Publishing a Short Story

Publishing a Short Story (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog)

A handout on my website, Short Stories: Top 10 Tips for Novice Creative Writers, is currently turning up pretty high in the Google rankings. Every so often I get an e-mail from someone asking for advice.

What advice I give depends on how serious the author is. Since I am not myself an author of short fiction, I’m not the most qualified to answer.

Someone who asks a stranger on the internet where one might publish a short story probably isn’t already reading the periodicals that publish short fiction. If you aren’t reading the periodicals that publish short fiction, you probably don’t have a very good idea of what kind of short fiction is actually selling these days. If you don’t have an idea of what kind of short fiction is selling these days, then it might be a bit premature to expect to make a sale anytime soon.

On the other hand, if being published is more important than getting paid, there are many college and community literary magazines in just about every community.

(More later… I was called away.)

Update, 16 Jan: I have spruced up the short story handout. I’ll probably tweak it again after my next batch of students submits a (very) short story.