Killorcure

No disrespect to you as well, as you are clearly a very skilled businessman (I cannot comment on your skills as a writer since I'm not familiar with your work).

I too have gotten my work published in both electronic and paper mediums. Not as many as you have, of course, but my experience was quite the opposite. My e-books were lost in a gigantic slushpile through which people didn't seem to have the wherewithal to look; in many cases books I was competing against had not been professionally proofread, or were even complete, let alone entertaining.

My minor successes in print have amounted to about half a dozen short story publications. The money and readership from them has been far and away better.

It amounts, I think, to wanting my work to maintain a certain peerage about the company it keeps. And doing that requires the vetting of a renowned publisher.

Now, you may or may not know this, but of the six major publishing companies in the US (and the several dozen subsidiaries they own) not one of them has been open to unsolicited submissions since the mid-90s. You've got to go through a literary agent to even get your query letter on the right desk. Publishers have closed ranks over the course of the last ten years or so, so that in the most recent copy of Writer's Market, despite the fact that there are in excess of 2,700 publishers in the US, only about five-hundred will look at a writer's book without the intervention of a literary agent. These publishers are open to submissions because they do not have the luxury of expecting people to jump through hoops for them. Consequently, though I cannot be certain, I would posit that your experiences with paper publishing would be much more positive had you gone the literary agent route and gotten your work onto the desk of a more well known publisher. That is, of course, my opinion since a lack of evidence cannot be in itself evidence, and was why I chose to disagree.

Thanks, but I think we'll have to disagree on a few things and leave it at that.

Well, as Warlizard will probably tell you, I'm being old-fashioned about publications. There are benefits to the traditional methods of publication though. If you're into science fiction or fantasy, you need to have a professional level publication before you can get into the SFWA. There's also a horror writer's association with benefits, and you can only get in once you've had a pro-publication. Once you're in, it's kind of like receiving a seal of approval that editors and literary agents take seriously.

I'll proceed as if you're interested in getting your work into major fiction magazines. The first thing you need to do is know your audience: editors. The sort of fiction you see in a magazine is the sort of fiction the head editor specifically had in mind, and for that reason you want to scope out your venues first and get a feel for the kind of stories they regularly publish. If you're into literary fiction, I'd suggest the most recent edition of 2013 Short Story Writer's Market. Sci fi, fantasy, and horror are a little trickier since Pro-Level magazines are rarer. Lightspeed Magazine, Chizine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction, etc. Check out www.ralan.com and Duotrope Digest for online listings. Once you’ve found a magazine you like, read it like mad until you feel you could write something similar. I’m not telling you to copy, but knowing what themes the editor likes really helps.

Just to be clear, a Pro-Level magazine is defined as any magazine that buys a story for five cents a word or more, has a circulation of in excess of 1,000 readers, and has been putting out periodicals regularly for at least a year. Most mags don't have the money to afford paying that much. There are usually no more than six or seven pro level magazines you can send any one story, and that will take you several years to do entirely because magazines have something called no simultaneous submissions. It means you can’t send the same story to two magazines at once because if both magazines decide to buy the same story they will be madder than hell at you for expecting them to fight over it. So, you’ll have to wait several months (if not years) between story submissions. That gives you plenty of time to work on more stories.

Writing short stories is, like most writing, a matter of trial and error. It helps to have read as many short stories as possible to prime your brain into following a sort of subconscious template: grabbing introduction, set the scene, present the problem, build tension, sudden revelation, paradigm shift as the reader realizes the unexpected has happened, and then conclusion to satisfy. Not all short stories follow these steps, but most of the successful ones do.

As you plan your short story it’s important to keep in mind just how short short stories are. The words fly by much faster than you’d think, and the average fiction magazine wants stories between 3k and 5k words. That’s pretty darned short, so try to keep your story simple and learn to slash out anything that’s not vital to the story once it’s been written.

Now you’ve got your story written, right? Wrong. Sit on it for a few months and then look at it again. You’ll see mistakes and plotholes you hadn’t noticed earlier, and you only get the one chance to submit your story to any one magazine, so it has to look its best.

Once the story is gleaming, look up William Shunn’s Standard Manuscript Format online. It will be the formatting you are expected to follow whenever sending a magazine a short story. Learn it, adhere to it unless a magazine specifies otherwise. And always use a .rtf file format if emailing a short story. They hate .doc files because viruses can tag along in them.

Now you’re ready to send your story. Find the magazine you want to send the story to, look up their submissions page, and follow the instructions to the letter. Once your story is sent, pull up a spreadsheet program and make a note of who you sent a story to, what story it was, when you sent it, and when it’s okay to email them a reminder. Update this file accordingly as you send out more and more stories.

That’s basically all there is to it aside from an avalanche of cold, empty, soul-crushing rejection letters that will leave you sobbing wet with your own tears and vodka.

I've been gunning full-tilt toward becoming a published novelist for the past five years and I've got to ask. What publishers out there still look at unsolicited submissions? I thought literary agents had it sewn up tight.

I commend you on your grasp of business and sales. That's the one part of writing where I fall through. :)