The "Where can I send this story?" thread

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MattJ

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I'm in my 7 day Clarkesworld time out. They're so fast, that I'll probably always send them a story. Too bad F&SF won't join the others in the e-subs. Even Analog accepts E-subs.

Clarkesworld take horror, as do Shimmer.

I don't know much about Shroud either (or horror markets in general, as i don't write it all that much, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt).
 

Nathaniel Katz

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I don't think that Clarkesworld does all that much pure horror, though it is possible there. You could look into Black Static and Macabre Cadaver, though I'm unsure about their policies regarding the supernatural. I think Psuedopod does all kinds of horror.
 

Izz

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So, who can recommend some drabble markets?

There's Drabblecast, of course, but they're more genre and this is a straight mainstream piece.

Thanks in advance!
 

MumblingSage

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I have a 3,700 word Swords & Sorcery story that I'm not sure what to do with. I was considering retiring it, as I'm not particularly confident in it (wrote it a long time ago), but my rejection from Heroic Fantasy Quarterly said that it caught their attention, so I'm now thinking I may as well keep it out there. Unfortunately, the only pro/semipro markets for swords and sorcery on duotrope seem to be Beneath Ceaseless Skies and HFQ, and I've been rejected from both. I'm very hesitant to go beneath one penny a word, but I suppose I might consider it if the publication looks decent enough. I noticed this anthology, but it only pays in royalties, and I'm wondering if I'd ever see any money from that. Anyone have any ideas?
If you're not particularily confident, consider doing a rewrite before sending it out again. If the protagonist is female, you might consider the Sword and Sorceress anthologies. Abyss and Apex pays $75 for longer work and sometimes considers swords and sorcery.
I sent a story to the anthology you mentioned, but my 'floor' for submitting stories is low pay-wise. I figure if you're going to retire the story anyway, it might be worth it to try for a few bucks and some exposure. I've had a very good experience with token paying markets such as Crossed Genres and the Lorelei Signal.
 

LStein

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I have a 11,300 word murder mystery with some romance elements. (I might be able to trim it down to 10,000 words.)

I've never written a mystery before and am a little intimidated by Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
 

Nathaniel Katz

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The other big mystery magazine is Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Beyond that, I know almost nothing about mystery marketing. Duotrope shows a frightfully barren market for mystery shorts of any length.
 

pangalactic

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I've never written a mystery before and am a little intimidated by Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

Still, send it to AH anyway. It can't hurt. The only other one I can think of is EQ, but I don't write mysteries so I'm probably less than useful to you ;-)
 

shelleyo

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I have a 11,300 word murder mystery with some romance elements. (I might be able to trim it down to 10,000 words.)

I've never written a mystery before and am a little intimidated by Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

I agree that Ellery Queen is the other biggee. Strand Magazine is mystery.

A quick check on duotrope shows almost 100 markets that accept mystery/crime fiction of some kind. Narrow that down to markets that pay something and there are less than 40. Only a few pay pro rates but there are semi-pros, too.

I don't read or write mystery so I have no personal experience with it. If your story has other elements, though, like anything that could be speculative or romantic or whatnot, that opens up your potential markets quite a bit.

Shelley
 

Euan H.

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I have a 3,700 word Swords & Sorcery story that I'm not sure what to do with. I was considering retiring it, as I'm not particularly confident in it (wrote it a long time ago), but my rejection from Heroic Fantasy Quarterly said that it caught their attention, so I'm now thinking I may as well keep it out there. Unfortunately, the only pro/semipro markets for swords and sorcery on duotrope seem to be Beneath Ceaseless Skies and HFQ,

Black Gate and Realms of Fantasy both take S&S and pay pro rates. Both are hard to crack, but then so are all pro markets
 

Euan H.

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Black Gate takes forever.
John's quite unapologetic about that. The magazine focuses on quality, not a regular production schedule. And slush comes at the very bottom of the list of priorities.

But why is quick response time an issue? Write another story.
 

Nathaniel Katz

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Up to a point, I agree. When we're talking about a duotrope average of five hundred days (!?) for a rejection, though, things have gotten a bit excessive.
 

Polenth

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John's quite unapologetic about that. The magazine focuses on quality, not a regular production schedule. And slush comes at the very bottom of the list of priorities.

But why is quick response time an issue? Write another story.

Black Gate don't reply to a third of submissions and take over a year for the rest (the longest waiter on Duotrope will hit two years soon). The editor's responses have made it clear that new writers in the slush don't have much chance of breaking out anyway. So I'd be waiting a couple of years for an almost certain rejection.

It's about practicality, not impatience. From a practical perspective, it's more efficient to target faster-responding markets with a history of using the slush to find new writers. Slow responders who dislike slushies are at the bottom of the list, because they're the least likely to generate a sale. In the end, I'm doing this in the hopes of selling stories, not because I love the submissions process.
 

Euan H.

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Those stats are Duotrope are based on a grand total of 13 responses over the past year. I wouldn't place too much faith in them. For one, I've submitted three stories to BG over the past year, all have been rejected, all the rejections came fairly quickly (within a couple of months), all were personalized.

The editor's responses have made it clear that new writers in the slush don't have much chance of breaking out anyway.
This is true for all pro markets. Realms of Fantasy has an acceptance rate (according to Duotrope) of 0.7%*. F&SF has a rate of 0.18%. Fantasy magazine has an acceptance rate of 0.53%.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been knocked back from F&SF. I managed to get past JJA once in four years. Fantasy have never given me anything but a brush off. Clarkesworld the same.

Most markets at the pro level are just not friendly to S&S (or at least, the kind of S&S I write). They may say they are, and they may take the occasional story (although I subscribe to F&SF and the last S&S story was . . . some years ago), but it's not their focus.

Black Gate's focus is on adventure fiction. They're probably the best fit for an S&S story. It's very very hard to sell to them**, but then you're competing against the best writers in the field. If you sell to them, you've written a damn good story.

*although I'm not sure if this is right, either. Doug posts the number of submisssions he receives, and from that you can work out the acceptance rate (given the buying rounds are normally for two issues). I think it's a bit higher than this.

**I've sold them one story, from more than ten (fifteen?) I've submitted to them. And that's over four years of trying.

Just my 2c, please don't jump on me. I don't think Duotrope represents everyone's experiences equally. (Doesn't represent mine, f'r instance.)

Edited to add:

I don't want this to begin a 'this place is better than that place' kind of thing, because that would suck. The only markets I've submitted to with good response times haven't bought from me. :) So I'm kind of wary about using response time as a marker of where to submit to. In my experience, faster response times just means faster rejections. YMMV.
 
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LStein

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RE: 11,000 word mystery.

I'll double check Duotrope but I'm pretty sure there weren't very many markets that accepted mysteries this long. If possible, I am even more intimidated by Ellery Queen. Also, I think the story would just fit better at Alfred Hitchcock. Strand Magazine seems rather unresponsive.

I'm going to edit it some more and send it to Alfred Hitchcock. Thanks for the encouragement, pangalactic!
 

Gray Rose

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There are plenty of markets that pay well and don't take 500 days. Beneath Ceaseless Skies is a pro market that takes S&S and takes up to 49 days to reply. Sword and Sorceress is open now, pays pro, and will send you a response within a few days.
 

OtterFactory

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Anyone know a market for experimental magic-realism-ish literary fiction? The story I'm subbing is a bit experimental for the standard litfic mags and not sci-fi enough for sci-fi mags.
 

zerosystem

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I've written a 7500 word short story called Reliving Merrymore. It has fantasy elements, but is not fantasy per se. The stroy is about a young woman named Anya who goes to her father's house after he dies in a car accident. She had not been there in years due to the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, who is also dead. The mother cheated on Anya's father with a friend of his, got a divorce, then married that friend. He was abusive, however, and was killed when he was in a violent rage after a professional failure. Anya hates her mother intensely and blames her for a lot that went wrong in her childhood. While looking through the house, she discovers a fantasy book that she wrote back when she was a kid that she had forgotten about. It was a fantasy novel about a kingdom called Merrymore, that starred herself as Princess Anya, her father and mother as the king and queen. As she continues to read it, she discovers that it was based on events that actually happened to her that she had no memory of. Somehow, tragic events and those that she refused to accept were blocked out of her memory, but she was able to reproduce those thoughts in her book. Reading it unveils things about her past and that of her parents that she had long since sealed away. By the end, she gains a far greater insight on the mentality of her parents, including that her mother was abused in the worst of ways as a child by her father, which led to her being an abusive adult herself. She lets go of the ill will toward her mother and is able to resolve the pain of her past.

I've sent this story to a couple fantasy magazines since the world in the book she wrote is Camelotesque. I've gotten rejections from Fantasy Magazine, Clarksworld and just recently, Strange Horizons. This is a really good story and is one of my better written peices, which surprises me that I have yet to get anyone to accept it. I'm now asking for help as to where I should send this. Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.
 

Emerson

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I have a ~2000 word story which I posted on SYW:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215055

A bit hard to describe, but I guess I would call it surreal. It's definitely not fantasy, is pretty character focused, a bit of humor in there too. If anyone has any idea where would be a good place to submit (preferably that won't take a year to respond) and if the story is even good enough to submit, I'd appreciate the advice.
 

Darkshore

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Just finished my first short story for an attempt at publication. It's also serves as the prologue to a planned Epic Fantasy novel of mine. It's a little over 5000 words. Any ideas which magazine I should send it out to? or should I provide more info?
 

alexshvartsman

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If its epic fantasy, Beneath Ceaseless Skies may be a good fit. Fantasy Magazine and others that accept that genre/length are viable options as well, but I would be careful to only submit this if it truly works as a standalone story. Editors won't appreciate having to read anything that's an actual prologue.
 

Darkshore

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If its epic fantasy, Beneath Ceaseless Skies may be a good fit. Fantasy Magazine and others that accept that genre/length are viable options as well, but I would be careful to only submit this if it truly works as a standalone story. Editors won't appreciate having to read anything that's an actual prologue.

Thanks for the info. I think it works well as a standalone, everyone whose read it has said that once it ends they find themselves craving more. It answers a few questions but leaves a few unanswered. I may have to post it in SYW to be sure.
 

SteveP

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I have a 3,500ish word story about arrested development / deferred adulthood involving a guy's chance encounter with a former pornstar in her new line of work. There's potty talk, adult themes, and a good bit of humor.

Everything else I've written has been firmly sci-fi or fantasy, so I'm not sure where to start looking for something like this. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
 

BjornAbust

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I've got a short horror story that looks as though it may end up at (or possibly exceed) 7500 words. It's something of a Lovecraftian piece- the narrator is wandering in an abandoned town and comes face to face with a terrible abomination. I've been working on it for quite some time and an earlier draft was rejected by Innsmouth Free Press. Any idea where I could send this? I've scoured Duotrope, but I'm not sure that the available markets would be interested in a work of this length or genre. In many respects it's a tad-bit too traditional, which may be a turn-off to many prospective markets. My options seem limited, so I'm not really sure what to do with it anymore.
 
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