Short Story Markets

One hurdle short story writers face is finding markets. Who is publishing short stories these days? Who is paying authors to publish their short stories these days? On my writer's journey, the website Duotrope has been an invaluable resource.

The site is free to use. You do have to sign up with an email address and password, but they never send SPAM. In fact, I get about one email a week from Duotrope, and the email lists upcoming themed submissions, which is helpful to me.

This information can also be accessed on the site under the "Calendar" page.

For example, clicking there today tells me at a glance that the fledgling market called Wild Age Press is holding an "Anything Goes" contest for fiction of any length! That means short stories, poems and novellas are all game (up to 20,000 words)! The deadline for submissions is June 15th. There is no reading fee.

http://www.wildagepress.com/submissions/

I wouldn't have this information without Duotrope.

Let's look at one more example.

Slice Magazine will be reading submissions from July 1st to August 31st for their 12th issue, which has a theme of "Obsession". Slice is a paying market and there are no reading fees!

http://www.slicemagazine.org/submit.html

The upcoming themed submissions emails are especially helpful if I've written a story about werewolves and I want to quickly check if anyone is doing an issue or anthology all about furry shape shifting creatures of the night. 


After you sign up with Duotrope, you can also use their search tool. Pop in your genre, the length of your piece, and whether or not you are interested in paying markets, and BAM! a list of markets is populated for you. It's that simple.


Of course checking each market's website for their particular submission guidelines is a must. Following directions during the submission process is also imperative.


The last totally wonderful feature of Duotrope is that if you report/ record which markets you've sent which of your pieces to, it will keep a handy database for you! 


When I click "Submissions Tracker", I can see which markets I've sent which pieces to and when. I'll even see that particular market's usual response time. If too many days have passed, I'll know I should query to see if my submission was lost or something.


Each market even has a detailed profile. Clicking on Apex Magazine, for instance, reveals they are a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine. They pay .5 cents a word, BUT their acceptance rate is only .58%, with a rejection rate of 97.87% and rewrite request rate of .10%. That tells me that Apex is a tough market!