Publishing short-form SF. How? Where?
March 3, 2022 9:25 AM Subscribe
What advice or experience do you have breaking into publishing your SF short-form fiction?
I've recently spent some time writing SF short stories. I've been participating in the "Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror", and have had a measure of success there and feel like I might be ready to start to publish. I have about seven stories that I feel good about.
I've had one publication in an unpaid online magazine.
I don't see this as a form of significant income, but more of an ego/general satisfaction with the meaning of my life/identity thing. (I'd love to think of myself as an 'SF author', basically.) I'd like to publish in 'real', paid markets, and try to get into the SFWA eventually.
The problem is: there's a ton of markets. Each one has different requirements, lengths, formats. Each one is open for submissions at different periods and takes a different time to respond if they respond. I'd like to submit to mostly pro (or semi-pro?) markets, but am a bit overwhelmed. It feels like something you should hire somebody to do for you.
So, to reiterate, what advice or experience do you have breaking into publishing SF short-form fiction? Did you just pick a few markets at random, spam all of them, pick one and hammer away? Is there a method or just madness?
I won't link my stories here, but if anybody would like to read them I'd be happy to share them directly. They're mostly low-stakes near future or low-stakes space opera-ish settings.
I've recently spent some time writing SF short stories. I've been participating in the "Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror", and have had a measure of success there and feel like I might be ready to start to publish. I have about seven stories that I feel good about.
I've had one publication in an unpaid online magazine.
I don't see this as a form of significant income, but more of an ego/general satisfaction with the meaning of my life/identity thing. (I'd love to think of myself as an 'SF author', basically.) I'd like to publish in 'real', paid markets, and try to get into the SFWA eventually.
The problem is: there's a ton of markets. Each one has different requirements, lengths, formats. Each one is open for submissions at different periods and takes a different time to respond if they respond. I'd like to submit to mostly pro (or semi-pro?) markets, but am a bit overwhelmed. It feels like something you should hire somebody to do for you.
So, to reiterate, what advice or experience do you have breaking into publishing SF short-form fiction? Did you just pick a few markets at random, spam all of them, pick one and hammer away? Is there a method or just madness?
I won't link my stories here, but if anybody would like to read them I'd be happy to share them directly. They're mostly low-stakes near future or low-stakes space opera-ish settings.
OH also I follow the magazines on my list on Twitter — that’s a good way to find out who has submission periods opening soon.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 10:07 AM on March 3, 2022
posted by goodbyewaffles at 10:07 AM on March 3, 2022
Best answer: goodbyewaffles has it. You can enter your pieces into your private Submission Grinder account with word length and genre. Then you can run a search for each piece. You can sort the results by things like pay and average speed of response. After looking through the results, you will likely find that there are only a handful of pro markets open at any given time for a specific story. In addition, most pro markets will only let you submit one story to them at a time, and most pro markets will not allow you to submit the same story to more than one market simultaneously ("sim sub"/simultaneous submissions, generally prohibited unless specified otherwise). Some markets also have a waiting period after a rejection before you send another. Once you start doing this, the problem will likely solve itself: you probably cannot send 7 stories one after the other to a specific pro magazine unless you want to spend 3 years doing it. (I'm making up numbers but you get the idea.) In the meantime, keep writing and building up your stories on hand. All of the pro publications have +/- a 99.9% rejection rate, so even if all of your stories are absolutely top-rate, it helps to have a lot to submit over time.
There are also several free-to-inexpensive online conventions, such as Flights of Foundry, which have panels on topics like this one. And you may be able to catch editors/slush readers of pro magazines talking about what they see too little and too much of.
Good luck!
posted by wintersweet at 10:18 AM on March 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
There are also several free-to-inexpensive online conventions, such as Flights of Foundry, which have panels on topics like this one. And you may be able to catch editors/slush readers of pro magazines talking about what they see too little and too much of.
Good luck!
posted by wintersweet at 10:18 AM on March 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I got a lot of my early worked published in Bewildering Stories. They don't pay and they are not a pushover, they make a fair number of rejections, (33.3% author acceptance rate according to Duotrope. This can compare to 1% in some of the harder markets.) but they do publish a lot: 940 issues in the last 20 years.
I found them to be useful and helpful when getting my feet wet.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:48 AM on March 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
I found them to be useful and helpful when getting my feet wet.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:48 AM on March 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Seconding The Submission Grinder as a place to look for markets. Here's what I do:
- Use the Advanced Search feature to search for mags that accept sci-fi and set the minimum pay to $0.08 (the current SFWA qualifying rate)
- Filter by the length of your story. That'll narrow it down to a few dozen.
- Sort the search results by response time (lowest first).
- Go down the list and read the submission guidelines carefully until you find one that's a good fit for your story.
- Follow the guidelines carefully and submit.
- Armour your heart for rejection (there's a lot of rejection in this game - you can look at each market's acceptance rates on Submission Grinder).
- If you receive a rejection, move down to the next market and repeat.
I've never had a story accepted by Clarkesworld, but I almost always submit there first, because they're a pro-paying market that responds extremely quickly.
The Ralan pro markets page is also a good resource that lets you quickly scan pay rates, story lengths, etc. The design hasn't been updated since 1996, but the market listings are extremely up to date.
posted by Prunesquallor at 11:39 AM on March 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
- Use the Advanced Search feature to search for mags that accept sci-fi and set the minimum pay to $0.08 (the current SFWA qualifying rate)
- Filter by the length of your story. That'll narrow it down to a few dozen.
- Sort the search results by response time (lowest first).
- Go down the list and read the submission guidelines carefully until you find one that's a good fit for your story.
- Follow the guidelines carefully and submit.
- Armour your heart for rejection (there's a lot of rejection in this game - you can look at each market's acceptance rates on Submission Grinder).
- If you receive a rejection, move down to the next market and repeat.
I've never had a story accepted by Clarkesworld, but I almost always submit there first, because they're a pro-paying market that responds extremely quickly.
The Ralan pro markets page is also a good resource that lets you quickly scan pay rates, story lengths, etc. The design hasn't been updated since 1996, but the market listings are extremely up to date.
posted by Prunesquallor at 11:39 AM on March 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks all. I've created a Submission Grinder profile and submitted three stories. Now to sit back and wait for the rejections!
posted by signal at 1:19 PM on March 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 1:19 PM on March 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Rachel Swirsky wrote a blog post on Jeff VanderMeer's site that's always stuck with me. In it, she talks about her own system for submitting work. It's good food for thought.
In addition to the above, I look at where authors I dig are publishing—that gives me some idea of what pubs I ought to keep my eyes on. Magazines that get stuff on the major award nominees list and/or in best-of-the-year anthologies also earn a spot on my radar, at least tentatively. If they keep showing up in other ways, I follow them more earnestly.
posted by xenization at 2:28 PM on March 3, 2022
In addition to the above, I look at where authors I dig are publishing—that gives me some idea of what pubs I ought to keep my eyes on. Magazines that get stuff on the major award nominees list and/or in best-of-the-year anthologies also earn a spot on my radar, at least tentatively. If they keep showing up in other ways, I follow them more earnestly.
posted by xenization at 2:28 PM on March 3, 2022
Best answer: Hi! I’m a published short story writer (one so far, hopefully another one soon) and agented novelist.
The best recent resource I’ve seen on breaking into short fiction is this superb Twitter thread from short story writer John Wiswell.
It’s basically a step-by-step guide, covering everything, from market selection, length, submission strategy and cover letters to appropriate pay rates.
posted by Happy Dave at 1:48 PM on March 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
The best recent resource I’ve seen on breaking into short fiction is this superb Twitter thread from short story writer John Wiswell.
It’s basically a step-by-step guide, covering everything, from market selection, length, submission strategy and cover letters to appropriate pay rates.
posted by Happy Dave at 1:48 PM on March 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: UPDATE: I followed all your advice and made a sale in a pro-market, Future Science Fiction Digest. HOLY CRAP. Thanks to all who took the time to answer!
posted by signal at 3:21 PM on March 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by signal at 3:21 PM on March 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
Hey wow, congratulations! That is amazing, especially for your first submission. Your story must have been awesome.
It looks like that market is SFWA qualifying, so you might now be eligible to join Codex Writers, or will be once your story is published. It’s a really friendly community of pro and neo-pro writers. They have a great and very active forum and Slack.
posted by Happy Dave at 5:42 AM on March 14, 2022
It looks like that market is SFWA qualifying, so you might now be eligible to join Codex Writers, or will be once your story is published. It’s a really friendly community of pro and neo-pro writers. They have a great and very active forum and Slack.
posted by Happy Dave at 5:42 AM on March 14, 2022
Response by poster: Thanks! I'll definitely look into Codex once I'm actually published.
posted by signal at 6:40 AM on March 14, 2022
posted by signal at 6:40 AM on March 14, 2022
Response by poster: UPDATE UPDATE: I made a second sale!
This is officially the second most-productive AskMe of mine.
posted by signal at 11:59 AM on May 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is officially the second most-productive AskMe of mine.
posted by signal at 11:59 AM on May 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
Congratulations signal! I too made a second sale recently. Must be something in the air :-)
posted by Happy Dave at 12:37 PM on May 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Happy Dave at 12:37 PM on May 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Congratulations! One felt like it might be a fluke, two helps eat away at the imposter syndrome.
posted by signal at 6:12 AM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by signal at 6:12 AM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
What I do (and what I think most people do): I sub to my favorite magazines (the ones I read all the time) first, regardless of their status. After the story gets rejected by all those, I sub to professional SFWA-qualifying markets that seem like a reasonable fit for my story (and that are open to submissions!) After that round of rejections, I sub to semi-pro magazines that I don’t know as well or that are new or pay low rates or whatever. I don’t submit to non-paying markets. I have tiered lists of publications and just make my way down, submitting simultaneously as it’s allowed. (That’s sort of a sub-tier — within each tier I’ll send it to the sim-sub places first, then to each of the pubs that don’t accept them one by one.) I add new publications as they come across my radar.
Also, I basically don’t submit to markets that take a long time to respond AND do not accept simultaneous submissions. There are just too many markets for me to have a story floating around in the ether for nine months. There are loads of markets that will get back to you within a few weeks.
If you can, it really is valuable to read at least a few stories from a publication before you submit. If you just can’t envision your story among them, it might not be a good fit.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 10:01 AM on March 3, 2022 [7 favorites]