Submission Strategy

Review guidelines. Some accept simultaneous submissions (more than one publication/zine at a time) and some accept multiple submissions (more than one piece to a single publication/zine at a time). Many do not.

I've seen a lot of writers start with a top-down submission schedule but my sense is, unless you're a known commodity, it might be a better idea to really target your submissions and start with the little/middle guys. Then, when you have some publishing credits to your name, you should get more attention from the big guys.

Some editors still take the time to provide insightful comments in rejections, even if it's only one or two points. But those one or two points could make the stories better, so I suggest submitting in small batches, reviewing rejections and possibly revising before submitting to the next batch.

Good luck.

I send material to magazines and sites I enjoy reading. Simple as that, and I tend to ignore the monetary level of the market. If you are intending to see your work flourish, you need to see it out there (anywhere), so you can identify areas you still need to work on.

Personally, I go for the magazines that I respect and desire to be published in the most. But it can also depend, as some have already said, on specific submission requirements. It may also depend on the story you're submitting, and if it lies within genres that limit which publications would even consider it in the first place.

Generally, in most queries, I try to find 3-5 places to submit it to at once, mainly because of the often slow turnaround time. If I just submitted to one at a time (and this goes for novels and agents too) then it might take a very long time to find the right fit.

If you're looking for credits and/or money, start at the top. If you're looking for fun, it doesn't matter. Most SFF markets don't take sim subs, so you'll be sending to one at a time. There's no point in holding back stories. Once they're ready, submit them.

hillaryjacques said:

I've seen a lot of writers start with a top-down submission schedule but my sense is, unless you're a known commodity, it might be a better idea to really target your submissions and start with the little/middle guys. Then, when you have some publishing credits to your name, you should get more attention from the big guys.

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That really isn't true. Plenty of pro markets publish new writers. The only credits likely to impress the editor of a pro market are sales to other pro markets... and it won't make them buy the story if they don't like it.

I try to hit a few pro-pay markets with each story, then work my way through the semi-pro ones. Stories that I believe in more get more stabs at the pro markets, maybe 7ish. I never submit to non-paying mags, and will occasionally submit to token ones.

I never do sim-subs either. I've got enough stories on submission that long waits aren't that much an issue.

Nicole

Polenth said:

That really isn't true. Plenty of pro markets publish new writers. The only credits likely to impress the editor of a pro market are sales to other pro markets... and it won't make them buy the story if they don't like it.

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I'll defer to you on this, Polenth, since I haven't submitted many short stories.

Matt, you might pop into the short story thread in General Writing Interests to get an idea of the current market environment.

Start small than go bigger! Don't expect to tackle a jump before you learn how to walk.

MattJ said:

I just wanted to hear some opinions on submission strategies, particularly with regards to speculative short fiction sites/magazines. Is the key strategy a full out blitz on all fronts, pro to semi pro to non-paying, seeing what bites? Or do you top down from the top markets? Do you lay everything out there, or hold some stories back?

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Really depends on what you want. Money, credits, something else? There's no good reason to not shoot for the top markets first. Why not try to get top dollar for your stories? Worst that will happen is you'll get a rejection, then you just send the story right back out to the next market on the list. Aim high.

No value in holding back stories either. Finish a story, submit it, start the next one. A story sitting on your hard drive earns you nothing but practice (which isn't a bad thing, really, always need more practice).

As for going for semi-pro to non-paying, that really depends on what you want out of writing. A non-paying credit may not mean much, and why would you accept no payment for your work where there might be a paying market you could submit to?

You could even choose to self-publish the story and start building your inventory of product. Sell the story for 99 cents on Smashwords and/or Amazon Kindle; you may not make a lot of cash right away, but that story could earn a little cash for you over the course of forever. And that's a long time.

Good luck, whatever you decide!

As more people are suggesting this, I'll expand a bit on the point of starting big...

The small markets first thing is something you normally hear from writers who've only been published in small markets, rather than the pro editors they're hoping to impress. The editors say to start at the top, because if they love your story, they'll buy it. I've yet to see an editor say they're impressed by a list of credits at markets they've never heard of.

The danger in believing you have to start small is you guarantee you won't sell to a pro market, because you never send them stuff. I noticed this when I sold a story to Nature... many of the people who said they'd like to be published there had never actually submitted to them. They'd pre-rejected themselves by not submitting anything.

Let the editors decide. If the pros reject it, you can still sell it to a small market, so it's not as though you've lost anything. However, if you sell a story to a small market that you could have sold to a pro, you missed out on getting a really great sale.

I'm with Polenth on this. Send it to the best markets and then work your way down. If you're improving, then eventually one of the pro places will take a story. The only credits that impress editors are impressive credits. Seems obvious, but it's true. (And credits don't sell your story--they may help it get a longer look over, but the story has to be good enough.)

The other problem is that because it's easier to get published in lower-paying or non-paying markets, it may become a temptation to try for them and get the egoboo rather than being more patient and trying to write something good enough for a pro market. I certainly feel this when I'm sick of a story.

I took the top-down approach, and my first sale was to a pro-paying market. Credits do not matter at all in short fiction, only in novels (and in SF&F, often not even then.)

I recommend the top-down approach if SFWA membership is important to you, obviously. Their list of qualifying markets is a good place to start, not for money, but for prestige and possible eventual membership. Seriously though guys, "top dollar" for a short story isn't even going to pay a month's rent, so don't even consider money. If a magazine is respected and is SFWA-eligible, it's "top," even if someone else pays more.

Here's the list: http://www.sfwa.org/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements/#shortfiction

But there are plenty of non-SFWA markets that are also very well respected. Some are not eligible simply because they're too new, like Lightspeed, others don't pay enough to qualify but you should still thank your lucky stars if you get in, such as Shimmer. (I only give one example of each so people don't get offended they're left out )

I honestly don't see any reason for submitting to "lesser" markets first unless you are genuinely desperate for a quick turnaround time and not just impatient (for example, your Campbell clock is ticking and you just need to get a certain amount of fiction out there where people can read it, STAT.) But even that advice only works if you know which "lesser" markets have a really quick turnaround time.

Strangely, the fastest turnarounds (at least, for rejections) seem to be some of the top markets. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, and Lightspeed all stand out as having less-than-a-month response times, so there is really no reason not to submit to those.

Hope this helps.

The only real downside of sending to big names first is that you wait a few weeks and spend a few cents on postage (if it's a paper-only submission market) in order to get a rejection. You then send it on to the next market and send the new story you wrote in those few weeks to the first one. After a while if the stories aren't picked up you send them to the second tier and eventually you give up and put it out as a $0.99 ebook.

Once you have a bunch of stories queued up the only real cost is any postage you have to pay and any lost sales that you might have made by putting them up earlier as an ebook. And the latter probably won't be much if you sent it to the right markets for the story and it still wasn't enticing enough for someone to want to buy it.

Polenth said:

As more people are suggesting this, I'll expand a bit on the point of starting big...

The small markets first thing is something you normally hear from writers who've only been published in small markets, rather than the pro editors they're hoping to impress. The editors say to start at the top, because if they love your story, they'll buy it. I've yet to see an editor say they're impressed by a list of credits at markets they've never heard of.

The danger in believing you have to start small is you guarantee you won't sell to a pro market, because you never send them stuff. I noticed this when I sold a story to Nature... many of the people who said they'd like to be published there had never actually submitted to them. They'd pre-rejected themselves by not submitting anything.

Let the editors decide. If the pros reject it, you can still sell it to a small market, so it's not as though you've lost anything. However, if you sell a story to a small market that you could have sold to a pro, you missed out on getting a really great sale.

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What she said

Why shoot low when I can just as easily shoot high? These days I start with the pros and work my way down to the semi-pros. If I really like a token or nonpaying market (polished product, high standards), I'll sub there, too. Since I'm trying to up my associate SFWA membership to active, I always sub to the appropriate SFWA pro markets first.

Once a story is finished, I put it on the market and keep it there. A story may be recalled for revision, but it's never trunked. I recently published a twelve-year-older in a very nice anthology. Give up? Ain't happening until I run out of stamps and Internet access. Story comes back, story goes out again the next day. If story doesn't like it, it should have picked another writer.

I go from the top down, personally. I've only been seriously subbing short stories for a while, but I believe in it from the little bit of poetry submitting I did, where I was genuinely surprised by one of the markets I got into.

waylander said:

Polenth said:

As more people are suggesting this, I'll expand a bit on the point of starting big...

The small markets first thing is something you normally hear from writers who've only been published in small markets, rather than the pro editors they're hoping to impress. The editors say to start at the top, because if they love your story, they'll buy it. I've yet to see an editor say they're impressed by a list of credits at markets they've never heard of.

The danger in believing you have to start small is you guarantee you won't sell to a pro market, because you never send them stuff. I noticed this when I sold a story to Nature... many of the people who said they'd like to be published there had never actually submitted to them. They'd pre-rejected themselves by not submitting anything.

Let the editors decide. If the pros reject it, you can still sell it to a small market, so it's not as though you've lost anything. However, if you sell a story to a small market that you could have sold to a pro, you missed out on getting a really great sale.

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What she said

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Ditto this.

authorgirl1485 said:

Start small than go bigger! Don't expect to tackle a jump before you learn how to walk.

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I completely, vehemently, disagree with this.

Start at the top markets. As someone else said, markets that publish stories you like are more likely to like stuff you've written, so that's a good place to start, but you never know what's going to catch an editor's eye. It's the editor's job to reject you, not your job to reject yourself. Make sure you follow submission guidelines. Appreciate any actual feedback you get (whether or not you agree with it -- you don't have to), don't be tempted to respond to feedback or argue with a rejection. Work your way down until either you sell your story or you start hitting markets you'd be embarrassed to ever admit you had anything to do with or which just aren't worth squandering a story on, and stop there. If you still believe in your unsold story, set it aside and revisit the market listings in six months. Meanwhile, write more stuff.

Good luck!

-Suzanne

Re: wasted postage... at least in SF&F, the top markets are all going electronic. F&SF is now the last holdout, even Grandpa Analog has gone E.

I'm also going to agree with the top-down approach, but for a reason no one has explicitly stated:

Assuming that pro-rate or well-respected zines are your goal, then submitting to lower-tier zines means you don't think your work is ready.

(Now, there are plenty of well-respected zines that don't pay pro rates, with tons of fantastic writers. There are zines that I respect and would love to be in that pay token or flat rates. Furturismic, for example.)

But the question here is: If you don't think your work is good enough, why are you submitting it in the first place? Seriously. Trunk it and write something you would be proud of seeing in whatever magazine is your ultimate goal.


As Polenth said, you can always sell down, although I would not advocate submitting to whatever random market you can find. If it's not pro- or semi-pro- rates, read a few issues, and decide if you would be proud of being published next to those stories. If not, don't submit.

I don't submit to non-paying markets. When I run out of all paying markets that seem appropriate for a finished story, I put it aside until new markets open up (unless I no longer think the piece is good enough for publication).

Liosse de Velishaf said:

But the question here is: If you don't think your work is good enough, why are you submitting it in the first place? Seriously. Trunk it and write something you would be proud of seeing in whatever magazine is your ultimate goal.

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Some writers never feel that their work is ready. I tend to be one of these, and submit instead when I know that the story is the best I can make it, and more editing will make it worse/beat it to death.

I am unfortunately the same. I am hideously embarrassed by everything I have written, sold or unsold, published or unpublished.

Top-down, all the way. Non-paying markets are not on my list. I might write a small prose piece or poem for a charity project, but if a story's good enough to sell, it should be good enough for at least a few cents per word.

Unpublished (and under-published) writers often don't know if they're good enough to make it in the major leagues, so they never even try.

With email submissions, the cost of trying has gone down to the writers' time and what they spend on internet connections. If they send out enough stories and trade critiques, they'll learn their skill level. So it makes sense to shoot for the big targets as soon as possible.