A question about sci-fi and fantasy magazines

I think your topic will probably get moved to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy board, because they have a bit more experience with it, but you don't need an agent to submit to those magazines. I've submitted before to Realms of Fantasy magazine. Still getting rejections, but an acceptance will happen one of these days!

You write a cover letter, print out the story, put a SASE in the envelope and mail it. No agent needed (and most agents won't take on short story writers anyway.)

No agent needed.
Just go to the magazine's website, follow their submission guidelines and then write another story while you wait for the response. A good estimate of the time you may have to wait can be found here http://brain-of-pooh.tech-soft.com/critters/blackholes/ or here http://www.duotrope.com/

Be sure to follow their submission guidelines to the letter.

Also, it is a terrifically bad idea to submit to a magazine one has not recently read.

Some of them prefer e-submissions (Strange Horizons, Coyote Wild, Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, etc.)

Some of them prefer print submissions (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's, Leading Edge)

Pick your poison by reading the magazines. Follow their submission guidelines to the letter.

I recommend putting together a spreadsheet of each story and where you have sent it, lest you mistakenly waste your time (and theirs) with a double submission after a rejection. Yes, this does occasionally happen. And, I hope Strange Horizons someday forgives me... Seriously, I foofed up my own spreadsheet, folks. I suck!)

No agent needed for 'zines. Make sure your story fits their type--read a few samles if you can. Follow their format, word count etc, and keep sending the stories out!

I actually only know of one agency that wants to handle your short stories.

Mine is still very politely ignoring my suggestion about wanting to do a short story anthology.

badducky said:

Also, it is a terrifically bad idea to submit to a magazine one has not recently read.

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That would be nice in an ideal world, but do you seriously have either the time or the money to read every magazine out there? I don't and I still submit to them if their guidelines seem to match.

There are something like 100 markets on a typical day when I do a fantasy search in Duotrope. I've read some of them. I haven't read all that I submit to and I don't apologize for it.

And by the way Duotrope and an excellent submission tracker.

What badducky said. Read your markets, follow the guidelines, you are set.
If you are sending a snail mail submission, do not forget the SASE!!
Do not forget about correct formatting. Stories formatted wrongly are usually thrown away.

badducky said:

I recommend putting together a spreadsheet of each story and where you have sent it, lest you mistakenly waste your time (and theirs) with a double submission after a rejection. Yes, this does occasionally happen. And, I hope Strange Horizons someday forgives me... Seriously, I foofed up my own spreadsheet, folks. I suck!)

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Duotrope submissions tracker is what I use. It is a lovely tool, plus it lets other subscribers know the response times of magazines, which I view as a community service.

Best of luck
Rose

Some of the magazines have discussion forums on line ... so even if you don't want or cannot read sample issues (and you SHOULD) ... you could ask their readers about general topics, themes, etc those magazines use.

Hard science, fantasy elements, etc ... they can get a great story rejected, just because it's not right for that one magazine; another magazine might adore it!

Dragon-lady said:

That would be nice in an ideal world, but do you seriously have either the time or the money to read every magazine out there? I don't and I still submit to them if their guidelines seem to match.

There are something like 100 markets on a typical day when I do a fantasy search in Duotrope. I've read some of them. I haven't read all that I submit to and I don't apologize for it.

And by the way Duotrope and an excellent submission tracker.

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I would read or skim over at least two stories before sending, yes. That's why e-subs are easier. For anthologies, I read the editors' guidelines and blogs.

I strongly believe that it is not productive to send a story to a market that does not fit it.

The most important thing in placing your stories in my humble opinion is matching story to market. It can be a hard task but it is doable if you are willing to do the work. Badducky gave me this advice when I was starting out, and he is 100% right. Read your markets, get a feel of what the editor wants.

best of luck,
Rose

Gray Rose said:

I would read or skim over at least two stories before sending, yes. That's why e-subs are easier. For anthologies, I read the editors' guidelines and blogs.

It is useless to send a story to a market that does not fit.
If you love being rejected, then sure, go down that road.

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Sorry, but I'm not going to decide not to submit to a magazine that says they are looking for what I write just because I haven't read any issues. You can get a very good idea of what they use from their guidelines and sometimes--when they have one-- from their forums.

I read a lot of magazines -- as many as I can. But many do NOT have free samples and I cannot afford to subscribe to hundreds of magazines and couldn't read that many if I could afford them.

Reading magazines is good. Supporting magazines is good. But there is a limit to how many it is possible to read.

It's a matter of personal choice. If you decide not to ever submit to a magazine you haven't managed to read, I can respect that. I make a different choice.

Beyond that, Yes, read and follow the guidelines to the letter.

Dragon-lady said:

I read a lot of magazines -- as many as I can. But many do NOT have free samples and I cannot afford to subscribe to hundreds of magazines and couldn't read that many if I could afford them.

Reading magazines is good. Supporting magazines is good. But there is a limit to how many it is possible to read.

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This is where writer friends come in handy.

I've actually given away every single issue of Lady Churchill's rosebud Wristlet I've ever gotten, for isntance.

Team up with other writers, and/or your local writer's group, so you can each get a few magazines that the others don't. If you don't like it, trade with someone.

Work together, people. Teamwork. Go Team!

You are saying that I should give up on a story, even one I believe in, when I go through the magazines I have personally read.

I disagree.

I keep every story I have written submitted 100% of the time to any magazine where it fits the genre and subgenre the magazine says they will consider and fits their other guidelines.

So I can get "a few" magazines? Do you make a "few" submissions? I assume you do and that you usually sell to the first magazine you submit to. I don't -- and yes, the first are magazines I have read more than once.

Sure it makes sense to START with the magazines I know. That is my preference. But after that I'm not going to delete a story I like because I've run through "too many" publications. So the fact is that I agree with you in principle. But in practice, it doesn't always work for me.

Edit: I've said my peace on the subject.

badducky said:

I recommend putting together a spreadsheet of each story and where you have sent it, lest you mistakenly waste your time (and theirs) with a double submission after a rejection. Yes, this does occasionally happen. And, I hope Strange Horizons someday forgives me... Seriously, I foofed up my own spreadsheet, folks. I suck!)

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I write it in a notebook. It isn't the high-tech way, but short of a house fire, my records won't get messed up.

On the original topic, knowing about standard manuscript format helps. Some magazines have their own guidelines for format, but a fair number still want the standard double-spaced thing. SFWA has some articles on it under 'Manuscript Preparation'.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/

feeling far easier in my mind

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Actually, a few of the comments above gave me a great brooding sense of unease!

Dragon-lady said:

You are saying that I should give up on a story, even one I believe in, when I go through the magazines I have personally read.

I disagree.

I keep every story I have written submitted 100% of the time to any magazine where it fits the genre and subgenre the magazine says they will consider and fits their other guidelines.

So I can get "a few" magazines? Do you make a "few" submissions? I assume you do and that you usually sell to the first magazine you submit to. I don't -- and yes, the first are magazines I have read more than once.

Sure it makes sense to START with the magazines I know. That is my preference. But after that I'm not going to delete a story I like because I've run through "too many" publications. So the fact is that I agree with you in principle. But in practice, it doesn't always work for me.

Edit: I've said my peace on the subject.

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No one is saying you should give up on your story. No one is suggesting you delete your story.

People are offering their opinions, nothing more. Everyone has their own methods and reasoning.

Personally, I try to read a little bit of the markets I submit to. There are a handful of print magazines I submit to, which I've either bought single copies of, subscribed to, borrowed, or checked out from the library. For electronic markets, their stories are almost always freely available.

Some people start with the highest-paying market first, others with the one they feel is the best fit for their story. To each his or her own.

Polenth said:

I write it in a notebook. It isn't the high-tech way, but short of a house fire, my records won't get messed up.

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I use http://www.writersplanner.com
Other people use http://www.duotrope.com

The advantage of duotrope is it'll tell you where your wait time compares to the average. There may be others. The advantage of writersplanner is, if the site doesn't already list the market you sent something to, you can input the market yourself. So it's a more potentially-complete database for people like me, who stick their toes over the edges of the genre

Thank you, ST, for posting my exact thoughts on the subject. Carleon asked if more work was necessary than simply picking a mag and sending it off. Some say yes, some say no. Everyone is free to decide for him or herself how and where to submit stories.

StoneTable said:

No one is saying you should give up on your story. No one is suggesting you delete your story.

People are offering their opinions, nothing more. Everyone has their own methods and reasoning.

Personally, I try to read a little bit of the markets I submit to. There are a handful of print magazines I submit to, which I've either bought single copies of, subscribed to, borrowed, or checked out from the library. For electronic markets, their stories are almost always freely available.

Some people start with the highest-paying market first, others with the one they feel is the best fit for their story. To each his or her own.

Click to expand...

badducky said:

Be sure to follow their submission guidelines to the letter.

Also, it is a terrifically bad idea to submit to a magazine one has not recently read.

Some of them prefer e-submissions (Strange Horizons, Coyote Wild, Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, etc.)

Some of them prefer print submissions (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's, Leading Edge)

Pick your poison by reading the magazines. Follow their submission guidelines to the letter.

I recommend putting together a spreadsheet of each story and where you have sent it, lest you mistakenly waste your time (and theirs) with a double submission after a rejection. Yes, this does occasionally happen. And, I hope Strange Horizons someday forgives me... Seriously, I foofed up my own spreadsheet, folks. I suck!)

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I've foofed up too and I use a simple Excel spread sheets which supplies me statistics for the blurb at the end of my posts. And how many times have you forgotten to attach when sending via e-mail? I'm lazy and stick to e-mail submissions. Yeh, I know, I'm stupid. I try to read a copy of the mag if I can (I've a library of single copies of mags).

As an editor I know how much time you waste reading unsuitable (though not necessarily bad) stories because people make an assumption about a magazine or don't read the guidelines properly. Probably only 1 in 20 actually send us a correctly formatted piece of work. At Murky Depths (http://www.murkydepths.com) we specifically state we don't want an introduction or bio, and there's no point because everything but the e-mail address is stripped out before being sent on to the other editors. Yet if there's a chance to brag people will do it. I don't care who we receive submissions from - if the story is right for us it's right. I often get a complete bibliography - if it's a part of your signature fine, but get rid of it before you send it our way. Anything that can aggravate an editor should be avoided. If your story is borderline but you've not shown the decency to follow the guidelines to the letter, good bye story - and they may have been the perfect (and only) publication for that particular story. I'll visit duotrope from time to time to see how they think Murky Depths is faring. We also get lots of hits from http://www.ralan.com.

I'll never throw away one of my stories. In a few years time I might come back to it and see some potential or an angle that I missed first time around. I'll also be more experienced at writing, we're learning all the time.

StoneTable said:

No one is saying you should give up on your story. No one is suggesting you delete your story.

People are offering their opinions, nothing more. Everyone has their own methods and reasoning.

Personally, I try to read a little bit of the markets I submit to. There are a handful of print magazines I submit to, which I've either bought single copies of, subscribed to, borrowed, or checked out from the library. For electronic markets, their stories are almost always freely available.

Some people start with the highest-paying market first, others with the one they feel is the best fit for their story. To each his or her own.

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Everyone has their own way of doing things. I can't imagine limiting myself to a handful of publications.

Incidentally, you are mistaken about stories for electronic markets always being free. You might want to take a look at the high end ones such as Oscar Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show and Baen's Universe. While some (such as Strange Horizons--which I don't submit to because they would be a terrible market for me) are free, some aren't.

I am puzzled about what you do with your stories after you've gone through that handful of markets. Or do you always sell them the first submit?

Edit: Anyway, the big point is to religiously follow the guidelines when you do submit.

carleon said:

What exactly do you mean by the "high-end" ones?

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I should have phrased that differently. They both are pro- pay and are respected. Both are SFWA qualifying publications and highly competitive markets.

So is Strange Horizons, incidentally, but it is free. It's donation supported unlike those two. My point was that not all electronic publications are free. On the other hand you can usually buy one or two stories, which I have, in order to get a feel for the market unlike having to pay for a subscription for print publications.