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Submit your writing - tips

I’ve been submitting poetry, fiction, (and a whole ass book) to magazines and websites for a year. While I still don’t know if I’m any good at querying, I have been published twice on two different mags, so I thought I would share the tips that helped me!

Polish

First thing first: prepare your piece! Write something in your best voice/ style. (I’ll do a separate post about what exactly is more probable to be accepted or sold).

Then, make sure your manuscript:

  • has page numbers

  • is generally typed in 12 pt Times New Roman (or follow their guidelines)

  • ‘s first lines are indented (this doesn’t work for poetry! Indent only if you want in that case)

  • is as perfect as you can get it

  • carries your name and title of the piece on every page. Ex.: Name Last Name / Title / 1

  • is double-spaced. This works especially for fiction, but sometimes magazines can ask for double-spacing, too! Make sure to read the guidelines about this, but, generally speaking, an editor will thank you if they see your manuscript is easy to read!

Find the right mag

Your manuscript is perfect, and now you want to send it. But where?

Easy! Google your genre and length + submissions (ex.: fantasy flash fiction submissions, or lgbt poetry submission) and click on the magazines that look for what you write!

Usually you can find examples of things they published before, so that you can have a taste of what they like. Make sure you check them out!

Write a great bio

Easy, right? It’s your life!

While writing bios is definitely the easiest part of a cover letter or submission, definitely make sure you’re writing the right things:

  1. Decide (also by looking at their guidelines) if you’re going to write it in first or third person,

  2. Include degrees, PhDs, conferences you’ve attended, affiliations, your previous publications, contests or competitions (in the writing field) you’ve won. Sometimes you can also think about adding a fun detail about you, like “when she’s not writing, Jane Doe likes to attempt cooking muffins, usually unsuccessfully”,

  3. Make sure you don’t write more than 3-4 sentences. Keep it short and sweet!

  4. Not required to be mentioned: your age, your relationship status, details not related to writing not meant to be fun (don’t mention these at all).

Write a good cover letter

Now, this is something that I’ve found VERY HARD.

But, no worries! A quick internet research will help you with this, and I’m here to guide you, too!

Your cover letter specifically aimed at selling a piece of writing should look more or less like this:

Dear editors of ________, I hope you are well. I'd like to submit my piece, “Name of piece”. [if it’s a collection of poems, insert all the titles in caps, like: “TITLE”, “TITLE”, and “TITLE”.] It was inspired by ______________ I saw on your website you were looking for [genre] _____ pieces under ___ words, written in a language that _____[ex: surprises, excites, unsettles. Quote directly from their website if they have a wish list]. I hope this _______ piece will do it for you. It is an original story, never previously published anywhere. Here is a third person bio: [insert bio] Have a great rest of your day. I look forward to hearing from you soon! Sincerely, [Legal name and last name] (writing as [pen name if you have one]) subject pronoun/ object pronoun [phone number] [address] [email address] [website link if you have one, or you can put a twitter handle!]


Prepare also

  • A list of magazines you’ve submitted to, the date you’ve sent your piece, when you should hear from them, and what you sent them,

  • Yourself :) you’re going to get rejected a lot, probably, but it’s all good, everybody gets rejected! (Usually if you get personalized rejections it means you’re actually pretty good and they just didn’t have room for your piece on their issue),

  • A lot of time to submit: sadly these submissions can take up to 1h or 1h30′ (at least to me) so don’t rush it! Prepare coffee/tea, lofi music, and take your time!

Ways you can keep track of rejections and publications:

  1. Excel tabs,

  2. Google docs,

  3. Word docs,

  4. Paper,

  5. Stephen King’s method: a nail on the wall with printed rejections on it.

Aaannd we’re done for today!

Happy submission! I hope this helped at least a little :))

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