Once you have revised and fine-tuned your short story or novel, you are finally ready to submit. For fiction, the premier market guide is Novel & Short Story Writer's Market, published by Writer's Digest Books. Not every magazine, journal, or book publisher is listed in this guide, but if you can't find what you need here, you can go online and find more markets for your work.

Submitting your work requires a careful process, and it takes patience and endurance. For both short fiction and the novel, be prepared to do further revision if an editor or agent asks for it. Be sure to keep track of manuscripts sent to various magazines, agents, and small press publishers, and the dates you sent them.

Submitting Short-Fiction

First, you need to study the market. Which magazines and journals are out there, and how many are a good fit for your work? Don't send your work just anywhere.

Second, be flexible on the method of submission: regular print or online.

And third, prepare for rejection. Be thankful for editors' responses, especially when they are encouraging.

Study the Market

It's important to study the market; i.e., to give your full attention to the kinds of work different magazines and journals are publishing. There are two ways to do this: Study blurbs in Novel & Short Story Writer's Market and read sample copies of the magazine.

Study the Blurb

Start with Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. You will find blurbs that cover literary magazines, small circulation magazines, online markets, and consumer magazines. Blurbs tell you the literary standards editors set for published work. One useful feature is the names of authors the magazine or journal has recently published. You can watch for these authors in other magazines and find out what they are doing to be successful.

Pay special attention to what's written under the "Needs" heading. Is this the kind of fiction you write? Also, heed notations stating that only regional writers can be considered, or if it's a Canadian magazine, only Canadian writers. Don't bother sending work after the state reading period; it won't get read. Some magazines, as you will note, read year round.

One last thing: Find out if the magazine accepts simultaneous submissions (work sent to more than one place) and multiple submissions (more than one story to the magazine you are submitting to).

Read Sample Copies

You can get a greater sense of the magazine by reading published stories than you can from simply reading an informational blurb. You will probably be able to read sample copies from a number of magazines and journals at a university or college library and possibly find some at your local library. Many magazines and journals also archive sample stories on their websites.

The kinds of fiction the magazine takes should become apparent. If it takes experimental fiction, is this the kind of experimental fiction you write? What sensibility do you gather from reading the work in this magazine? Does it seem urban or rural? Does it seem off-beat or sober?

Submission: Regular Print or Online

Submitting hardcopy stories takes time and is costly, but a number of regular print magazines still demand it. If you submit your work via regular mail, send a cover letter, the story, and either a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) or a return envelope with return postage. Don't send photos, your resume, or anything else. Doing so makes you look unprofessional.

A cover letter is important. Check the Internet for sample cover letters. When I was in college, I worked with my college's internationally published literary magazine for over three years. Whenever we received submissions with a cover letter, we were always impressed. It gives a sense of professionalism that subjectively boosts the manuscript over others that may not have submitted with a cover letter.

Some things you should know about writing a cover letter: Don't sum up your story unless the market blurb calls for a summary. Provide a little background about yourself—include anything that relates to the story itself. List any publications your work appears in, plus any writing awards you've won.

Make sure you follow standard letter format: your address and date (supply email address), the editor's name (unless it's just "Fiction Editor"), the magazine's address, the salutation, body of letter, and notation about SASE. Many writers today choose to supply a SASE only and let the editor recycle the story if rejected.

More and more regular print magazines are now allowing email submissions or online submissions through a submission manager, a software program that allows the writer to check the status of submissions at any time. A very popular one is called Submittable.com. Online magazines, of course, are much more likely to take online submissions. Online submissions are a click away and very cost-effective.

Prepare for Rejection

In a market where many magazines receive hundreds of submissions for any one issue, you need to send your best work. Choose your best stories from the revision stage. Study the market and get your stories circulating. But do prepare for rejection because even if your stories are good, they may not beat out other stories the editors simply prefer for whatever reason. It's undeniable that subjective considerations enter into judgments of editors—they're human, so why wouldn't they?

But one thing I do believe is that really good fiction—well-crafted fiction, I mean—will eventually find a home, if there's a market for it. If there's not now, there may be later. Save rejected stories. Don't give up on them. Think of the submitting process, then, as: 1) sending your best work, and 2) finding a suitable market for it. However long this takes.

Submitting Novels

When you submit a novel you are submitting work written over several months, if not years, and that's a lot of time spent on pretty hard work. What you want to do is find the market best suited to this work—commercial or small press.

To get the most out of your search, follow this process:

1. Check Novel & Short Story Writer's Market market blurbs for both agents and small-press publishers.

2. Read descriptions and reviews of recently published novels by authors represented by agents (or, in other words, at commercial presses) and by small-press publishers.

3. Work up a strong query letter suited to an agent or small press publisher.

4. Send a portion of your novel—or the whole novel, if requested.

Check Market Blurbs/Scope Out Sample Novels

Check the listings in Novel & Short Story Writer's Market for both agents and small-press publishers. You will need an agent in order to market your work to commercial presses. Check agent blurbs to see which kinds of novels they represent and if they mention specific novels they've represented. Then check the Internet for blurbs and reviews. Does your work fit here?

Look for small-press publishers as well. Check blurbs and reviews of novels they've published. If you think your work is more suited to small-press publication, you won't need an agent.

Develop a Strong Query Letter

A query letter is extremely important in novel submissions. Many books address the topic of writing a strong query letter. You also should be able to obtain samples of effective letters from the Internet. I'll be going more in depth in the next part, but wanted to still touch upon this briefly here.

In a query letter, you must state concisely what the novel is about, though you don't necessarily have to reveal the ending in your query letter—some agents and editors don't want to know. (You do need to reveal the ending in a synopsis of your book, however). For those who have read my services book and/or have submitted their request, this is basically the same thing of me asking for an honest synopsis of your book.

For the query, you also need a one-sentence statement of the premise of the book and then a brief statement of the character and plot that runs no longer than a paragraph. Paragraphs are usually five sentences long but don't beat yourself up over it if you write more or less than five sentences, as long as it's formatted into one paragraph.

The query letter must not run more than one page. Agents and editors want to be able to skim the letter and see if they are interested in a book with a premise like yours. Is the premise tightly written? Does it suggest a marketing angle? More and more agents and small press publishers are accepting—and in some cases requiring—email queries. Besides the standard query letter, you may also be asked to send any or all of the following: outline, synopsis, and sample chapter(s).

Send Work Out

When you submit your work, you must follow protocol. Send the agent or editor only what is requested in the blurb. Don't send work by email if doing so isn't the stated policy. If work is to be sent by regular mail, be sure to include a SASE for a response. Don't expect to get a quick reply.

One thing to note: In both cases—commercial and small-press publisher—be prepared to say how you will help promote your novel. Publishers today, especially small-press publishers, expect authors to get involved in promoting their books. You should be ready to develop a website if you don't have one already and to participate in social media as much as possible.

Prepare for Rejection

With all the work that goes into writing a novel, naturally, it's easy to get discouraged when your work gets rejected. It's hard not to take it personally, but you have to see rejection as part of the process.

If the agent or small-press publisher gave you some feedback, give it serious consideration (it's a good sign that they bothered to make a comment!). Often it's tempting to reject the feedback out of hand, but there may be some truth to it—which sometimes dawns on one after pitching that rejection letter. For this reason, it's best to keep rejection letters that make comments about your work—if you're lucky enough to get one instead of the standard form letter.

One last thing: Whether you are writing short fiction or long, you may have to wait for your work to be published—even your best work. It's best to move on to other projects. Don't obsess over work not yet published. If your first novel isn't picked up by a publisher, maybe your second will be. And then, you might find there's interest in your first. Don't give up, and keep writing!

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