How to submit short stories to magazines: from finished draft to published credit

Short fiction has a front door the novel does not: the magazine. A finished story can be in an editor's inbox the week it is done, and the pipeline in between is a repeatable craft with settled conventions: find the market, read the guidelines, write the cover letter, send, track, interpret the reply. The story itself is another guide's subject (how to write a short story), and the page it travels in is how to format a manuscript.

Literary magazines and genre magazines

Wikipedia defines the literary magazine plainly: "a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense", in which "short stories and poetry are common literary forms published". Beside the large quarterlies sit the little magazines, which "often publish experimental literature and the non-conformist writings of relatively unknown writers" and "typically had small readership, were financially uncertain or non-commercial, were irregularly published".

Genre magazines run the same machinery for a different shelf: "Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novella or (usually serialized) novel form, a format that continues into the present day" (Wikipedia), a tradition running from the pulp magazine era, with room for the novelette and longer (how to write a novella). The rewards overlap: the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Awards exist "for works published in literary magazines", and some writers "have built national reputations in the United States primarily through publication in literary magazines" (Wikipedia).

Where to submit short fiction: the databases

Three databases hold the map. Duotrope (subscription-based, running since 2005) offers "an extensive, searchable database of current fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art publishers and agents" plus "a personal submission tracker" and deadline and response statistics; it is deliberately "style-agnostic", literary and genre in one search, with more than 7,800 current listings at this guide's access date. The Submission Grinder calls itself "a donation-supported submission tracker and market database for writers of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction". Chill Subs, "the place for writers", listed more than 5,000 literary magazines at the same date. One protection worth knowing: Duotrope "does not list markets that charge a fee for a standard submission".

Paying, token and non-paying markets

Markets sort by what they pay, and the shared vocabulary is Duotrope's glossary:

• Professional: "Amounts to payment from 5 US cents per word and up."
• Semi-Pro: "Amounts to payment between 1 US cent per word and 4.9 US cents per word."
• Token: "Amounts to less than 1 US cent per word. Sometimes referred to as an honorarium."
• Non-paying: "Does not pay in real-world money, but may offer copies."

The same glossary notes that "different writers' associations define 'professional' differently": Wikipedia records that SFWA designates genre "paying markets" at a professional "rate of 8c/word or more", while semi-professional magazines "persist on sales of a few thousand copies but often publish important fiction". Read the tiers as scaffolding rather than income: a token or non-paying credit still counts. Flash fiction has its own markets and its own guide (how to write flash fiction).

Reading the guidelines

Every market posts submission guidelines, and they are the contract. Purdue OWL is blunt: "There is no easier way to get your submission denied than by neglecting to follow every submission guideline"; following them "shows that you yourself are a careful reader". What to check, in order:

• Word-count window. Duotrope's glossary defines the short story as "1,000 to 7,500 words" and warns "the publisher may restrict this further. For example, to 2,000-4,000 words." Purdue OWL's example cap is prose of "6,000 words or less".
• Reading period. Many journals keep "a 'submission window' where they accept work" (Purdue OWL); Duotrope's calendar tracks deadlines.
• First publication. Lit mags "want to be the first to feature your work in question" (Purdue OWL); work already on "a personal blog, a website, and/or on social media" is "almost always not eligible for re-publication", and some editors count pieces "posted on personal websites and on publicly-accessible forums" as published (Duotrope).
• Format and delivery. Which file, pasted where, with what identifying information; the manuscript conventions are standard manuscript format.

The cover letter for short fiction

The short-fiction cover letter is an administrative note, not a pitch, and the craft is the opposite of the book query letter, whose whole job is to sell a novel (how to write a query letter). Novelist Michelle Richmond's line, quoted by the Adroit Journal, is the rule here: "the most forgettable cover letters are often the best."

The parts the sources name: the story's title, category and word count, visible in the example above; "DO include a bio. This is the most important part of the cover letter!" (The Masters Review); and "Always include information on simultaneous submissions as a matter of professional courtesy" (Adroit). With no credits, Purdue OWL's answer is "the answer is simple: nothing", because "many magazines exist specifically with the mission to promote new and emerging writers." Two don'ts from The Masters Review: "DON'T summarize your story", since "if you need to explain the piece to a reader, it's probably not quite ready for publication"; and don't "list every single journal you've been published in": "Pick the most prestigious three or four." The bio is its own small craft (how to write an author bio).

Submission mechanics: portals, email, response times

Most journals take work through a submissions portal; Purdue OWL names Submittable, "an online submissions-management platform", and your story enters that magazine's slush pile with the rest. Where a market wants email instead, the guidelines say so, and the same rules apply: story attached or pasted exactly as asked, cover letter in the body. Then the wait: "response times vary widely, from several weeks to up to a year (or more)" (Purdue OWL). Duotrope and The Submission Grinder compile response-time statistics from user-reported data; treat them as medians, not promises, and respect any stated no-contact window before nudging.

Simultaneous submissions

A simultaneous submission is "the practice of sending a piece to different publications at the same time" (Duotrope's glossary), and it is how working short-fiction writers survive year-long response times. The etiquette, as the sources state it: when allowed, "most editors prefer for you to let them know up front, and always let them know if the piece is accepted elsewhere" (Duotrope); Purdue OWL's version is "so long as you let Journal B know that your piece is no longer available as soon as Journal A accepts it". Where a market bans them, take the ban seriously: Duotrope warns "some editors blacklist writers who get caught". And do not confuse simultaneous with multiple submissions, a second piece to the same market before the first is answered, which Duotrope "highly discourage[s]" and calls "impatient submissions".

Tracking your submissions

Once several stories are out at several markets, memory fails and a system takes over: the databases' built-in trackers, or a spreadsheet, which The Cincinnati Review's editors describe. One row per submission, so "this lets me easily see how many submissions of the same packet are out and where"; rows retired on reply, "once I hear back from a journal, I move the row to the section of inactive submissions"; statuses color-coded across "acceptances, rejections, withdrawals, and still-in-progress submissions". Minimum columns: story, market, date sent, response, response date.

Rejections, and what the tiers mean

Most replies are no, and the no comes in tiers. The base is the form rejection, a generic decline; Rejectomancy's rejection scorecard ranks the ladder above it: higher-tier form rejection, personal rejection, further consideration letter, short list. Purdue OWL's reading of the personal tier: a reply like "we found your work exciting and greatly enjoyed reading it" is "actually good news", evidence the piece "stood out to the editors". The scorecard's point: "a story that gets rejected (even multiple times) is not necessarily a bad story." So send the story straight back out; as one Cincinnati Review contributor puts it, "I've never gotten into Kenyon Review but they consistently like my work, so keep trying!"

The acceptance, and what it asks

An acceptance arrives as a contract covering "the rights of your creative work", compensation and deliverables (Purdue OWL); read it before signing, because rights terms vary by market. Then the one urgent duty: "immediately withdraw the work that is being published from any other lit mags" (Purdue OWL), usually through the portal or the submissions address. After publication the story is a credit, and first-publication rights are spent; a reprint is "not as easy to place" (Duotrope).

Building credits toward a book career

Short-fiction credits compound. When a novel later goes looking for an agent (how to find a literary agent), the query's bio paragraph lists exactly these: Reedsy's query guide names "literary magazines, journals, anthologies" among the credentials worth a line, and its editors are direct that "short story publications in prestigious magazines are an important part of how writers in the literary genre build their careers." Whether the book route is the goal at all is the wider decision in publishing paths. Either way the pipeline is the one above: finish the story, find the markets that fit it, follow their guidelines, send, track, read the reply honestly, and send again.