"How you uh, how you coming on that novel you're working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice little story you're working on there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh?"
So yeah. You've put in the work. You've got a stack of stories you want the world to read because the world HAS to read these stories. Immediately. Now what?
I won't begin to tell you there's a single right way to do any of this; I think history shows us over and over again that everyone forges their own path to success and there's no better way to write a story than the way you write it. There's also no better way to try to get published and taken seriously unless it's on your terms. Having said that, I'll just go over my own process for the last year and a half. Don't take it as gospel, but feel free to use it as a trail map until you've found your own way.
When I realized I had several stories I could start sending out to various publishers, I googled these phrases to start off with:
- Literary Journal
- Journal
- Literary Review
- Review
- Fiction Submissions
You get a pretty good long list of places accepting work from both new and established authors. But one shouldn't simply barrage vast numbers of magazines in the hopes that something will stick. Like readers, each magazine has its own personal aesthetic and most implore you to read previous issues so that you don't waste your time submitting or waste their time reading that sci-fi/western piece you submitted to a place that deals primarily in turn-of-the-century, coming-of-age stories written in transcendentalist styles. But it's not always feasible to read a single copy of every literary journal out there just to find out whether or not they'll like your stuff.
What I found while picking up new story collections by authors I'd never heard of before was that each author typically had published some of their stories elsewhere separately first. As rational an approach as this was, it had never occurred to me to approach publishing this way. Short story collections that I found myself drawn to were typically of the weirder, more surreal, more slipstream/experimental and there was a pattern to where many of the authors had submitted their works to. Since I feel I write in this same vein, I began checking these sites and magazines specifically. I began submitting, feeling pretty firmly that I wasn't wasting my time or the publisher's time by doing so. What I soon realized was that I needed to have a system in place.
A great tool is Submittable (formerly Submishmash). If you don't already have an account here, you should get one as it's become almost the industry standard when it comes to writing submissions. Not only does it track the pieces that have been accepted, but tracks the ones that are currently being read, the ones that have been declined, so on. It's a really incredible resource that's helped me immensely. But supposing you don't currently have an account there? What would you do?
Almost like making copies in triplicate, I devised a few processes that help keep me from submitting pieces either to the same place twice or two pieces to the same place at the same time. The first is via my external hard-drive where I keep my files. Since every journal or magazine may have different requirements for submitting (pagination, contact information placement, etc.), each submission is a separate file. The letter (z) denotes pieces that are currently being considered, the letter (W) means pieces I've had to withdraw because they'd been accepted at other magazines, the letter (D) means the piece was denied or rejected, and the letters (AAA) means the piece was accepted. Not only is everything alphabetized, but each submission is dated as well so that I don't submit more times than is necessary during reading periods.
So that's two ways I've got my submissions info backed up, which is good because not every journal or magazine utilizes Submittable. Some prefer by mail, email, or their own submission managers particular to their site. Either way, now I've got every submission (denied, accepted, withdrawn) completely accounted for in this file. A quick scan can show me all the places I've submitted to and which pieces have been denied where. But I needed to be more thorough, more ADD about the process.
I keep an online journal and began utilizing it to keep track of links to submission sites, all their pertinent information (dates due, page requirements, whether or not they allowed simultaneous submissions, etc.), and even as another way of simply showing which pieces were in which stage of review for publication.
And though it's a pain in the ass to keep updating, it's proven to be a wildly excellent system for me. The list of publications and the information I require grows every day and I keep adding publication opportunities to each story single story entry. When I submit to one place, I remove that particular link from that story's entry so I never end up resubmitting the same piece to a magazine twice. No one wants to be remembered as that guy that just couldn't take a hint after his first rejection letter.
There are PLENTY of places out there for every taste and genre of writer, so don't get too discouraged. And if you find yourself discouraged or waiting with bated breath to hear back about the status of a submission...stop. Go back to writing, go back to finishing half-cooked projects so that you can continue submitting to other places. By the time you've forgotten to check their statuses, they'll have already gotten back to you and you'll have already created new pieces to submit.
I genuinely hope this helps, even a little bit. Granted this is just my own laborious process, but it's been working thus far.
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