How hard is it to get short stories published? - Writers Forum

JP Wagner · 09-03-2007, 01:19 AM

Is it me or is it harder these days to get a short story published than a novel published?

I mean I know literary magazines are a dime a dozen, but so many of them are so particular on what they want that you would seeminly have to write a story with them in mind to get accepted. (which may not be a good thing for writing)

not to mention paying journals keep getting fewer and fewer.

with novels it seems like there is a publisher out there for just about every novel if you can find the write one. with short stories it seems next to impossible.

am i the only one who feels this way?

and i know the average querying for novel rate is about 150 submissions per one acceptance. what would you say the average short story submission rate is?

mwd · 09-03-2007, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JP Wagner

that you would seeminly have to write a story with them in mind to get accepted. (which may not be a good thing for writing)

I think you hit the nail on the head here. That said, I'm not sure if that's necessarily a bad thing (writing for a particular journal). First of all, if you even have the ability to write for a particular journal, that means you've actually read the journal sufficiently (which you should be doing no matter what, right?), and know the editorial tastes. Which is good.

Sometimes I try to write in the style of a particular authour I admire. Not for any real reason, but just because I feel like it and want to see if I can learn something. Is doing this any different, at the end of the day, than trying to write in a style that will appeal to a particular magazine?

I don't really intend that as a rhetorical question, since I'm curious. I write my first drafts on autopilot most of the time, then go through them more carefully during the editing stages. So if I were to write to a particular magazine, I'd basically have to change my standard process.

As for how many submissions it takes on average to get a short story accepted, I have no idea. I don't really like thinking of statistics like that. If you give a magazine something that's damn good and within the scope of their interests, you could get accepted on your first try. Or if you write something boring, or worse yet write something good but send it to totally wrong markets, you could submit it countless times without any bites.

I wish I was better at targetting my submissions. At times it seems like an even more important skill to have than the writing itself.

Mike C · 09-03-2007, 06:50 AM

It's easy if you give them what they want.

Too many writers send stories out without much regard to the market, and without having read the publication in question. Wherever possible you should always read the mag you're proposing to send work to, to get a feel for what they like.

surrealist · 09-03-2007, 08:13 AM

Everything I've published so far (besides a poem) has been a short story. The object of the game is *FIT*.

If you send a story that doesn't fit the focus of the magazine, it's going to get rejected. If you send a great story that doesn't fit the focus, it'll likely still get rejected. If you send a decent story that fits the focus, you've got a 50/50 chance. If you send a great story that fits the focus, it'll usually get accepted.

With regards to submission count, most of the stories I've *published* were accepted on the first try - but on the other hand, the majority of stories I've *submitted* have not yet been accepted after multiple tries. Persistence is key. My current record for a story that eventually won acceptance is 7 submissions.

Talia_Brie · 09-03-2007, 11:15 AM

All peices if really good advice, pretty much summed up by this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeC

It's easy if you give them what they want

My opinion, and I haven't done any research on this (or tried to publish a SS for a long time) is that it is very hard to get them published, especially in Australia. The market for them has dried up completely.

Tim Winton says the market for Short Stories in Australia is dead, and Short Story Writers killed it. I don't know how far off the mark he is on that one. In Australia at least a lot of the journals are filled with very self-indulgent stories that most readers can't relate to and don't want to read. And if you don't want to read it, you're not going to pay for it.

There are exceptions of course, but in general that's my feeling. Not sure how much value there is in it though. I'm out of that market at the moment.

Mike C · 09-04-2007, 07:42 AM

The Australian market is difficult. There aren't many mags left down under, and those that are still going tend to be very insular and give greater preference to Australian writers.

Talia_Brie · 09-04-2007, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike C

The Australian market is difficult. There aren't many mags left down under, and those that are still going tend to be very insular and give greater preference to Australian writers.

Absolutely. Very parochial. I'd imagine trying to publish a SS in Australia from another country would be nearly impossible.

Mike C · 09-04-2007, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talia_Brie

Absolutely. Very parochial. I'd imagine trying to publish a SS in Australia from another country would be nearly impossible.

Well I've never managed, so it must be!