Erika Krouse's LitMag Rankings- do they have any weight?

[ScottyWriter]

Hello. First proper post so I hope it's in the right place.

Erika Krouse has her listings of 500 Lit Mags at https://www.erikakrousewriter.com/e...literary-magazines-for-short-fiction/#ranking

She has placed them in 5 tiers depending on prestige plus payments and other factors. Now, there will be plenty of lit mags of various types on submission grinder which don't make the cut. I've had 2 stories published in incredibly obscure mags that I doubt even still exist that I must have found online somehow a couple of years ago.

I want to ask if, in your opinion, it's worth submitting to 'no name' journals if your work is rejected from all the tier 5 mags that are open or if you consider your work to be sub-standard if it doesn't make the cut at tier 5 and unfit for publication at all?

I don't know the answer. Part of me feels it's elitist to adhere to someone else's list, that good mags must exist beyond it. But then another part of me thinks that if work is published in a journal that has a very low bar to acceptance, saying its been published doesn't really mean anything.

Maybe it depends on your end goal? Mine is to learn the craft of storytelling through short stories before embarking on a novel. I realise I don't NEED to be published to do that but does having some credits in less obtuse publications help your cause when approaching agents/publishers?

 

[Unimportant]

Hello. First proper post so I hope it's in the right place.

Erika Krouse has her listings of 500 Lit Mags at https://www.erikakrousewriter.com/e...literary-magazines-for-short-fiction/#ranking

She has placed them in 5 tiers depending on prestige plus payments and other factors. Now, there will be plenty of lit mags of various types on submission grinder which don't make the cut. I've had 2 stories published in incredibly obscure mags that I doubt even still exist that I must have found online somehow a couple of years ago.

I want to ask if, in your opinion, it's worth submitting to 'no name' journals if your work is rejected from all the tier 5 mags that are open or if you consider your work to be sub-standard if it doesn't make the cut at tier 5 and unfit for publication at all?

I don't know the answer. Part of me feels it's elitist to adhere to someone else's list, that good mags must exist beyond it. But then another part of me thinks that if work is published in a journal that has a very low bar to acceptance, saying its been published doesn't really mean anything.

Maybe it depends on your end goal? Mine is to learn the craft of storytelling through short stories before embarking on a novel. I realise I don't NEED to be published to do that but does having some credits in less obtuse publications help your cause when approaching agents/publishers?

Everyone's different, and everyone has their own line in the sand. Ya gotta do what's right for you.

Me, when I've got a story I want to sell, I make a list and send the story out, starting at the top and working my way down. When I hit my 'line in the sand' I go see if there are new markets/anthologies that I can add to the top of the list, and go through it again.

I don't feel that a lower tier sale is a 'waste'. Some stories are good but just won't suit what the top tiers are looking for. Some genres don't have top tiers altogether. Sometimes I just need to get a sale under my belt. Sometimes I just need twenty bucks in my PayPal for some other purpose. Some magazines are new and not yet 'ranked' but have an editor I want to sell to. For me, it's never say never.

(ETA: Caveat = I write genre fiction, not literary, so everything I say may not apply in the least.)

 

[Lakey]

I don’t think there is one right answer that would suit all writers. To answer the question for yourself, consider what your goals are. Is it important to you to get paid, even just a nominal amount? Is it important to you that your story goes in a journal people have heard of?

Also ask yourself, what is the difference between a journal this one individual gives a score of 0 to (of which there are many on this list) and one she hasn’t listed at all? By her own estimation, “this list is probably about 92% accurate across the board“ — whatever that means.

The two published stories linked in my sig below are both in journals she didn’t list (I’m a little surprised that Minerva Rising isn’t on her list, but who knows). I got paid a nominal amount for one of the stories and nothing for the other. I’m very proud of both publications, because I read a few issues of each journal before I submitted and thought the quality of the stories was pretty good. I’m pleased to be among them. So that’s another point to consider, when trying to decide whether to submit to a journal, whether or not on Krouse’s list: Do you like the journal? Will you be pleased to be featured in it?

 

[AbelCM]

So that’s another point to consider, when trying to decide whether to submit to a journal, whether or not on Krouse’s list: Do you like the journal? Will you be pleased to be featured in it?

That's what I do. I write short stories as kind of practice and distraction while I work on a novel, but I try to get them published sometimes. It feels like it's just on a whim, so I submit to any journal that's open for submissions, but only if I like the other stories in them and they're aesthetically pleasing.

If the other stories in a journal are really good, the bar to acceptance is probably not that low, right? Whatever the ranking.

I don't know if having stories in obscure publications helps you find an agent. I hope so?

But because I'm starting to like the stories I write more, I think I'm going to change my approach and next time start at the top and work my way down. Not so much because of the prestige but because, if I like my story, I want people to read it!

 

[ScottyWriter]

I don’t think there is one right answer that would suit all writers. To answer the question for yourself, consider what your goals are. Is it important to you to get paid, even just a nominal amount? Is it important to you that your story goes in a journal people have heard of?

Also ask yourself, what is the difference between a journal this one individual gives a score of 0 to (of which there are many on this list) and one she hasn’t listed at all? By her own estimation, “this list is probably about 92% accurate across the board“ — whatever that means.

The two published stories linked in my sig below are both in journals she didn’t list (I’m a little surprised that Minerva Rising isn’t on her list, but who knows). I got paid a nominal amount for one of the stories and nothing for the other. I’m very proud of both publications, because I read a few issues of each journal before I submitted and thought the quality of the stories was pretty good. I’m pleased to be among them. So that’s another point to consider, when trying to decide whether to submit to a journal, whether or not on Krouse’s list: Do you like the journal? Will you be pleased to be featured in it?

That's a very good point about liking the journal first. I guess I need to research each journal properly rather than just grab the name off Submission Grinder or the Krouse list. I don't mind about not getting paid, I guess I'm more interested in being read. I'll dive in and read your stories after lunch!

 

[ScottyWriter]

That's what I do. I write short stories as kind of practice and distraction while I work on a novel, but I try to get them published sometimes. It feels like it's just on a whim, so I submit to any journal that's open for submissions, but only if I like the other stories in them and they're aesthetically pleasing.

If the other stories in a journal are really good, the bar to acceptance is probably not that low, right? Whatever the ranking.

I don't know if having stories in obscure publications helps you find an agent. I hope so?

But because I'm starting to like the stories I write more, I think I'm going to change my approach and next time start at the top and work my way down. Not so much because of the prestige but because, if I like my story, I want people to read it!

Exactly. That's what I want most of all- is to be read.

 

[ap123]

That's what I do. I write short stories as kind of practice and distraction while I work on a novel, but I try to get them published sometimes. It feels like it's just on a whim, so I submit to any journal that's open for submissions, but only if I like the other stories in them and they're aesthetically pleasing.

If the other stories in a journal are really good, the bar to acceptance is probably not that low, right? Whatever the ranking.

I don't know if having stories in obscure publications helps you find an agent. I hope so?

But because I'm starting to like the stories I write more, I think I'm going to change my approach and next time start at the top and work my way down. Not so much because of the prestige but because, if I like my story, I want people to read it!

bolding mine.

I don't want to make assumptions as to your intent, but want to point out while all types of writing can teach us valuable lessons that can then be applied to other forms, short stories are their own, distinct art form.

 

[lorna_w]

I think they're dead on target. She did her market research. Pay + how many times it gets people in BASS (and other such places) are great ways to measure. It's a very good resource.

 

[ScottyWriter]

bolding mine.

I don't want to make assumptions as to your intent, but want to point out while all types of writing can teach us valuable lessons that can then be applied to other forms, short stories are their own, distinct art form.

Absolutely. I'm just rather scared of writing a novel right now- so many threads to weave successfully. As some of the skills of story telling are the same, I thought it better that I try and get a grip on that first while I brew my ideas for a novel.

 

[ChaseJxyz]

They clearly must have a spreadsheet of this info, but they're just not????? gonna share it with us?????? why. why.

[Guess I have to make one myself!] I did the best I could to clean up the data but you'll see that, for some rows, the payment column onward gets fucky because the OG data is normally using commas to separate the rows BUT THEN ITS ALSO USING THE COMMAS IN THE PAYMENT COLUMN. I am not going to fix all of that. I have better things to do with my life.

The link is read-only for the workbook, BUT you can click File ==> Save As ==> Download a Copy if you would like to have your own copy. Then you can fix it yourself, if you care to. Or you can just use the currently, like, 80% good version for your own internal submission tracking.

 

[Lakey]

They clearly must have a spreadsheet of this info, but they're just not????? gonna share it with us?????? why. why.

Ms. Krouse offers her spreadsheet via a download link right there in the article.

 

[Helix]

They clearly must have a spreadsheet of this info, but they're just not????? gonna share it with us?????? why. why.

The spreadsheet link is in the third point down under New in 2023. It works fine. I downloaded it last night to look at the pay rates.

 

[Farnham]

Absolutely. I'm just rather scared of writing a novel right now- so many threads to weave successfully. As some of the skills of story telling are the same, I thought it better that I try and get a grip on that first while I brew my ideas for a novel.

Think of it as practice. Seriously. The very work of putting a novel together teaches us something. We may not be able to pull off what we want to pull off now, but if we learn, we might. Writing is a skill, like anything else, and all skills take practice to learn to do well.

 

[ScottyWriter]

Think of it as practice. Seriously. The very work of putting a novel together teaches us something. We may not be able to pull off what we want to pull off now, but if we learn, we might. Writing is a skill, like anything else, and all skills take practice to learn to do well.

I get what you're saying. Just do it and I'll learn along the way. I've thought about doing NaNoWriMo this year. Maybe I should.