Hey y'all, I've been rummaging through The Writer's Market and WinningWriters for current contests and magazines that seek short stories in fiction, To my dissapointment, many of them seem to be aimed at American or British residents for the contests and the magazines are harder to get a good feel for what they want unless you're already familiar with the content they generally go for (ie: you read them) Through all that searching, I found one current contests that I am vying to partake in but is there any more "open to all" contests or Canadian based ones? You Americans are lucky, there's like hundreds excluseively for you I thought about SFnF, Spoc, and the like but I'd have to read their issues first before I even consider writing anything for them as that's kinda a mistake not to, in my opinion. I dislike Wrtiers of the Future because it's run and funded by Scientologists and that kinda freaks me out... But I'm getting off topic. Also, in this topic, share any contests you feel like that are currently open that others might find interesting.
I know this doesn't directly address your question, but does your local library have copies of the magazines you want to submit to? That's a good (and free) way to see what kinds of stories their editors are looking for. Also, in my opinion, it's far better to submit pieces for publication rather than entering contests, so that's what I'd aim for.
Don't be too happy for Americans, many times the contests are just a ploy to get us to buy a copy of whatever publication they are going to print the entries in. Sure the winner might get a free copy, but all the other entries will have to buy their own copy and the contest administrators end up making money off the contest. Danial could do that here. He could charge $5 an entry for a contest and then keep 25% of the total pool to pay server fees and then pay out the rest to first, second, and third place. The problem would be finding a fair way to judge the entries.
@thirdwind I believe a publication and a cash prize is just as good as getting published by a book publisher, Notably with short stories as publishers tend to look for longer works of 50k words and up unless they're doing an anthology. It's credentials to mark on your query letters that show editors you aren't just a new writer and have some talent, right? @Lewdog The contests I am specifically referring to are all open calls from short story publishers to magazines who mostly use freelance work to fill their issues. I'd never consider paying an entrance fee and it's easy enough to see whether they're reputable or not. Yes, there's loads of those scam ones, but Writer's Market does not list those, thankfully, and there's just as many legit opportunities. And I use the word "contest" loosely. Lot's of people seem to be looking for short stories for anthologies as they publish those rather novels and lots of magazines seem to operate on freelance work when it comes to fiction.
Be aware that many of these contests are huge money makers for the contest providers. One large and very well known writers group charges $30.00 for a submission and end up with up to 1000 - 1500 entries. They hold these contests up to twice every six weeks.
Anything 50k words and up isn't a short story. Stories fall in the 2k-7.5k words range (roughly). Book publishers aren't going to be interested in individual stories, and your chances of getting them to publish a story collection aren't much better. Hoping for publication and a cash prize is fine, but here's something to consider. Your chances of getting a story published the regular way are better. Contests usually give cash prizes for the top 3 entries, whereas magazines publish 5-15 stories per issue (from my experience). So if your piece gets accepted by an editor, you'll be published and you'll get cash anyway. Granted, winning first place in a contest pays a lot, so I guess it depends on how confident you are and how expensive it is to enter.
@thirdwind That's why I mentioned book publishers specifically in that context. They rarely seek short stories and usually for an anthology.
