Hello All,

I'm new to the site and to getting anything published. I have a million questions, it seems.

I wrote a short story on another writers' site in a 'for fun' competition. My story was voted winner so I submitted it for proper review by other members. It generally got a very positive response but I also took on board a lot of their comments and made what changes I thought appropriate. I would now like to see if it could be published but as it has been on the web in the competition, does this now mean no publisher would touch it? Do I need to get it removed from the site in question?

Assuming I can go ahead and submit, some publishers ask for your history in publishing. What do you put if it's your very first submission? Don't want to sound like a complete novice, even though that's the case!

Also, should I only submit to one publisher at a time or can I submit to several? What is the professional etiquette when doing this?

In finding an appropriate publisher, is there a respected source with listings or should I just type into google and see what comes up? My story is a ghost story but does not fall into SF/Fantasy and seems the publishers I have heard mention of in various internet writing groups are mostly into this genre. Should I submit to them anyway or can anyone tell me where I should be looking to submit that's more appropriate (i.e. a ghost story set in the normal world as we know it)?

There's a lot of talk of agents and publishers for novels here but I'm at the stage where I just want to cut my teeth and see what response I get.

In fact if there's anyone out there who could point me to a step-by-step guide to submitting a short story...?!

Thanks for your time.

DQ

The people on the Flash and Short Story forums could advise you better, but probably the best website for publications which take short stories is: http://www.duotrope.com/

If the website where your story is currently uploaded is open to google searches then, yes, you should remove it before you submit it. (NB. WW forums are protected from google searches if the work is uploaded to be visible to WWmembers or Group Members Only, but may be visible to searches if uploaded in the Topic sections of the groups)

Your story will probably need some sort of modification to fit the various submission criteria of the different magazines - mostly word count, but also subject matter depending on what each magazine specialises in.
Magazines usually advise reading the stories they publish first before submitting so you get an idea of what they are looking for.
A lot of ezines (online magazines) don't pay for stories if they publish them, but it's all grist to your writers CV.

As for publishing history, everyone has to start somewhere so it's ok to leave this blank in your covering letter if you haven't had anything published to date.


Good luck.

- NaomiM

Duotrope is indeed excellent (don't forget to donate something if you use it a lot), and so is Ralan: http://www.ralan.com/. I also use http://www.specficworld.com/ but it does charge (not a huge amount).

A lot of short story magazines now accept electronic submissions, which is a great cost-saver for one thing. In general, genre magazines are more flexible in this respect than literary fiction magazines.

One thing you'll learn in through submitting, reading, listening to podcasts, reading interviews, etc, is that how much a magazine pays is not the only criterion of quality, even if it is in general a good indicator. There are some low-paying mags with very good reputations, e.g. Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Given that hardly anyone is going to make a living from writing short fiction anyway, you should keep an eye on building a quality CV, as well as just going for the higher-payers. Similarly, having several dozen stories accepted, all in low/no-paying low quality magazines can actually have a negative effect on your CV.

Terry

Thank you for your help. I will take a look at those websites.