Probably not!
Submissions are intimidating and can seem complicated, so
there’s never a bad time to go into more detail about the best ways to handle
sending your work out for consideration. If you do your research, plan ahead,
and pay attention to details, you should find that handling submissions is actually
quite easy work.
 |
| The slush pile is the first step to publication! |
I have personally been researching literary journals in the Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction genres recently, and I have already gotten through my first two rejections. If you think this is some kind of taboo topic that shouldn’t be mentioned, then you already have the wrong attitude about submitting. Rejections are a part of life that every writer has to face often. But they are not something to fear or be discouraged by. As one of my favorite writing websites says, rejections are a good thing because they are the evidence that you are submitting!
Below you will find a list of some of the top Science
Fiction journals in the industry. This list is by no means comprehensive and
should never be used as a substitute for doing more thorough research on your
own. While I hope it helps you to choose which journals you want to submit to
first, you should always and forever read through the entirety of the
guidelines provided by each journal, especially since they can change at any
time.
But before you get in over your head, make sure you have the
following things:
1.
Your manuscript is finalized and properly
formatted
2.
You have a simple, brief, and polite cover
letter
You may also be asked to provide an author biography, so it’s
handy to have one already typed up. But so far I have not seen any journals
outright demand one. The closest they have come is to request that you include your
publishing history or any personal experiences related to the story in the
cover letter, which, if you have neither, is not something you need to worry
about.
When it comes to formatting your manuscript, most journals
are looking for the same kind of thing (with the exception of a few people who
prefer single-spaced type, plain text documents, or some other outlier I
haven’t come across yet). Many Editors reference the same resource: William Shunn’s guide for formatting short stories. The details listed in this guide
will be invaluable to you, and once you have the basics down, it is then very
easy to customize your manuscript for those rare journals that want something
else. I highly recommend you download the free PDF.
As for cover letters, I have a longer post about them here,
but by and large you will find that you don’t need them. A courteous greeting,
a simple explanation of what you are submitting (title, genre, word count), and
an expression of your appreciation will get you much farther than wasting your
time writing a flowery description of your virtues.
Additionally, you will see that I have included a line for each
journal detailing some of the rights they purchase when you publish a story
with them. Rights are technical and bewildering if you’ve never dealt with publishers
before, but at the end of the day journals are not out to grab ownership of
your content forever. Most only claim exclusive rights (meaning you cannot sell
the work anywhere else) for a period of one year. I will go into more detail on
rights in another post later. Keep your eye out for it!
As a side note, all of these journals are SFWA Approved Markets, meaning that if your work is accepted in any of the below, you are on
your way to being eligible for active membership.
I will continue to update the list as I go along with new submission dates and new additions. This list is current as of February 2, 2016.
-Stories up to 17,500 words (under 12,000 preferred)
-Format requirements: .doc
or .rtf only
-Cover letter required: Dear Editors
-NO simultaneous submissions
-One year exclusive rights: electronic, translation, audio,
and anthology
-.25 per word for first 5,000 words; .15 per word for next
5,000 words; .10 per word after
-Stories between 1,000-16,000 words
-Format requirements: .doc
or .rtf only
-Cover letter required: Dear Editors
-NO simultaneous submissions
-First world electronic rights, first print rights,
nonexclusive anthology rights
-.10 per word for first 5,000 words; .08 per word after
-Stories between 1,500-10,000 words
-Format requirements: .doc
or .rtf only
-Cover letter required: Dear Editors
-Single spacing preferred
-Six month exclusive rights, nonexclusive anthology and
audio
-.08 per word
-Stories between 2,000-7,000 words preferred
-Format requirements: .doc
only
-Cover letter required: Dear Mr. Quachri
-NO simultaneous submissions
-No information on rights available
-.08-.10 per word for first 7,500 words; .08-.085 per word
after
-Stories up to 10,000 words
-Format requirements: .rtf
only
-Cover letter not required: Dear Editors or Dear Brit, An,
and Julia
-NO simultaneous submissions
-First English rights for publication and audio
-.08 per word
-Stories between 1,000-20,000 words
-Format requirements: .doc,
.docx, or .rtf format only
-Cover letter not required: Dear Editors
-NO simultaneous submissions
-First English serial and nonexclusive rights
-.08-.10 per word up to 7,500 words; .08-.085 per word for
longer
-No word limit available
-Format requirements: .doc
or .rtf format only
-Cover letter required: Dear Mr. Schubert
-One year exclusive rights
-.06 per word
-Stories up to 25,000 words
-Format requirements: .doc,
.docx, or .rtf format only
-Cover letter required: Dear Mr. Finlay
-NO simultaneous submissions
-First North American and foreign serial rights and optional
anthology rights
-.07-.12 per word
-Stories up to 1,500 words
-Cover letter not required
-Write “END” at end of story text
-NO simultaneous submissions
- First world and nonexclusive reprint rights
-.08 per word; .05 per word for anthology reprints
Apex Magazine – SUBMISSIONS CLOSED
-Stories up to 7,500 words
-Cover letter required: Dear Mr. Sizemore
-NO simultaneous submissions
-First English and podcast rights
-.06 per word for print; .01 per word for podcast
-Stories between 2,000-6,000 words
-Email submissions; subject line “Fiction Submission: [TITLE]”
-Format requirements: text
only
-Cover letter required: Dear Editors
-First English and audio rights
-.06 per word
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