How To Submit Your Work to Literary Journals

Image courtesy of Kibsri / FreeDigitalPhotos.net. If you would like to see your work published in a literary journal the first step is finding some magazines to send your awesome writing to.  (Actually, the first step is to write something awesome, but I am assuming you’ve already got a stack of awesomeness on your desk just waiting to dazzle the world with.)  To get you started I’ve gathered a few good online resources that publish calls for submissions:


Resources:

 New Pages is a fabulous resource.  

Poets and Writers magazine publish some calls for submissions on their website.  

Places for Writers is a Canadian site that I like a lot.  It publishes mostly Canadian magazine looking for work.

And if you haven’t already signed up for The Practicing Writer e-newsletter you’re going to want to do that now.  It is a free monthly resource published by the fabulous Erika Dreifus.  True story: I found the publisher of my novel through Erika’s newsletter.  Get yourself signed up!

You could also swing by your local library or bookstore and browse the literary journals.  You
can usually find submission guideline within the first few pages or at the back of the magazine.  Spend some time reading the journals to be sure they publish work similar to yours. Of course, this also applies to any magazine you find online.  You want the magazine to be a good fit.  Sending your erotic sci-fi tale to a journal devoted to uplifting religious poetry is going to be a colossal waste of time for you and the editors.

Follow Submission Guidelines

Which brings us to submission guidelines.  Now this is important: once you’ve found a magazine you want to submit your work to be sure to read the submission guidelines carefully and then follow them to the letter.  This is seriously important.  Many of these magazines receive hundreds of submissions a month. They’ve taken the time to create those guidelines for a reason and that reason is to make the editors’ lives easier.  So, if you ignore those guidelines there is a good chance they’ll ignore your work.  You’ve been warned.

Simultaneous Submissions

Most magazines nowadays accept simultaneous submissions.  This is great because it means you can send your story to more than one magazine at a time, therefore shortening the time it will take you to get published.  But don’t go overboard and submit your story to a gazillion magazines at once.  As a rule of thumb I usually only submit to three magazines at a time, but there is no hard and fast rule on this.  Use your own judgement.

Once you have submitted your work it’s a good idea to create a file on your computer to keep track of where and when you have sent it.  Magazines often give you an indication of how long it will take them to get back to you in their guidelines.  Take these with a grain of salt.  It has been my experience that magazines are either very quick (you hear back from them within a few weeks) or
pretty slow (you get an email months later, or years later, or never).  Having a record of when you sent your work lets you know when it is time to check in with an editor with a friendly email, (“Hi, I was wondering if my story was still under consideration?”) or when to move on and send it somewhere new.

Don't Make a Big Deal About Rejection

When you receive an inevitable rejection letter keep in mind that rejection is an unavoidable part of the writers’ life.  Everyone gets rejection letters so don’t let it become a bigger deal than it is.  It is all part of the game.  What I do when a piece is rejected is reread it.  If I can see a way to improve it, I do.  If not, I send it right back out to someone else.  

Keep Going!

Keep sending your work out.  That’s the biggest secret to getting published. Your words will never
get published if you let them languish on your desk.  Keep your work in circulation. 
Keep writing new stuff.  And then one fine day an email will arrive in your in box telling you that your story has been accepted for publication.  And that will be a great day!