Submitting to Literary Magazines & Genre Fiction Markets
a how-to guide for beginning the lit mag grind
Sometimes I forget the ways that immersing myself in “creative writer” activities over the years has become a type of second nature—one that might not be as intuitive to everyone else. In the past year, some of my university students expressed interest in learning more about publishing speculative short work—as well as peers in a local sci-fi/fantasy writers’ group I’m a member of. It’s made me realize, oh, I actually have a lot of experience in these realms, and quite a bit I could say.
I don’t mean to suggest I’m an expert at speculative-specific magazines (I’m not), but I have been submitting to lit mags for quite awhile in multiple genres—and I’ve also edited for magazines—so I have some perspective into this process from multiple sides.
So, if this sounds like something you’ve like to learn about, please stick around, because we’re about to dive in the mess of submitting to magazines and journals from start to finish from the perspective of yours truly.
My caveat is always that I started out as a poet, and I started sending out work around 15-20 years ago when I was still doing my undergraduate studies. At that time—in the late aughts—we were still in the era of a certain skepticism toward publishing on the internet (I know how silly this sounds now, but there were people who told me publishing in online journals would tarnish whatever future “career” I imagined for myself with the fervor of a vice principal ranting about “permanent records”).
Submittable (known then as “Submishmash”) wouldn’t come around until 2010, and the few other online submission management systems that existed weren’t localized (one called “Submission Manager” required you to create a new login for each individual magazine that used it) or didn’t have great UX.
For the most part, my early days sending out subs in the 2000s was on that threshold between the end of self-addressed stamped envelopes and the early messiness of emailing a Word document to a random Gmail account. These days, magazine submissions are almost entirely online and using database technologies that have had over a decade to polish themselves up. The days of snail mail and spam folder accidents are (mostly) over. If you submit a piece now, most likely you’ll immediately see an intuitive user interface where your submissions are being tracked.
That being said, I’ve been changing over the past decade too within the technologies of myself. I expanded beyond poetry and published my first short story in 2014, and in the past few years have even tried to become more acquainted with genre fiction markets (e.g.: science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazines), which have their own unique discourse and history. While I’m not here today to try to track the various lineages of the little magazines that came out of MFA programs, small presses, art scenes, pulps, penny dreadfuls, dime novels, et cetera, I am here to point out that the magazines that publish stories (and essays, and poems…) can have very different expectations and unspoken rules.
As far as I know, not many people have tried to explain these various cross-genre etiquettes in one place or how to go through the submission process from A to Z. The aim of this post is to try to create something out of literary citizenship, but also a document I can pass on to peers and students in the future.
How to Find Magazines to Submit To
(As of February 2023)
The first step is, of course, making sure you have a polished short story, novella, poem, essay…. I’ll leave you all to your own individual soul searchings for how to make that happen. The bad news is that figuring out how to send work to lit mags can be as vague and meandering as trying to know when a piece is “done”), but the good news is, well, maybe sending writing out will give you a dopamine boost?
I also want to clarify that for our purposes, all the different terms used for periodicals, such as “magazine,” “mag,” “zine,” “pro zine,” “semi-pro zine,” “journal,” “market,” “review,”… are roughly all the same concept. These are publications that publish (generally short) fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.
And while I realize the binary of “literary fiction” and “genre fiction” isn’t helpful either (especially for those of us who revel in moving through the borderlands), I’m going to try to break this down in a way for writers to find their people (although there is crossover, so I still encourage reading everything below).
Resources for Literary Writers
Duotrope: Duotrope is a robust database of literary magazines. It includes genre markets in it (including ways to search for genres and subgenres to help filter results) but overall probably skews more literary (poetry and fiction) in its data. It also has a submission tracker (Duosama) and started building an agent database to find agents in. Once upon a time it was a free tool, but now it costs a nominal monthly fee, but I believe they should still have a free trial.
I personally like their “Theme & Deadline Calendar” (I always check the “Include unthemed deadlines” button to maximize results) when I’m looking for magazines that will be closing soon.
Yes, some magazines have “themes” for individual issues such as “queer love stories” or “death” or “ghosts.” It’s up to you to decide how useful themes are to you and if your work speaks to them.
Their magazine reports section can be enlightening too with categories like “Top 100 Most Challenging” and “Top 100 Fastest to Respond.”
Heavy Feather Review’s “Where to Submit”: An online magazine called Entropy used to tackle this, but Entropy shut down somewhat recently and Heavy Feather Review took over. It’s an on-going list of places to submit that is updated on a monthly/quarterly basis. It tends to skew literary/indie/small press. Sections include Presses, Chapbooks, Journals + Anthologies, and Fellowships + Other Opportunities.
The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) maintains its own “Calls for Submissions” page. Theoretically, these publications are all probably active members of CLMP, so the data might skew in that direction.
Submittable’s “Discovery” page: — Most non-genre magazines use Submittable as an app to submit stories, poems, and essays to. It’s free to make an account but some magazines charge nominal fees to submit. I believe you have to be logged in to view the “Discovery” page, but it includes a bunch of upcoming deadlines for magazines that use the Submittable platform. Once again, this tends to skew literary (I’ve noticed a lot of genre magazines tend to use a separate platform called Moksha).
Resources for Speculative/Genre Writers
Submission Grinder (The Grinder): a free resource that one can use to keep track of current submissions and look for markets to submit to. It’s also a great discovery tool to find magazines. IMO, Submission Grinder skews much more ‘genre fiction’ and is not as robust as Duotrope, but it is good to find genre-specific places to submit to (or keep track of your submissions). Both Duotrope and The Grinder have their own ways of showing data that might have a learning curve, but it can be helpful if you’re trying to gauge response rates.
SFWA’s “Market Report”: The Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers Association does a monthly round-up of genre fiction markets that are open, opening, or closing. Incredibly useful for checking submission deadlines, especially from “pro” or “semi-pro” zines.
The Splintered Mind’s “Top Science Fiction and Fantasy Markets” Annual Blog Posts: this person does an annual round-up of which magazines have stories that receive the most award nominations/winners (they list their methodology too). Like literary fiction, the genre fiction world has its most prestigious “pro zine” markets and the small start-up magazines that anyone could start up in their apartment. My understanding is that much of the prestige of an emerging genre fiction writer comes winning big awards like the Nebula, Hugo, or World Fantasy Award—and these awards often go to stories published in “pro” or “semi-pro” markets. Although subjective, if you’re a fledgling genre fiction writer and trying to start with the “best” “pro” markets, this data could be invaluable.
Sci Fi Awards Database: Similar to the above point, this database keeps track of all the major genre fiction awards and who won what and where they were published. IMO, it’s a good resource for research/discovery purposes and trying to figure out where the top talent places their work.
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database: Another database of individual spec stories and where they’ve been published. Could be a useful research tool to find authors who write similar work to you and see where they’ve published. Hey, even I have an entry!
Codex Writers: A community for emerging genre fiction writers. They have a few rules on if you qualify or not, but once you’re in there’s individual threads in their forums for about any genre market you could imagine with useful intel inside.
In General…
Beyond using your research skills, there is much to be said about being an active member of a community. Journals come and go. “Hot” new publications of the moment quietly disappear. Underdogs end up staying around for Simpsons-esque runs. It’s not a science. It’s important to be engaging with other writers you admire and take cues from where they’re placing their own work. Your community will ground you even as the world of magazines and publishing continuously changes.
Magazines often are the laboratories where people test out new work before they go on to publish collections of stories or poems (this is another great tip: read the acknowledgements/notes/copyright sections in story collections from your favorite authors to see where they placed work). Actually reading them and investing time in them is an important to the culture of these magazines too. Which brings us to etiquette…
When You’re Ready to Submit Your Work
(A Few Notes on Etiquette)
Perhaps I should have started here because I do believe some care has to go into the submission process. The place I come before you now is not necessarily as a fellow writer, but more-so as someone who has edited for five or six journals. That very incendiary, schoolmarm side of myself who has witnessed or been subjected to all the bad writer behaviors stands before you with ruler in hand.
So yes, I will be wagging my finger a little bit, which no one loves, but if you read any section of this post, please read this one. These aren’t necessarily points that anyone ever sat me down and told me about. I had to figure them out through my own trials and errors, and through my own failures I’m here to give you a few shortcuts.
Remember that completing polished, revised work is the most important step. Publishing should be one end to a writing process. You should not be rushing to publication before the work is ready.
Please actually read the magazine and have some legitimate investment in it. Read sample work online. If no sample work exists because the magazine is print-only, buy a sample issue. Support the magazine, even if they reject you. Magazines don’t just exist to give you a platform. They need support too.
Of course writers and editors exist in a symbiotic relationship and one could not exist without the other, but nothing annoys me more than people who talk about journals in the language of conquest (to be honest, I even personally feel an aversion to the capitalist language of the term “market,” but am using it because it has its place certain contexts).
Yes, we all have our “white whale” publication we’d love to see our work in, but I’ve seen people who submit out of what comes across to me as an addictive action. Your relationship to magazines should not be with the ardor of someone standing at the front of a bodega line running through scratch-offs with a quarter.
This is all a nice way of saying “don’t be that careless, spamming, 100-simultaenous-submissions” submitter.
Always, always, always read the submission guidelines on the magazine’s website. Sometimes called “writer guidelines” or something similar. Sometimes you’ll have to hunt around on a website to find the link to this page (some magazines include the link in the footer at the bottom of the page instead of at the top).
Submission guidelines have all the rules. If they ask for a maximum of 7,500 words, don’t send a 10,000-word story. If they say that zombies are a hard sell, don’t send your story with zombies. You are not above the rules.
Do not submit to a magazine when it’s not open. Do not email a story to a magazine when it’s closed. This is a huge no-no. In fact, don’t email a story when they don’t accept submissions by email in the first place. This will only make the editors hate you.
Follow notes about formatting your story/manuscript closely (e.g.: title, where to put page numbers…), especially when listed in the aforementioned guidelines. A lot of lit fic/MFA mags don’t care, but I’ve noticed a lot of genre fiction magazines prefer something called SHUNN format. You don’t want to receive a rejection simply because you couldn’t follow formatting rules, so please set up your document the way they ask, even if it takes you a few extra minutes of fussing in Word.
In my personal opinion, don’t overdo cover letters. They’re not replacements for the creative writing itself. You don’t have to go overboard demonstrating that you love/have read pieces recently in the magazine. It’s a nice bonus point, but no beautiful cover letter ever convinced me to accept mediocre work in all my years as an editor. Just give them the basics, as long as it’s following submission guidelines.
That being said, it can be nice to find the masthead (current editors) on the website and start your cover letter with [Dear Insert Editor(s) Name(s) Here]. If you don’t know, just put “Dear Editor/s,”… It shows a little extra care & that you actually know who is behind the magazine.
Also, you don’t need to go overboard with explaining the work. The work should speak for itself. Unless you’re doing something innovative, complicated, or that requires a nota bene, just stick to the basics.
It’s usually recommended to include your author bio somewhere in the cover letter (see my next point).
Create a short writer bio for yourself because you’ll most likely be pasting this in a cover letter for every submission you send out.
If you don’t feel like you have a lot of accomplishments, just use what you have. For a long time my bio was something as simple as “JD Scott is a writer who lives in Brooklyn, NY.” You don’t have to over-compensate or have a long bio. Trust for your work to speak for itself.
That being said, if you begin dabbling with different genres or start building up publications, you might start building multiple bios for yourself that you should keep on file somewhere (on the cloud) for easy access.
My personal philosophy is that the long bio is great for flexing your accolades on your author website or when submitting a cover letter, but when it comes to publication (or doing a public reading), a shorter, humbler bio suffices. Once again, let the work speak for itself.
“Simultaneous submissions” means you’re allowed to submit the same story (or poem or essay) to multiple (different) magazines at the same time.
Most MFA/lit fic magazines allow this.
Most genre fiction markets usually do not. I believe the reason for this is because science fiction and fantasy magazines generally have a very quick turnaround when compared to their lit fic/MFA counterparts.
“Multiple submissions” means you’re allowed to submit more than one piece to the same magazine at the same time (e.g.: I’m sending a poem and a short story to The New Yorker so they’re both being reviewed at the same time).
Generally this is not allowed. The general etiquette is that you submit one piece at a time and wait until you get a response until you submit another piece.
Also, if the magazine tells you they have a cool-off/wait period (e.g.: “don’t send us another story for 6 months”, please listen).
Below is an example cover letter. To be honest, I’m not always this ‘high effort’ with my cover letters. I can be a hypocrite too. Sometimes I’m reckless and don’t follow my own advice. There have been times when I’ve pasted nothing but my basic bio in a cover letter box before and had work accepted. I’m, of course, not saying this to highlight my own negligence, but to remind you all that a pretty cover letter is not a substitute for the work itself, so please moderate how much time and energy you put into one.
A Cover Letter Example
Dear Editors,
I am submitting three poems for your consideration:
1) “Polar Premium Seltzer (Raspberry Lime)”
2) “Polar Premium Seltzer (Clementine)”
3) “Polar Premium Seltzer (Blueberry)”
This is a simultaneous submission, but I will notify you if one or more of the poems are accepted elsewhere and withdraw them immediately. Thank you for your consideration.
Best,
JD Scott
—
JD Scott is the author of the story collection Moonflower, Nightshade, All the Hours of the Day (&NOW Books, 2020) and the poetry collection Mask for Mask (New Rivers Press, 2021). Scott’s writing has appeared in Best Experimental Writing, Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere.
When You’ve Clicked That Submit Button
(Now What?)
Congratulations!
Why are you congratulating me?, you might ask. I haven’t accomplished anything yet!
Oh, but you have! You’ve written something. You’ve revised and edited it. You’ve researched publications to submit it to, and you’ve taken a lot of care crafting that cover letter and bio. Now the waiting game begins.
However, I have a few more thoughts and considerations for what you should do while you’re waiting to hear back.
If you take one item and one item only from this list, please let it be this one. Keep your own independent spreadsheet (e.g.: Google Sheet) or use a submission tracker (e.g.: Duotrope or The Grinder) and IMMEDIATELY fill it out as soon as you submit a piece of writing.
This is especially useful if you’re submitting across multiple platforms such as Submittable, Moskha, and Gmail.
I prefer a spreadsheet. My spreadsheet has a row for "Date Sent," "Publication," "Title(s) of Work Sent," "Response Type," "Response Date," "Response Time," and "Notes."
Response Time is a formula that calculates how many dates between “Date Sent” and “Response Date.”
“Response Type” includes entries such as In-Progress, Withdrawn, Rejected, Accepted…
“What is the magazine is taking forever to respond? Should I query the editor?”: In general, I never query with an editor as a follow-up asking about where my work is in the queue, unless I seriously think my work fell through the cracks.
Editors are humans like you, and you may not know what they’re going through. Remember to practice empathy when reaching out to one.
Generally editors/readers are just slow and behind and following up with them stresses them out and doesn’t earn you any favors.
It’s easier just to withdraw if they’re taking too long and you’re feeling salty about it.
“What if I simultaneously submitted and the work gets accepted?”: First, make sure the piece is 100% accepted (some magazines will partially-accept on the condition you do edits first). It should have a green “accepted” button in Submittable or they might send a contract over for you to sign. After that is done, withdraw from the other magazines immediately! Always, always withdraw your simultaneous submissions!
“What if I submitted a batch of, say, three poems to a magazine and they accepted one but not the other two?”: This is only really common with magazines that allow you to send 3-5 poems or 2-3 flash fiction pieces as a single submission.
This is based on the assumption that you’re allowed to simultaneously submit and did. I’m going to go with my fake cover letter above.
I sent three “Polar Seltzer” poems to Journal A, Journal B, and Journal C. Journal A accepted “Polar Premium Seltzer (Raspberry Lime)” but not the other two. I would then email (or comment in Submittable) a message to Journal B and Journal C saying ‘…“Polar Premium Seltzer (Raspberry Lime)” was accepted by another magazine, but “Polar Premium Seltzer (Clementine)” and “Polar Premium Seltzer (Blueberry)” are still available.’
That way, you don’t need to withdraw your entire submission, you have done your due diligence, and you have demonstrated to Journal B and Journal C that there is interest in your own work.
What Do I Do When I Hear Back?
(The Final Stage!)
For most of us, “hearing back” means receiving that rejection. I started writing this talking about what becomes a writer’s second nature, and second nature to me is seeing that rejection response, archiving the email, updating my spreadsheet, and making peace and moving on with my life.
However, what’s true is that takes time to grow into for a lot of us. This write-up exists as a practical how-to, but I also want to acknowledge that for some us, bearing our soul in creative writing and having that work rejected can feel very personal, emotional, and demoralizing.
So if that sounds like you, make sure you have ways to cope and care for yourself (and celebrate those rejections too, if you can muster it). I accrued hundreds of rejections between 2006 and 2012 before my work finally started finding homes. That’s over five years of failing and flailing.
A few final tips:
Update your spreadsheet/Duotrope/Submission Grinder entry immediately. Part of submitting short-form work means maintaining good data about your submissions to save you embarrassment of something like a double-acceptance.
If this was a simultaneous submission and you received an acceptance, withdraw the other submissions immediately.
Unless the response was an ACCEPTANCE or something that might contingently result in an ACCEPTANCE (e.g.: “We liked your story, but we’d like you to do a re-write before we move forward with a formal acceptance…”)—DO NOT RESPOND.
DO NOT CLAP BACK. DO NOT HIT THE REPLY BUTTON AND TELL THE EDITOR HOW WRONG THEY ARE AND HOW MUCH THEY SUCK.
AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON’T SCREENCAP THE RESPONSE EMAIL AND SHARE THE REJECTION LETTER ON TWITTER.
This seems to have become “a thing” in the past 5 years or so, especially that final part about sharing rejections on Twitter or ‘mocking bad editor responses.’
Yes, the people in your inner circle on Twitter will console you and tell you how awful the editor is and how absolutely amazing and perfect and gorgeous you are and how you’ve never done anything wrong in your entire life. The rest of us are rolling our eyes and cringing.
Remember how I said it’s important to find your people and foster community and all that? Yeah, crying and complaining about rejections should happen in private in the group chat or over the phone with your friends. It shouldn’t be done in public and on main social media accounts. Other editors see this and make a mental note—and not in a good way.
Support networks and friends are also good to navigate the mucky middle grounds such as re-writes, extreme edits, or those more complicated moments I can’t delve into here because this is already a very, very long article. While mostly your rejections will be rejections and your acceptances will be as-is acceptances, there are a lot of in-betweens.
If you end up with an acceptance, relish in it. Tell the editors how excited and honored you are. Send them all the materials they request in a timely manner (headshot, updated bio, returned signed contract…). Celebrate your own writing and share it when it comes out (I would practice a little self-restraint about sharing the good news on social media until you’ve signed a contract though). Be a literary citizen and continue to support their magazine even when the afterglow of being published fades.
And then? When it’s all over? You start again. You write a new story, a new poem, a new essay. You workshop it, you revise it, you edit it, you proofread it, and when it feels ready to go out (that gut-belly-Ouija-planchette-feeling inside of you), you do this process all over again.
And that’s how you submit to literary magazines.
Break a leg, y’all. ⭐️