As I was trying to figure out what my next column would be about, I got a bit of a promotion here at DIY MFA. I am now the Web Editor (among other responsibilities). While reviewing the contact page and submissions guidelines, inspiration struck! I could write my next column about how to pitch to a publication.

Without further ado, here are tips for pitching a guest blog. And while I use DIY MFA’s policies and procedures as examples, this advice is definitely applicable across the board for any online publication. 

Research Before Pitching

This should be pretty obvious, but unfortunately it isn’t. We get a lot of pitches for do-it-yourself plumbing projects and other home renovation topics. People see the DIY in the site title and they don’t even click to read what we’re about. 

Assuming you actually visit the website, take the time to read a few of the more recent posts or articles. You don’t have to go through the entire archive, but check out what is current. This will give you an idea of what kind of topics they post about, who they feature, etc. It also clues you into the format of guest posts, so you can determine if your voice and style are a fit. This knowledge will help you pitch the best, most relevant piece you can. 

Search for Submission Guidelines

Some publications make them easy to find; others like to play hide and seek. A good starting point is the contact page. At DIY MFA, our contact page lists the email for general inquiries. But if you look at the whole page, we have a section for Guest Submissions. We even link to our Guest Article Submission Guidelines, where we spell out the A-Z of pitching for DIY MFA. 

The New Yorker  and New York Times both have their submission guidelines on their contact page. The Write Life and ProWritingAid blogs offer links to the guidelines in the website footer.

Follow the Directions

But in those cases where the publication makes it a bit harder to find the submission guidelines, use the all-seeing Google. Enter “(name of publication) submission guidelines” or similar query in your search bar. You might have to look through a couple of pages, but they should pop up if the publication accepts pitches.

I cannot stress this enough—follow the directions. 

Our guidelines specifically say where to email pitches for guest posts, yet we still get a bunch that go to the general email account. We also give specific instructions for everything to include in the pitch, yet we still get incomplete submissions. When we see these blatant disregards for following instructions, we delete the emails with no response. This is how the vast majority of publications operate.

If an editor is constantly responding to pitches that don’t follow directions, that’s time they’re not spending on finding the right writers to serve their audience. By not following directions, you also show you won’t be easy to work with and will likely ignore further instructions for a full submission. 

Proofread Your Submission and Accompanying Email

It’s cringe-worthy to receive a pitch with tons of grammatical errors, some even starting in the subject line. This doesn’t inspire confidence for an editor that you can piece together a coherent article. Blog copy editors are amazing, but they have other stuff to do than fix your misspellings.

In your pitch email:

• Be personal: Address the email to the right person. You’ll probably find their name if you look for the guidelines. Also, if there is a connection, mention it. Maybe you met the editor at a conference or you know someone else on the team who gave you the editor’s email. Starting with a personal connection is a great way to break the ice.
• Be specific: Tell them exactly what you are pitching. Ideally, you’ll send 2-3 ideas that are vivid enough the editor knows what your post is about and whether it will serve the audience.
• Be concise: At the same time, be concise. Don’t write out your entire article in the email unless a full submission is requested. 
• Include links to your work: Writing samples are great. It gives us an idea of how you typically write, so we can tell if you’ll be a good fit. If you don’t have any professional credits yet, don’t worry. You can link to your personal blog.

Double-Check the Directions

Once you’re done double-checking that you followed the guidelines—triple check! Seriously. You don’t want to wind up in the trash box simply because you failed to follow one tiny step. If it says email a particular account, email that account. If it says to include a particular subject line, include that subject line. If you’re reading this blog, then we know you’re a better writer than folks who don’t do their homework or follow the guidelines.  

There you have it, some simple tips on how to write a pitch from someone who has recently dealt with a lot of them. Fortunately, it really can be as simple as following the directions. Yes, you have to have writing skills, but the rest will get easier with practice. Promise!

Lori Walker is the Operations Maven at DIY MFA. Though she’s fallen off the wagon as a writer, she’s hoping to return to writing essays (perhaps even a novel!) through her involvement with DIY MFA. She also teaches yoga part-time in Smalltown, Oklahoma, where she lives with her husband and their cat, Joan Didion. You can follow her on Instagram at @LoriTheWriter.

The post How to Pitch an Online Blog (from a Web Editor) appeared first on DIY MFA.

The key is to research which literary magazines are a good home for your particular style of work. As editor of a literary magazine, I see writers skip over this step more than any others. A little research goes such a long way, and putting the time in up front to find the right market(s) for your work can serve to save you a lot of time, submissions, and rejections down the road. Here are three tips for getting started.

1) Utilize Resources for Finding Literary Magazines and Journals

If you are looking to broaden the list of literary magazines you submit your work to, or to submit work for the first time, I suggest perusing the Poets & Writers database here. This database is free to use and offers an excellent variety of publications seeking an array of work. You might also consider signing up with a service like Duotrope or Writer’s Market. Both of these options offer extensive databases of opportunities and information for writers and charge a small monthly fee.

Another great way to research literary magazines and journals is to grab a cup of coffee and spend a little time strolling Barnes & Noble or your local indie bookstore. While a lot of publications are web-based now, it’s a good idea to purchase a few hard copies of magazines that still run in print. In doing so, you’re making an investment in your knowledge of the market while supporting the very publications that work hard to honor short form writers. It’s a win-win!

2) Narrow Down the Market

Many magazines are part of an MFA program and have students on the staff and editorial board. As a result, a large portion of these magazines are seeking literary work, although there are also a good number of those that seek genre pieces. Your best bet is to read through the stories and poems of several different magazines to see which might suit your work best.

It’s a fairly intuitive process. If you enjoy reading a publication and feel like the style of work they publish is similar to what you aim to write, that’s probably a good sign that you should go ahead and submit. On the contrary, if a publication bores you or just doesn’t jive with your style, the editor at that magazine or journal is probably seeking something different from what you write.

3) Stay Current

Once you’ve found a handful of literary magazines or journals that publish work similar to your own, it’s important to stay current with what they are publishing, as well as with what their submission guidelines are requesting.

If they publish a print anthology, buy and read it. There is simply no better way to understand what an editor seeks than to become as familiar as possible with what they are already putting out into the world. And every time you submit a piece of work to them, take a fresh glance at their submission guidelines to be sure you’re still following them carefully. From time to time a magazine may make a change to something like their word count restrictions or may make an exception to the type of work they seek for a specific contest. Be certain you’re being mindful of each set of submission guidelines to avoid a definite rejection. You should be able to find a current set of guidelines with ease, by visiting the website of each magazine or journal periodically.

Even after you’ve found a few magazines or journals you love, it’s important to keep an eye out for new (or new to you) publications. The market is ever-evolving, and the perfect match for your writing could be just a click or stroll through the bookstore away!

Elise Holland is the editor of 2 Elizabeths, a literary magazine focused on poetry and short fiction, with an emphasis on romance and women’s fiction. Her work has been published in Writer’s Digest and has appeared on Jane Friedman’s blog. Find Elise online at 2Elizabeths.com.

The post Literary Magazines: How to Find the Right Home for Your Work appeared first on DIY MFA.

Before founding Xist Publishing, she had a broad range of professional experiences, from writing for a content mill while living outside Dublin, to writing medical copy from a village in Cyprus, and even to running a production company specializing in industry education videos. Calee has a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MA in English from California State University, Fullerton. She currently lives with her husband and two children in Orange County, California.

In this episode Calee Lee and I talk about:

• Small presses and what they add to the publishing marketplace.
• The process of digital-only publishing, and how it differs from print publishing.
• The children’s publishing market in the digital realm.
• The advantages of a small press for authors.
• And what submissions Xist is looking for right now.

Plus Calee’s #1 tip for writers.

Resources:

For more information about Xist Publishing, visit their website or follow them on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

If you’re interested in submitting your work for consideration at Xist publishing, please send them an email (submissions at xistpublishing dot com) with your first three chapters, or check out their submissions page for more details.

Link to Episode 51

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, leave a review, and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available. Also, if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please share!

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 51: Interview with Calee Lee of Xist Publishing appeared first on DIY MFA.

On the show with me today, I have the DIY MFA podcast producer, Elisabeth Kauffman. As you’ll learn in the episode, though, Elisabeth is also taking on a big new role at DIY MFA and we’ve got a really exciting announcement too. But first, here’s a little more info about who she is and what she does when she’s not moonlighting at DIY MFA.

By day, Elisabeth is a freelance editor at Writing Refinery, helping authors find their voices, develop their manuscripts, and birth their stories into the world. When she’s not editing novels, she’s editing this podcast and doing all those little, behind-the-scenes things that keep DIY MFA Radio running smoothly. Seriously, while you might not hear Elisabeth’s voice on the show very often, she is just as much a part of this podcast as I am, from helping to decide the episode lineup, to keeping me on track when I babble, and editing anything that might get me into major trouble.

Today, though, I have Elisabeth on the show for a particularly exciting reason. She’s here to help me make a special announcement!

*drumroll please*

DIY MFA is launching an Anthology!

Elisabeth will be co-editing this anthology with me, but really this project is her baby. She’ll  be taking the lead on this and spearheading the editorial team while I help to direct the overall vision of how the Anthology will fit within DIY MFA overall.

I can’t tell you how excited we are about this project. For a while now I’ve wanted to create a forum where my word-nerd family could share their writing plus get a chance to see their names in print (or digital ink). This is also a way for new writers to get that first publication credit, which–as I’ve learned from personal experience–can potentially open the doors to many other publications down the road. Listen to the podcast for more details about this new DIY MFA opportunity!

In this episode, Elisabeth and I discuss:

• What the anthology is all about,
• Our mission for launching it, and
• The “secret sauce” that makes this anthology different from any other.

One of the big reasons that Elisabeth and I are launching this Anthology is that we want to bridge that gap between the Write with Focus and Read with Purpose components of DIY MFA. The process we’re using to select pieces for this anthology puts craft and creativity front and center, so get your writing chops ready. We’re looking for pieces that don’t just tell a good story, but that illustrate particular aspects of craft, or use elements of craft in unique ways. Also, because the main requirement for submission is that your piece use a Writer Igniter prompt, you’ll get brownie points for being really creative.

Later in the episode, Elisabeth and I get on the subject of submitting work to magazines and anthologies, and we give you lots of tips on how to submit to us, as well as other places too! Listen to the episode for tons of tips about the ins and outs of submissions and how to put your best foot forward when you send out your work.

Writer Igniter Anthology submissions are officially open!

If you want to submit to the Writer Igniter Anthology, learn more at DIYMFA.com/writer-igniter-submissions. Make sure you read the submission guidelines thoroughly, then email your submission to submissions@DIYMFA.com. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Link to Episode 36

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, leave a review, and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available. Also, if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please share!

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 36: Writer Igniter Anthology appeared first on DIY MFA.

I’ve been submitting works to a professional magazine I’ll call ‘Fantastico’ for about a year now.  I would send them a submission, receive an email that the story made it to the final round, then about a month later, a rejection.  After the fifth story, I wrote to the editor, asking (oh, so politely!) why I was getting bounced.  Was I doing something wrong?  Was there an element in my stories that made them fail?  A couple of weeks after my query, the editor sent me a very long explanation of just how stories get chosen for Fantastico.

First, some background on the magazine.  Fantastico publishes monthly with four or five stories per issue.  The submissions run about 250 stories per month.  The Editor in Chief reads all of the stories.  Here’s how he addressed my inquiry.

The Premise:

“When I evaluate submissions, I don’t read and then immediately accept/reject.  I will read a block of stories, ten at a time, and once I’ve read them I set them to the side for an hour or so.  When I come back, the stories I remember get passed to the next level.”

What this tells us :

Make our stories memorable, in a good way!

Craft:

“The last round of stories is usually 30-40 stories.  I do an initial elimination off a single reading, getting the number down to 12-15. . . . Nit-picky stuff can mean the difference between a rejection and remaining in the hunt.”

What this tells us:

It’s not enough to be memorable.  We must have a good grasp of the craft.  Spelling and grammar, yes, but also continuity, timelines, believability, plot, characters, setting.

Editing:

“[I rejected] an author who apparently feels an editor should overlook copious grammatical and spelling errors in a submission.”

What this tells us:

Editors have enough work to do just pulling together an issue.  They don’t have time to go back and forth with me about craft issues.

This is not to say that editors won’t edit.  I had one story accepted by another market.  Huzzah! Or so I thought, until the story came back festooned with little red marks.  This was something that passed grammar and spell checkers plus my alpha and beta readers.  Editors will edit—they just don’t have the time to correct obvious errors.

So, what’s the difference between making the final fifteen and getting accepted?

Tangible Factors:

“I work a lot of different combinations of stories to see which I feel works best.  Usually, I come out of the round of 40 with two or three stories that, in my head, are already selected for the issue.  So at that point, I have to find a way to make the issue work.”

What this tells us:

One of the ways an editor has to “make the issue work” is a hard factor like total word count.  An issue of Fantastico will have a given number of physical pages.  On those pages are the stories, ads, editor’s column, standard features, and graphics.  The amount of space (and thus words) for stories is fixed.

Let’s say that out of the available space for fiction, the editor has selected four stories that are a lock for the issue.  Unfortunately, the remaining space for story number five is only about two thirds of the maximum submission size.  If we are in the habit of writing stories that are as big as possible, we’ll lose to a smaller, tighter story.

Intangible Factors:

“So getting to the final round out of hundreds of submissions doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing something wrong.  What it means is that sometimes, your story just doesn’t work with the other stories I’ve already selected. […] If you’ve made it to multiple final rounds, then I’d expect your stories to continue to do so–and eventually, you’ll break through.”

What this tells us:

Beyond the hard factors like maximum word count are such intangibles such as how well each story fits or compliments each other.  This can be some of the most maddening rejections.

Sometimes, the puzzle pieces just don’t fit.  I had an excellent story for this market, but its format just didn’t jibe with the others.  That didn’t mean it wasn’t a good story, it just wasn’t a good match for the others.  It is maddening, but that’s just the way it is.  An ace is a great card in poker, but if you have four jacks, an ace is pretty much worthless.

• • • • •

So there you have it.  A great premise gets you past the first hurdle.  Good craft is required to get your story to the final round.  The story has to fit within the remaining space.  It must appeal to the readership.  After that, well, it’s mostly intangible—how well does your work fit with the other selected stories.

The real lesson is to keep trying—never stop writing and submitting.  Someday, you, too, will break through.

Bill Patterson has been published in JournalStone’s SF anthology “90 Minutes to Live”(2012), as well as Mutation Press’s SF anthology “Rocket Science” (2012).  He was nominated for the British Science Fiction Award (Non-Fiction category) in 2012.

He joined National Novel Writing Month in 2007, and has participated in every November and many Camp NaNo events, winning nine of the past ten such challenges.  He has served as co-Municipal Liaison of the Central NJ Region since 2011. He and his wife of 30 years, Barbara, live with their two sons in Central New Jersey.

https://PattersonBill.WordPress.com

The post A Short Story from the Slush to the Cover appeared first on DIY MFA.

Now Mary has taken yet another role, this time as the author of Writing Irresistible KidLit, a book that explains the craft of writing children’s books. Writing Irresistible KidLit serves almost as an extension of Mary’s blog, providing that same level of in-depth information, but with all-new material and tons of examples and excerpts illustrating the techniques covered in the book.

I’ve been a longtime follower of Mary’s blog and when I heard she had a book coming out, I jumped at the chance to get an  interview with her. What followed was a delightful conversation on reading, writing and children’s literature which you’ll see in the video below. You definitely don’t want to miss this video because in it Mary shares:

• A sneak peek at one key piece of advice from her book.
• The two things writers must do so they can rise to the top of the slush pile.
• One important skill that writers of all genres and categories can learn from reading children’s books.
• The first book that ever captured her heart.

• • • • •

Enjoyed this interview? Ready to give your writing a serious boost?
Check out this DIY MFA online workshop coming up.

The post What Writers Can Learn from Children’s Books appeared first on DIY MFA.

Build Your Community

This portion of the DIY MFA focuses on three types of communities: other writers, readers and publishers/markets. In the age of social media, there are many ways to build your community online as well as locally. Whether you are just starting out or already active in communities DIY MFA provides advice on how to get involved and make the most of this crucial element of the writing journey. It’s only a fairly lonely business if you want it to be!

Here are a few links to help you build your community

5 Lessons About Community That Writers Must Learn Community is important. Your life and your writing will benefit from the vibrant connections you can make online and in person. The benefits are tangible, in friendships, connections and knowledge. This article will tell you why.

How to Submit to Literary Magazines Publication in a literary magazine is a great way to build your professional credibility. Thinking of dusting off a short story or writing a new one this year? This article will help you get your query package in tip-top shape for submission.

Agent Conference Tips Some of the best community-building is done at conferences. These are the place to meet other writers, editors and agents in person. Book deals are made at conferences. Critique groups are formed at conferences. After the Backspace Writer’s Conference, Gabi compiled a list of great advice from agents who attend these conferences on how to put your best foot forward. Whether you’re pitching, networking or just seeking to build relationships, this article will help you prepare.

Branding for Writers In today’s marketplace, whether you are self-published, traditionally published, or somewhere in-between, it is essential that writers market themselves. This idea can be scary. Aren’t we supposed to be at our desks, alone and in our own heads? When you’re writing, yes. When you’re branding, no. Branding can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s all about being yourself and connecting with others. This article will help you get started, or get re-charged if you are already in the process.

Four Steps to a Winning Query When submitting, the query letter is often the only piece of writing the agent or editor sees. It’s of paramount importance. However, writing a query letter can be an incredibly useful exercise even if you are still drafting or editing. Distilling your story down to a few short paragraphs will give you a clearer sense of it. This article provides tips on how to make it as perfect as possible.

Networking for Authors: 5 Survival Tips Writers are not generally extroverts. This can make conferences and networking difficult. But in today’s market, being able to network effectively is essential. Headed to a conference this year? This article will help you not only survive it — but thrive in it!

Three Things to Look for in a Critique Community If writing is a fairly lonely business, a critique group can be a vital source of support, encouragement and advice. Forming a critique group? Thinking about joining one? Three things to keep in mind when making this important decision.

The post Best of 2012: Build Your Community appeared first on DIY MFA.

A lot is riding on your first few pages.

One of the main lessons I learned from watching agents give feedback is that they can make decisions on a piece very fast. I saw this same pattern when I interned at a literary agency some years ago, and it makes sense. Agents get mountains of submissions so they have to learn to sort through it all quickly or they’d never do anything but read slush.

Clearly those opening pages matter but it’s not just about impressing agents. After all, agents are just the first step in the process. Your opening pages must also grab an editor’s attention, woo an entire publishing team who will help get your book on the shelves, and ultimately entice readers to buy it. Aside from cover design and flap copy, those opening pages are where readers turn to decide if they want to read the book. Those pages can be the difference between whether someone decides to read more, or puts down your book and picks up another. This is why those first few pages are so important.

Your job as writer is to make your book un-put-downable.Tweet this.

3 Techniques to Make Your Opening Pages Un-put-downable.

With such diverse writers at the Agent-Author Seminar, I expected that the feedback from the agents would be equally diverse. Imagine my surprise when I saw the same feedback and comments come up again and again in the sessions. It turns out that a handful of simple techniques can turn those opening pages (regardless of genre or subject) into the beginning of an un-put-downable story.

1) Narrow the focus.

Writers often try to do too much in those first two pages but here’s a reality check: two double-spaced manuscript pages gives you just 500 words to grab an agent’s attention. You can’t afford to waste a single word on something that doesn’t pull your reader into the story. This means that even if you’re writing a grand epic story, you have to narrow your focus in those first pages

As one agent told a writer: “give us less, but at the same time give us more.” In other words go deep, don’t go wide. Don’t give readers broad, sweeping brushstrokes of the story. Instead, dig into one scene and make that moment come to life for the reader. Don’t bombard readers with information about your setting, just give them one key detail that can give that world depth.

Put world-building and backstory on the back-burner and focus on things that matter: character, voice and action. Of course, world-building is important, but the problem is that writers often get so preoccupied about creating that world that they get sidetracked from what readers really care about. Readers don’t want world, they want a character to root for.

Example: The Hunger Games opens with protagonist, Katniss, hunting and spending time with her best friend Gale before the reaping. There’s a lot going on in the world of this book, but the author holds back from giving too much information up front. Instead, we see the protagonist experience the setting for herself. We get small but meaningful details that help us piece that setting together. Once we get to the reaping scene when the history of that world is revealed, we’re already hooked on the story, not because of the world but because we care about the character.

 2) Dive into action.

While 500 words might not be enough to set up an intricate plot, but it’s plenty space to give some juicy action. Make something happen in those first two pages, don’t just leave your character alone in a room contemplating the meaning of life. One of the best ways to grab a reader’s attention is to dive into a scene and put the character in the middle of a situation.

Action doesn’t necessarily mean the scene has to be active. But what if your story isn’t full of gunfights and car chases? Even in a quiet, subtle novel you can still dive into action right away.

Example: Think of the opening of Pride and Prejudice, which takes place in a parlor with seven (seven!) members of the Bennett family discussing  the arrival of a new neighbor. Not only does the author juggle seven characters in a dialogue-filled scene–a feat of mastery in itself–but there’s an urgency to the moment that draws us in. Obtaining a formal introduction with the handsome Mr. Bingly may not be a life-or-death situation, but to these characters (or at least to Mrs. Bennett and a few of the daughters) it might as well be the end of the world. Right away we know that something important is at stake for these characters.

The other important part of diving into action is to knowing when to start your story. One of the most frequent comments I heard agents say in the workshops was to start later in the story. Sometimes “later” means scrapping those first few paragraphs, sometimes it means tossing out those opening pages altogether. The key is starting your story when something important happens.

3) Give us a character to root for.

If we care about the character, we’ll follow him or her anywhere. Does that mean the character has to be likeable? Of course not. The character can be evil or cruel or just plain annoying, but as long as there’s something that makes us root for him or her, we’re hooked.

Voice and point of view play a huge part in helping us connect with the main character. A character with a voice a la Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye can captivate the reader even if that character is seriously flawed.  There’s no easy way to explain how to do voice well, but if your character is compelling, chances are that voice will come through. Focus on character and voice will follow.

As for point of view, it’s important to choose the right lens through which you capture your story. If the point of view is too “bird’s eye view” it can distance the reader from the story and the characters. On the other hand, if we’re in first person or a close third person, we can go on that journey with the main character and discover the backstory and world with him or her.

Take-Home Message:

You’ve only got 500 words to work with in those opening pages, so make sure they pack a punch. Narrow your focus, make something happen and give us a character to root for. Remember, you want your book to be un-put-downable, so make those opening pages sing.

The post Read Like an Agent appeared first on DIY MFA.

Regardless of what you submitting, every writer needs one thing: a submission schedule.

Weekend Prompt: Make a Submission Schedule

Set aside time specifically for working on submissions.  The key is to send work out regularly but also not to let the submission process cut into valuable writing time.

This block of time is when you’ll research agents or literary markets where you’d like to submit work.  This is also when you’ll write your query letters, format your manuscript according to the different guidelines and keep track of all your submissions.  Determine, how many submissions you can complete and send out during the allotted time each week, then try to complete this number of submissions weekly until you’ve feel satisfied with the number of agents/editors you’ve contacted.

How frequently you schedule time in your schedule for submissions will depending on where you are in the writing process.  If you have only one short story read, then you may be able to send out all your submissions in a week or two.  If you’ve got several pieces ready or are querying your book you might need to spread the work out over several weeks or months until you’re satisfied with the number of submissions you’ve sent.

The idea here is to make a schedule you can stick to and to spread the work out so that it doesn’t overwhelm you.

Write on!

The post Prompt: Make a Submission Schedule appeared first on DIY MFA.

Step 1:  Look for publications that are a good fit for your piece.

There’s no point in sending your work to a magazine you know isn’t a good fit so familiarize yourself with the magazines or e-zines before sending your work to them.  E-zines are easy to research because their entire publication is online.  Print magazines take a little more effort but these days, most of them have an internet presence and often post a selection of their work online.  The idea is to read some of the work these magazines publish and see if your work would fit.  Whenever possible, support the magazines where you submit by purchasing issues; it’s good karma!

How do you find these markets in the first place?  My favorite resource is Duotrope.com, a search engine that lets you search for literary magazines and other publications.  You can narrow your search according to genre or subject, making it easy to find magazines that could be a good fit.  Each market’s entry on the Duotrope database includes submission information as well as a link to the magazine’s site.

The Writer’s Market is a book and subscription-based website that also gives similar information.  The book is updated each year so it can get pricey to keep purchasing it year after year but you can always go to your local library and peruse the latest volume.  The website offers both the search engine function as well as a submission tracker that allows you to keep track of places you’ve submitted work to.

Step 2: Read the submission guidelines carefully and follow them.

If the guidelines say “no attachments,” don’t send an attachment.  If the market asks for your piece formatted a certain way, do it that way.  It might feel like you’re jumping through hoops but really, most of these guidelines are there for practical reasons (like to avoid your piece getting caught in a spam filter or getting misplaced).  Yes, this means that each time you submit a piece, you’ll have to put in a little extra effort to format the submission to that specific market, but if it helps keep your piece from getting lost in the ether, isn’t it worth it?

Make sure to follow the submission guidelines on the website because while Duotrope and The Writer’s Market also include this information, it might not be as up-to-date as the guidelines on the website.  The safest bet is to use resources like Duotrope or The Writer’s Market as starting points but to double-check against the submissions online.

Step 3:  Understand the lingo.

Simultaneous Submission

This means you’re submitting the same piece simultaneously to several magazines or e-zines.  Some magazines say “No simultaneous submissions” in their guidelines, which means if you want to submit something to them, you must wait until you hear back before sending it elsewhere.  Most markets, however, will accept simultaneous submissions as long as you let them know in the cover letter and you contact them if your work gets accepted elsewhere.

Multiple Submission

This is when you submit multiple pieces to the same market.  Most markets will accept multiple poetry submissions (they usually specify a maximum number) but few markets will accept multiple short stories.  Usually, the submission guidelines will specify how long you must wait before submitting work to them again.

First North American Rights

This means the magazine is licensing the right to publish your piece in North America before anyone else can have it.  Most magazines will let you know when it’s OK for you to republish or reprint your piece.  First Electronic Rights means the same thing, only instead of publishing it first in North America, the market gets to publish it first online.

Step 4:  Write a cover letter.

The cover letter should be no more than a couple of paragraphs–half a page at most if printed.  Keep it to the point.  Here’s an example:

Dear Mr./Ms. [Name of Awesomesauce Magazine Editor Here],

Please consider this 750-word story entitled “Super-Duper Family Reunion.”  I learned about Awesomesauce Magazine through Duotrope several months ago and have become an avid reader and fan of your quirky, whimsical style.

“Super-Duper Family Reunion” recounts the events of a family reunion from the point of view of a sassy, at times even snarky, eleven-year-old girl as she observes her family members and realizes the truth behind the family dynamics.

My work has appeared in several literary magazines, including Fanshmastic Magazine and Storylicious Review.

This is a simultaneous submission, but I will notify you if it is accepted elsewhere.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards,
[Your Name Here]

Notes on the Cover Letter:

• Whenever possible, address the cover letter to the specific editor who will read your work.
• Key information (title, genre and word count) is right in the first sentence.
• If applicable, it’s nice to mention how you learned about the magazine or why you think your work would be a good fit.  (If you don’t have something relevant or sincere to say here, just skip this part.)
• Give a one or two-sentence summary of the story but don’t get into too much detail.  Let the story speak for itself.
• Mention previous publications but avoid giving a long laundry list.  If you have no previous publications, don’t sweat it and please don’t apologize for it.  Just leave that part out.

Step 5:  Keep track of your submissions.

I keep a spreadsheet with all the important information for each piece I submit.

• Title of the Piece
• E-zine or Magazine
• URL for the E-Zine/Magazine’s Website
• Editor’s Name/Email (person I sent the piece to)
• Date Submitted
• Response Received and Date

I also color code each row (blue for pending submissions, red for “NO” and green for “YES”).  There are websites like The Writer’s Market and Duotrope that have submission trackers, essentially serving the same function as the spreadsheet.  I haven’t explored these services in depth because I like my spreadsheet system, but if you’re tech-saavy these sites are worth a look.

Once you’ve gone through all five steps, then it’s just a waiting game.

If you’ve hit “send” and your work is out of your hands, your best bet is to get your mind off of it by starting something new.

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