August 22, 2012

Short Story Primer, Part 2: Research the Short Story Market

This post is part of a series:

1. Write and polish a short story.
2. Research the short story market.
3.Make a list of appropriate markets, and begin a submissions record.
4. Submit the story to the first market on the list, and keep submitting.
Duotrope.com is arguably the easiest place to research the short story market (ETA: Duotrope went behind a pay wall.  Ralan.com, though, is still a good resource for SF/F markets).  Enter the genre of your story, the wordcount, and payment, and a lists of markets will appear.  Here's a list of terms you'll come across:

Wordcount: The breakdown between flash, short story, novelette, and novella are in Part 1.

Payment: Short stories are most often paid for by the word.  Professional is deemed to be five cents or more per word; semi-pro is more than one cent, but less than five; token is anything less; for-the-love markets don't pay at all.  In general, professional magazines generally have a larger number of readers than semi-pro, and semi-pro generally has more readers than token.

Some markets offer royalties, meaning a percentage of every sale goes to the authors (these are usually anthologies).  Be aware that if a market offers only royalties, you might be paid very little if the magazine/anthology sells poorly. 

SFWA-Qualifying: SFWA is the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  To be a market that qualifies a writer towards membership, the magazine must pay pro rates, must have been publishing consistently for one year, and have circulation of at least 1,000.  For the fine print, and a list of SFWA-qualifying markets, click here

On Acceptance/On Publication:  Some magazines pay on acceptances (when they tell you they want to publish your story), others pay after the short story has been published.

Response Time: How long the magazine will take to reply after you submit.  Often magazines have an average response time, and a maximum response time.

Query: An e-mail or letter asking a question sent to a publication.  If you haven't heard back from a magazine after their maximum stated response time, it's acceptable to send a short, polite e-mail asking the status of the story.  Sometimes manuscripts do go astray.  If the magazine doesn't have a maximum stated response time, wait at least three months before querying.

Normally, it's completely unnecessary (and annoying to editors) to query for permission to submit a short story.  If you have something outside their stated guidelines -- longer than their upper word count limit, for example -- you could query and see if they're interested in seeing the story anyway.

Multiple Submissions: Submitting more than one story to the same market.  Magazines usually don't allow them.

Simultaneous Submissions: Submitting the same story to multiple markets.  Magazines usually don't allow this, either.

First Rights/No Reprints: Many magazines are looking for "first rights," or the right to be the first person to publish a story.  If you've already thrown a story up on your blog, first rights are gone (sorry!).

Despite all the helpful information on Duotrope.com, one of the best ways to research a magazine is to read it.  Does your story fit with what they publish?  Would you be happy to see your story published here?


3 comments:

  1. If you hadn't heard Shimmer Magazine is now also a pro-paying magazine, too. Its not on the SFWA list in the link yet, though.

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  2. I did see the news about Shimmer -- hurrah!

    SFWA is a little more stringent than pay rate; the magazine has to professionally publish for a year before qualifying. There are a couple other considerations, too, detailed on the SFWA page. But if/when Shimmer qualifies, the stories published at professional rates retroactively become SFWA-qualifying sales.

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  3. Ah, interesting. Good to know that I wasn't the only one wondering why Shimmer wasn't a SFWA publication.

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