{"id":6688,"date":"2017-06-16T09:31:29","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T13:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6688"},"modified":"2019-07-11T11:43:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T15:43:43","slug":"a-winning-short-story-publishing-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6688","title":{"rendered":"A Winning Short Story Publishing Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Ellery<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Preparing for a panel on \u201cshort stories\u201d for this weekend\u2019s Deadly Ink conference for mystery\/crime writers, I studied the stack of five print publications in which my work has appeared this past year. This was in lieu of doing any actual preparation, you might suspect. I realized each of them had a publication lesson for me\u2014and possibly other authors. So here goes:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Dismiss Limited Circ Outlets<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Five of the last six years I\u2019ve had a story in the U.S. 1<\/em> Summer Fiction Issue. Yes, it reaches a small audience, but at a max of 2000 words, the time investment in these stories isn\u2019t massive and I keep the rights (more on that later).<\/p>\n

The benefits: reminding myself at least someone thinks my work is good enough to invest ink and paper in, the satisfaction of meeting an actual deadline\u2014in creative work you sometimes need an end-point\u2014and, best of all, cultivating a local group of writer friends for support and commiseration. My 2016 story: \u201cWhat Would Jimmy Stewart Do?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Prepare for Rejection<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Are you thrown into a funk that\u2019s hard to crawl out of when a story\u2019s rejected? Take heart from realizing that all short story outlets today receive far more \u201cpublishable\u201d material\u2014stories they like\u2014than they have room for. The literary magazine Glimmer Train<\/em>, which has given several of my non-mystery stories a thumbs-down, publishes about 60 stories a year. The editors receive 32,000 submissions. Those 60 stories may be fantastic, but they simply cannot be the absolute \u201cbest\u201d ones.<\/p>\n

I expect rejection. And I plan for it. When a story of mine comes back from outlet x, I read it through, fix anything obvious, and right away send it to outlet y, then z. Last year, I sent a rejected story to a new outlet whose editors want to feature female protagonists. They accepted it gladly, and eventually it won a Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society. You can read that story\u2014\u201cBreadcrumbs\u201d<\/a>\u2014here.<\/p>\n

Timing, Timing, Timing<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine <\/em>is one of the premier, if not the<\/em> premier outlet for short mystery fiction. I wanted another story of mine in it. So last spring, I wrote a Christmas-themed story, hoping they\u2019d want it for the annual Holiday issue. I sent it in June, to give them plenty of time to think about it. Planning for rejection, even if they turned it down in their usual six to eight weeks (ask me how I know!), I\u2019d have time to submit it elsewhere. They did not, and it appeared in the January-February 2017 \u201c\u2019Tis the Season\u201d issue.<\/p>\n

Meet the Requirements<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I know writer who become so wrapped up in writing \u201ctheir\u201d story that they ignore editors\u2019 guidance on theme, length, and so on. Dissect calls for submissions for clues to what they\u2019re looking for. Don\u2019t expect to be the exception, and don\u2019t make it easy for editors to reject your work! I wanted to submit a story to an anthology about police work. I had such a story in mind. A 6,200-word story. The editors\u2019 limit was 5,000. I liked those 1,200 words, but they went the way of the blue pencil (and the story was probably better for it). It was published in April.<\/p>\n

Mine Your Backlist<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Novelists have a \u201cbacklist\u201d of books published in past years. Short story writers do too. When I see an outlet looking for a theme I\u2019ve written on, I check whether the editor will accept reprints. Last October an online magazine republished one of my U.S. 1<\/em> stories that had a Halloween theme; I own those rights, remember? In April, a minor edit to a story published in a lit magazine (rights also mine) tailored it for an anthology. Taking advantage of these opportunities puts your work in front of new people and is a refreshing glass of water in the desert of seeming indifference.<\/p>\n

\"four-leaf

Dawn Ellner, cc license<\/p><\/div>\n

Getting a short story published entails more than a small amount of luck, but if you\u2019ve written a great story, you can increase the odds it will reach readers by being strategic about when, where, and how you engage with potential publishers.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preparing for a panel on \u201cshort stories\u201d for this weekend\u2019s Deadly Ink conference for mystery\/crime writers, I studied the stack of five print publications in which my work has appeared this past year. This was in lieu of doing any … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Winning Short Story Publishing Strategy","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,174,68,120],"tags":[419,421,414],"class_list":["post-6688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-first-draft-blog","category-publishing","category-short-story","tag-publishing","tag-short-story","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1JS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6688"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8068,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6688\/revisions\/8068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}