182 Short Fiction Publishers S. Kalekar Authors Publish Copyright 2019. All Rights Reserved. Do not duplicate, distribute, or copy without explicit permission. Questions, comments, corrections, complaints? Email [email protected] More Books from Authors Publish • The 2019 Guide to Manuscript Publishers • The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submission • Submit, Publish, Repeat: How to Publish Your Creative Writing in Literary Journals • The Authors Publish Compendium of Writing Prompts • The Authors Publish Guide to Children’s and Young Adult Publishing • How to Promote Your Book • The Six Month Novel Writing Plan • 8 Ways Through Publishers Block • The Authors Publish Quick-Start Guide to Flash Fiction Courses & Workshops from Authors Publish Workshop: Manuscript Publishing for Novelists Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................. 7 How to submit a short story ..................................................... 10 Mistakes to avoid while submitting a short story ....................... 16 Levels of rejections and what they mean .................................. 19 35 Speculative Fiction Markets ................................................. 22 18 Horror Fiction Markets ........................................................ 34 14 Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Markets .......................... 40 15 Romance Fiction Markets .................................................... 45 10 LGBTQ+ Fiction Markets ...................................................... 50 10 Feminist Fiction Markets ..................................................... 53 10 Christian Fiction Markets ..................................................... 57 17 Western, Pulp, Historical Fiction Markets ............................. 61 14 Mystery, Suspense, Crime Fiction Markets ........................... 68 39 Literary Fiction Markets ....................................................... 73 About the Author..................................................................... 83 182 Short Fiction Publishers S. Kalekar Introduction This eBook is a brief guide to short fiction submissions, as well as a list of short fiction publishers. The first chapter is a step-by-step guide to submitting short stories – from how to find a suitable market for the story/stories you have written, to writing a cover letter and bio, and housekeeping work, like tracking your submissions. The second chapter is basic mistakes writers can avoid making while submitting their short stories – mainly it is about writers’ guidelines, and why it is important to not ignore them. The third chapter is about rejections and what they mean. These chapters are largely meant for those new to submitting, and reading them can help you navigate the seemingly confusing world of literary submissions. They can also improve your chances of getting into a journal. The rest of the book focuses on writers’ markets, primarily literary magazines and websites, a few small presses, and magazines. These markets are broken up into specific genres – speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and various sub- genres of these – though there is also a separate section on horror markets), children’s, romance, LGBTQ+, feminist, Christian, Western, pulp, historical, mystery, suspense, crime, and literary fiction. 7 182 Short Fiction Publishers S. Kalekar The markets contained in the list are in no particular order. It might be worth mentioning that while there are many markets in a particular genre, they will all have distinct preferences, tones, and styles, so it is worth checking out the websites and stories in some detail in markets that you like. Some of these are also markets for reprints and translations. A few are also interested in podcasts, art, and comic submissions. Many of them also accept other genres, like nonfiction, poetry, and drama. The classifications here are necessarily loose – so some speculative fiction outlets may also be found under children’s, LGBTQ+, and Christian fiction, for instance, and many markets under various subheads (children’s, romance, speculative) also welcome LGBTQ+ subjects and characters in fiction. Some publishers are multi-genre, so they may welcome pulp, romance, and historical fiction, as well as children’s, for example. Also, not all of the markets are open for submissions at this time, so it’s a good idea to bookmark a website, follow them on social media, or subscribe to their newsletter for announcements of submission periods, if you find a market you like. Details of word count and pay for these publishers, where mentioned, refer to fiction submissions. Please check the journals for length and pay guidelines for nonfiction, poetry, review, drama, or art submissions, where they are relevant. It is important to say here that none of the markets in this book charge a submission fee, or they have alternatives – like having certain fee-free periods in a year, or accepting a limited number 8 182 Short Fiction Publishers S. Kalekar of free submissions via their submission manager per reading period, or accepting postal submissions. This can change suddenly, though – submission guidelines or reading periods for literary magazines can sometimes change, or they can start charging a fee, or markets close down without warning. So please read the guidelines carefully before submitting. I hope you can discover some new outlets here, and enjoy the book! 9 182 Short Fiction Publishers S. Kalekar How to submit a short story After you’ve written a story, comes the process of submitting it. This process has a few stages, and the more you submit, the easier each stage of submission will become. 1) Find a suitable market/markets for your story. Researching a suitable market is important, and it can begin with something as simple as genre. A genre can refer to the form of writing (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, etc) or, for a fiction market, can refer to the kind of story written – literary or other genres, like speculative (there are many, many sub-genres here), horror, detective, romance, crime, Western, etc. fiction. Usually when a market says they do not accept genre fiction, it means they accept only literary fiction. So don’t send a weird Western short story to a poetry-only journal, say. It may seem obvious, but editors do regularly get work wholly unfit for their markets and more often than not, won’t respond to writers who have obviously not even given it a cursory look to see what the literary journal is about, much less read the guidelines or studied it for tone and style. Select the magazines accepting the genre. A thing to remember about genres also is not everyone defines a particular genre the same way. For instance, guidelines for the Cast of Wonders podcast, a young adult market, say, “We don’t exclusively define YA as stories featuring children or young adult characters, though 10 182 Short Fiction Publishers S. Kalekar they are very common. We would particularly like to receive more stories about older people having first experiences!” – which is not how most young adult markets define the genre. After that, it’s a matter of refining and narrowing down your markets, checking whether the tone of your story roughly fits the markets you have selected (this is the reason editors ask writers to read back issues of magazines, or read stories on their website – they often get stories absolutely different in tone to what they normally publish, and won’t consider them). Apart from the magazines and websites themselves, a good resource is Jim Harrington’s blog, Six questions for... – it lists in detail what editors of specific magazines look for and want in submissions. The podcast Lit Mag Love is another great resource for refining your search, and lets you know what editors of various magazines want. Duotrope (a paid service) also has an extensive editor interviews section. 2) Make sure to follow writers’ guidelines. These can and do vary for each market. Read the writer/contributor/author guidelines. These are easy to find in literary magazines – there is usually a separate ‘Submissions’ or ‘Submission guidelines’ or ‘Contributor guidelines’ tab clearly labeled, or it can be under the ‘About us’ or ‘Contact us’ tab. Do ensure that the story content, formatting, and submission period and process all follow the guidelines. 11 182 Short Fiction Publishers S. Kalekar Guidelines can be about how to format your content (most ask for Shunn’s or standard manuscript format), about the content itself, about whether or not you should send in your submission ‘blind’ (no author name or identifying details in the manuscript itself), about editor preferences (sometimes about what they emphatically do not what), about which the reading period is, and about following up, or any number of things. 3) Add a brief cover letter and bio Keep a standard cover letter and a short, professional bio handy – Emily Harstone has written this helpful piece on how to write a professional bio – attach these to your submission (unless the guidelines specifically ask you not to send either). These letters also say something about you, and it’s best to be professional and brief. The star of the submission will always be the story, but if you’re too expansive and jocular or in any way too personal or offensive in your cover letter, it has already biased the reader or editor against your work before they have opened your story, or made them wary. 4) Make sure you are within the submission period.