts with them. They're nice people. (Not all publishers are so nice. There was one who was horrified at what I sent them and called it offensive and unpublishable. I sold that story though because the next publisher loved it.) The story I sent Flame Tree started as a flash piece here. Baen Books is also good. So is Grey Matter Press. SQ Mag is also nice. The thing is, there are some semi-pros that are super prestigious. I mean, some are as desired as pro pubs. Maybe I pick the easier semi-pros? Some of them were, I'm sure. My percentages might be skewed. Like I say, I haven't been submitting like I should. My last try was just two pro pubs and I didn't try for anything more since. I slowed down, my percentages went up. My best year was 22 acceptances? I can't remember . . . that was a while ago. I think I had 28 or 29 stories out at once. I'd been writing like mad. All this talk about the old days makes me want to fire it all up again.
Yes, for sure. Please do. I know the same is true for the literary world. I mean even a place that pays in copies and charges a $3 submission fee can be prestigious and seems impossible to get in. I don't even write as many short stories as you publish in your good years. LOL. But you must be always writing up a storm over there. That's just WOW! I mean the genre mags you mentioned having success with are ones I've heard of, and I have to admit having limited knowledge about the genre scene. And what do you mean fire it up again? Have you stopped writing short stories? I think if that's the case, you should definitely fire it up again.
By admitting that you have strengths, I mean that you don't want to constantly be down on yourself. You don't want to sink into state where you're trying for perfection but never attaining it, and so never submitting your story. When you're editing ruthlessly, you tend to look for flaws. It's the whole point. But be willing to see what's right too. For me, and this may be only for me, the trick with getting out of the slush pile is very tight editing and confidence with voice. Those two things need to stand out in paragraph one. I know I ramble in these posts, but when I'm writing and revising drafts without remorse, I can get an effect that stands out, or I like to think I can. Wring all the extra wording out and then add in new details with impact. The worst thing you can have is empty baggage binding the sentence together. It doesn't mean that your sentences are short and minimized. It means that your phrasing is reduced as much as possible. If there are a lot of words, it's because a lot is being said. Don't be afraid of saying what you mean. One of my strongest skills is that when I read a paragraph, I know if it's publishable. It doesn't mean I can always achieve that myself, but I know when a piece is worthy of a market. Then I have to find the market. * The slush pile (for any others reading this), is the initial cull. It doesn't get you on the printed page. It just shows you're worthy for the "deciders" to look at your story. Escaping the slush pile means you weren't winnowed with the chaff. You'll often be notified when your story makes this first cut. It means you're out of the slush and a head honcho will look at your piece. It's a tiny victory.
Aside from those two stories I sent in a while ago, all I've written is posted here. I've been toying around with a new story after reading that John Cheever Pulitzer book (1979?). I need to get back to getting daily word counts. Even 500-800 a day would do it. That's a good short story a week.
I was actually looking into this one yesterday before i even saw this entire thread. @deadrats , their theme for their current call for subs is "Graveyard" .... Anything graveyard related. I have nothing in my "ideas" notebook that fits this theme, so imma pass on it. But it sounds like Zombies may be a great fit You should check it out!
Normally, I wouldn’t have come to such a conclusion, but my male friends tell me it’s just okay, and my female friends tell me it’s their favorite. Even if the editor personally liked it (he didn’t tell me one way or the other, but I’m concluding no based on what I just said), he had his readership, which is mostly male, to consider as well. If you’re offended by my saying that men and women have different interests and priorities, and that this influences editors’ decisions, I can all but guarantee that you would hate my work.
I think what deadrats is saying is that its not the editors fault. And this also goes into what Sevencrowns has said about taking responsibility for yourself. if you knew that this publisher has a primarily male readership and your piece was written for women/you knew that this piece appealed to women, then you set yourself up for the rejection by submitting the piece. It would be like me knowing a publication has historically published horror and has a fanbase that reads horror, and then me going and submitting a romance and blaming the editor for their favoritism for horror writers.
You’re absolutely right, but you’re also assuming I knew this at the time. I saw all that, but after it was rejected and I sent it to my friends to ask their thoughts on it. The women loved it and couldn’t imagine why it was rejected; the men said it was just okay. One of my friends (herself a regular at that same magazine) informed me that the readership is mostly male even though plenty of female poets are published there. I was surprised because he had published poems that to me seemed similar. Sometimes I only learn what a particular magazine wants by getting a few poems rejected. That’s why my acceptance rate gradually increases as I send in more.
And when it comes to writing what your friends say means very little most of the time. I can almost say with certainty you were not rejected because the editors were males. And something to keep in mind is that publications have a chain of command and the editor is the last to read your work, and that's only if it was passed all the way up. You have no way of knowing the sex of all the slush readers who read your work. It's not likely it would have made it to the editor if it wasn't something appropriate for the publication. It's not always just the editor making these decisions even if they have the final say. There are editorial meetings where promising work is discussed by the editorial team, but those meetings are only to talk about the work they are seriously considering. But from the way you're describing the situation, it doesn't sound like your submission would have even reached these particular editors. You mentioned earlier how to get out of the slush. I don't imagine any of us would know the sex of a slush reader who rejected our work. Maybe you sent the wrong kind of work in for the publication to consider, but saying it's because they were male editors that your work was rejected is ridiculous. It just sort of sounds like you're looking for reasons your work was rejected and someone to blame. I'm only saying this because it does a writer no good to start coming up with excuses, especially as outlandish as the sex of the editor. That's a lot different than saying you submitted something that was not appropriate or inline with what they want to be publishing. It's better to learn about a publication by reading it than by having work rejected by it. And when it comes to writing what your friends say means very little most of the time.
What you're saying here sounds more like you're uninformed than offensive. Yes, there are some publications that focus on a female readership (like Room) and some that focus on a male readership (like Bull). It really sounds like you didn't know these publications well enough before submitting. It almost sounds like you're a little excited to have people hate your work. I can't ever in my life remember ever hating a piece of writing other than my own.
