Submitting part of a larger work?

1) snip out what you want

2) tell publishers part of it got published in a magazine. This might actually help you sell it.....? At least they'll know someone liked it enough to publish!

Well, it won't necessarily help you sell it, but if you manage to sell just that part, it's still an accomplishment.


Publishing part in a mag may or may not keep a publisher from buying it.

Nothing wrong with the idea. But the excerpt almost certainly would need to stand on its own as a short story. That said, you won't have much trouble finding books that acknowledge somewhere in the front matter that portions of the text have been published in XXXXX Journal.

caw

As Blacbird said, I've seen plenty of books that mention part of the story was originally published in a magazine.

That said, be willing to rework your excerpt into a well-rounded short story, even changing details to help it stand alone apart from the rest of the work. If you publish the original full-length version later, you can go back to the original format and I think your readers would understand why you made any changes.

I don't work much in the short market, but 8K sounds pretty long, too.

Ardent Kat said:

As Blacbird said, I've seen plenty of books that mention part of the story was originally published in a magazine.

That said, be willing to rework your excerpt into a well-rounded short story, even changing details to help it stand alone apart from the rest of the work. If you publish the original full-length version later, you can go back to the original format and I think your readers would understand why you made any changes.

I don't work much in the short market, but 8K sounds pretty long, too.

Click to expand...

Technically, short stories run from about 1000-7499 words. Below that is flash, above that is novelettes. Which some places publish. But maybe cutting down would work better.

Once upon a time, there was a distinction between such things as serial rights, all rights, one time rights, reprint rights, and book rights. Does that still hold?

If you can turn a segment of a novel into a short story, I'd say it would be a plus if it sold. A lot of agents want to know if you have published. According to comments at conferences, I have the impression it helps catch agent attention.

Well, yes and no. If it's a well-known magazine, then you might get a little bit more benefit if the doubt, but that's about it. In the end, they judge on the story.

A professional short story credit will not get you an agent/publisher. Only your story will. If that's the only reason to get short story credits, you're better off walking away now and focusing on your novel.

But should you want to be a short story writer...

* Professional credits are the ones people notice. Those markets don't take novel extracts. It needs to stand alone as a short story (and you'd submit it as a short story - don't tell them it's part of a longer work as that implies it doesn't stand alone).

* If you're successful, it could take a year or so to get through the short story submissions and see the piece in print. Most contracts come with a clause saying it won't be republished for a certain time after publication. In the long term, this doesn't stop the novel being published. In the short term, it means delays.

If you're already done writing the novel, you may not want this delay. You'd be better off querying the novel.

* It's hard to break into the professional short story markets. It's not the easy route to getting credits. Prepare to put a lot of work in reading/writing shorts and sending submissions. It's very likely this novel extract won't sell to a professional market, so you'll need a plan for what to do next. Most successful short story writers have many stories out on submission at once.