How to get short stories published?
Tags: advice,Help,Help Me Out,publishing,tips,Writing

I've always wondered that (how to get short stories published). I love writing flash fiction, but what publishing company would want to publish a little book of short stories?

Do magazines print them? If so, how? Do you just send them in to any magazine company and see if they get accepted? Or newspaper?

Obviously, I really don't know much about how this whole system works. If anyone does know and would be able to help me/tell me I would really appreciate it!

Thanks

I would say if you want to publish short fiction, literary magazines would be the way to go. There's a website called Duotrope.com which I've found to be a great resource. It's basically a database of the short fiction market; to find the magazine (or website, in some cases) that's the best fit for your work, you just do a search based on any number of criteria (genre, word count, pay scale, etc.) Each magazine will have its own requirements for submission, but most of them will allow you submit work for free and will respond (eventually) to your submission.

Hope this helps, and feel free to ask more questions about publishing if you'd like. I wouldn't call myself an expert, as most of my stuff still gets rejected, but I have had work accepted also. It can be tough getting started, though. Good luck.

Michael

Thanks, I've checked that site out and it seems really great!

Is there anything I should know about for like publishing rights? Or any tips you have on spotting scams?

As far as publishing rights, I'm not sure what you mean exactly, but I can share a little of what I know. Generally, magazines are buying the right to be the first to publish your work, but you still retain the rights to the work itself. This means you can publish a story again in a collection or anthology, if you wish. If you have a more specific question about publishing rights, I'll try to help any way I can.

As for scams, I haven't come across many in the short fiction world, but you might want to be leery of contests that aren't connected to an established website or magazine. This is because for contests you normally have to pay a fee to submit your work. But since literary mags typically don't charge money for submissions (besides contests) there's little reason to fear getting scammed by them.

Michael