Finding Your Market: Navigating the Submission Process to Become Published in Literary Magazines
Once a month, I try to get together with a few other writers to discuss-well, what else would we discuss- writing. Because writing is a solitary pursuit, every so often you need to talk in person to others who are following a similar path. While some of us may be writing fiction and others memoir, we take our craft seriously. For practical reasons, most of us have written professionally. We were paid by magazines, websites, companies, and individual clients for our sentences and words.
But I got bored, writing similar things over and over again. For me, writing is as an art form.
I decided to write only what I wanted to write and to figure out, through study and practice, how to become a better writer. Now I have a string of publishing credits at dozens of literary magazines. Many of these magazines, whether affiliated with a university or independently operated, are run by volunteer labor. Few have the funds to pay their contributors.
Not writing for the money, provides a certain freedom, but it’s an exclusive club. In order to be a member, you need another source of income. You can be a starving artist, but it’s hard.
Writers contribute, purely out of desire to share their art. But where, ask my writing friends, do you decide to submit your work?
I’ve written a number of blog posts on this subject. One of the most popular is my focus, on opportunities for older writers.
Another post focuses on the tenacity required in relentlessly submitting.
THE MONETARY COST OF YOUR COMMITMENT
While many publications do not charge submission fees, many do. The submission fees range from $2 to $7, with a few exceptions ($23 at Narrative Magazine). A number of magazines waive these fees for those who are economically disadvantaged, while others provide a limited number of free submissions at the start of the month.
The other monetary cost is subscribing to websites and newsletters that provide timely information on publishing opportunities. Such a website is Duotrope, which charges $5 a month. A FREE website is Chill Subs, but because it is relatively new and they rely on the information submitted by editorial members of various publications, the information is not always accurate. Submittable is a platform that many publications use as their “gateway” to track and store submissions and you can use the DISCOVER function along with tags to find opportunities. And then there are all the bloggers who specialize in listing opportunities. These include: Erika Dreifus, The Practicing Writer and Jeanne Lyt Glassman, who publishes the newsletter Follow.It and the Writer’s Blog and Hope C. Clark who writes a free newsletter, “Funds for Writers”, that shares publication opportunities, contests and fellowships.
Chill Subs is Free but they have a weekly newsletter and subscription services you can subscribe to ( for a fee) , that will keep you apprised of opportunities.
Your subscription to Duotrope includes a newsletter with deadlines and opportunities, particularly if you like submitting to specific themes and prompts.
Subscribe to Trade Magazines such as Poets and Writers and Writer’s Digest. They run classified advertisements for publications looking for submissions and/or pitches.
Join a group or several writers groups on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and “X”. Publications will announce when they are open for submissions and what they are seeking.
Online Publication Communities and Platforms
Well-known publications such as The Sun and The Paris Review have large websites with an archive of content, but many smaller publications might be only a few pages on WordPress, Wix or Blogspot. The platforms Medium and Substack provide opportunities for a small publication to establish itself. Access to Medium, without a subscription is limited. I pay a $5 a month fee and can access all content. Substack also has paywalls that are imposed by individual members. I post on Substack and do not charge for my content. However, I subscribe to Becky Tuch, who provides a wealth of information about literary magazines including interviews with editors, and I pay five dollars a month.
Bloggers like myself who do not charge for the information they provide are hoping their readers will support them by buying their books. So here is my shameless advertisement-I have a chapbook filled with short prose, short essays and poems RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN and a children’s book WHO IS SANTA?
Either one makes a great holiday gift. The monies raised from the Santa book is being donated towards research a rare children’s cancer related to the Dicer gene. If you buy one or both of my books, you are indirectly supporting the writer’s community. Now back to the ins and outs of publishing.
Another way to learn about which publications might be suitable to showcase your work is to follow a few writers you admire and see where they’ve been published. Always somewhere at the back of a book or the end of an article or publication, they’ll be information about the author.
And if all else fails, you do an internet search and you’ll find plenty of ranked listings of publications. Decide whether you want to seek publication online or in print. They both have their advantages. You’ll also see plenty of writing contests seeking submissions for a fee and promising thousands of dollars in prize money.
WRITING CONTESTS
If it sounds too good to be true, investigate thoroughly before entering any contests. Highly respected writing contests do exist, but that is the subject for another article. It is great to put in your biography that you’ve been awarded a prize, or shortlisted for a prize or nominated by an editor for a prize, but more important is to be published.
Be ready for dozens of rejections. Nothing personal, but with hundreds or thousands of essays, poetry and stories being quickly read, many are tossed aside as “just not what we were looking for.” In my experience, the same story may be read by one editor and quickly dismissed and then picked up by another publication and considered brilliant. The more you write, the more opportunities you’ll have if publications are looking for pieces on a particular theme or subject.
However, if you can’t find a home for your work even at publications with a 70 percent acceptance rate, it may be time to revise or reassess the subject matter. Read more and know your audience. If you’ve made it this far, to the very end of this blog-THANK YOU for reading. Don’t forget to sign up for FREE to follow me on WordPress, Medium or Substack. Nadjamaril.com
Originally published at http://nadjamaril.com on December 4, 2024.
