Author: Tara North

by: Tara North

It seems unfair that actually writing a piece is only half the battle, but it’s true–for your work to get in front of an audience, it has to make it through a publisher’s editorial gauntlet first! Fortunately, there are some things you can do that will significantly improve your chances.

Proofreading

Venues all seem to have one thing in common: too many submissions. An editor’s time is precious, and they expect publication-ready works. If your submission is riddled with typos, poor grammar, and misspellings, the odds of it disappearing into a bottomless ‘maybe’ pile increase exponentially. 

Ideally, have a friend review your work before you begin submitting it for publication. If you’re flying solo, dramatically changing the font, point size, and spacing of your final draft can help you spot errors you missed on previous read-throughs.

Pick the right venue

Many venues are, fortunately, pretty up-front about their preferred genres and length. Don’t waste your time submitting poetry to a publisher that only takes a few poems per issue. If the submission guidelines say that works above or below a certain length will be a hard sell, believe them.

Many venues are, less fortunately, prone to rhapsodizing instead of getting specific about the tone of what they’re looking for. Instead of trying to puzzle out what constitutes a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, check the venue’s recent archives. Most literary journals will have the editors’ favorites or their most representative pieces available to read for free as a way of increasing buzz (and subscriptions).

Play the odds

Getting an acceptance is frequently a numbers game, and you can expect to submit your piece to several venues before one says yes.

Once you have your list of venues, decide what you’re looking for from a publication. The highest readership? The most money? The fastest response time? The best chance of being accepted? Prioritize the venues that can give you that.

Follow the directions

The default manuscript format for fiction venues is the Shunn standard. If the submission guidelines don’t mention things like font, spacing, and indentation, they’re most likely expecting you to follow Shunn formatting. 

If the guidelines do mention specific things, make sure to follow those instructions! Many editors, fairly or un-, see an author’s lack of care in following submission rules as a red flag. If the author didn’t bother making the font 12-point Arial, what critical steps did they skip with writing and editing?

Many submission systems are also heavily automated. Send your piece to the wrong email, or without the required subject line, and it will land in a spam folder. Writers have wasted months waiting for a reply only to find that their story never made it to a human.

Going through these crucial steps won’t guarantee an acceptance, but it will help get your work out of the slush pile and give you the best shot at getting an acceptance.

Good luck!