Right now’s put up is by Dennis James Sweeney, creator of the brand new ebook Tips on how to Submit.

As writers, we regularly lengthy for the proper information to the place we should always submit our writing. We wish a useful resource that’s reliable, constant, and navigable. The publishing panorama is difficult! Particularly after we are first beginning out, we’d like somebody to distill that publishing panorama for us.

However it may be troublesome to discover a useful resource that gives you every little thing you want. Some sources present a rating system, organizing publication venues into an ordered record. Others use tags and classes to allow using search standards. When submitting, the closest we are able to get to “good” is assembling a private mixture of those lists, relying on our personal publication targets.

Accessible submission sources

Ranked lists are essentially the most clearly organized submission useful resource, in that they inform us which venues are most advantageous to publish in if our purpose is to realize status for our writing. These sorts of lists are largely used for literary magazines. They sometimes base their rankings on the variety of awards given to items printed in every journal:

• Clifford Garstang reliably assembles a rating of the literary magazines most frequently awarded Pushcart Prizes. He has separate lists for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Erika Krouse divides the highest 500 literary magazines for fiction into tiers based mostly on prizes, circulation, fee to writers, and “coolness.” Her record additionally consists of details about deadlines, response time, and phrase depend.
• Most just lately, Brecht de Poortere ranks literary magazines based mostly on the relative weight of a number of prize anthologies. His intensive spreadsheet consists of particulars like studying interval, price to submit, and whether or not or not it’s a print journal.

If you’re submitting a full ebook with out an agent, you’ll possible be searching for small, impartial publishers. There isn’t a particular useful resource that ranks these presses. However looking the winners and finalists for prizes just like the CLMP Firecracker Awards, Lambda Literary Awards, and regional ebook awards (such because the Mass E-book Awards) may give you an concept of the small presses that obtain essentially the most public consideration. Moreover, ebook critiques offer you an concept of which publishers’ books are being learn and regarded publicly. Evaluate venues for small press writing embody Full Cease, Rain Taxi, and The Rumpus.

In case you’re seeking sturdy lists that don’t depend on a rating system, there are additionally loads of locations to show, not just for literary magazines but in addition for small presses and literary brokers. These sources depart the work of “rating” publication venues as much as you, however they take pleasure in being extremely organized based mostly on various standards:

• Duotrope (which prices $5 per 30 days) is essentially the most longstanding, complete database for each literary magazines and small presses. It features a submission tracker, in the event you choose to make use of an exterior useful resource as an alternative of your personal private system.
• Chill Subs, which sprang up in 2022, is sort of a free, Gen Z Duotrope (though some options have just lately been monetized).
• For the analog amongst us, Author’s Market is the print version of each element about practically each submission venue. 
• Moreover, each Poets & Writers and the CLMP keep intensive lists of literary magazines and small presses which can be open for submissions.

When you’ve got written a ebook you wish to publish with a Huge 5 home, you’ll possible be trying to find brokers to question relatively than trying instantly for publishers. Jane Friedman’s put up on discovering a literary agent is a terrific primer on who wants an agent, easy methods to question an agent, and the way to decide on the agent who’s best for you. As well as, there are a number of lists and databases that may make it easier to slim down your search:

• Writer’s Market ($25/month) is the gold commonplace. Whereas it isn’t precisely a submission useful resource, it supplies an in depth, up to date account of all agented ebook offers in america. You may arrange these offers by agent, style, and key phrase.
• Manuscript Wishlist has a searchable database of literary brokers accepting submissions, generally together with a personalised want record that goes past the small print included on Writer’s Market.
• QueryTracker consists of notes from customers on current responses to their queries.
• Author’s Market, Duotrope, and Poets & Writers embody lists of literary brokers alongside their details about literary magazines and impartial publishers.

These submission sources play an vital function in guiding writers towards the proper dwelling for our writing. Particularly while you mix the insights of a number of lists, it’s doable to finish up with a stable understanding of the panorama of literary magazines, small presses, and/or literary brokers.

The constraints of submission sources

However nonetheless, right here’s the factor: Not a single one in every of these sources goes to let you know precisely the place you ought to submit your writing.

The ranked lists trace at which publications may imply look the “greatest” to some potential reader sooner or later. The unranked lists, for his or her half, provide the capability to seek for the standards that match your writing.

However can they let you know who every literary journal, writer, and agent actually is? Can they offer you a way of the character of every submission venue? Can they let you know whether or not this publishing expertise will meet your targets?

That’s one factor these submission sources can’t do: They’ll’t let you know whether or not your writing is a match. Irrespective of how a lot data you might have entry to, a database can’t substitute for information of the publication itself.

This downside jogs my memory of Borges’s very quick story, “On Exactitude in Science,” which explores the troublesome reality that solely a map the dimensions of the territory itself might be really correct. The identical is true for submission sources. Whereas these lists and databases assist information us towards venues that may resonate with us, it’s troublesome to completely perceive the place you might be submitting till you go on to the publications which can be being described.

Navigating to their web site and poking round is, in fact, step one on this course of. However one of the simplest ways to realize familiarity with the venues the place you might be submitting, in my opinion, is to take part within the publishing panorama. The one “good” submission useful resource is just getting concerned.

Getting concerned with literary publications doesn’t need to imply a significant output of time. As an alternative, there are numerous small routes you possibly can take to a higher familiarity with the venues the place you wish to ship your work.

The right submission useful resource: getting concerned

The best method to change into accustomed to the literary panorama the place you’ll submit your writing is being a reader. Learn on-line literary magazines, subscribe to print literary magazines, and skim books from a range of presses. Set a purpose, for instance, of studying one new journal or small press ebook every season. Lookup the brokers of books that you simply respect, and skim extra books they’ve labored on. Over time, you’ll construct up a familiarity with the publication circumstances of the writing that speaks to you.

Attending occasions is one other low-commitment method to become involved and meet others within the literary scene. Many studying collection have now migrated to Zoom, so you possibly can attend on-line or in your native space. Readings hosted by literary magazines or presses, particularly, may give you a deep sense of their character.

You may also become involved in a extra energetic method by contributing your time to a publication or serving to to construct the dialog round others’ writing. There are a number of methods to do that:

• Write ebook critiques. Even in the event you’re inexperienced, writers and publishers at all times respect a considerate consideration of their books, and literary magazines are sometimes desperate to publish critiques.
• Conduct interviews with printed writers. Literary magazines usually publish interviews with authors as nicely. Taking the initiative to conduct one lets you get your foot within the door whereas being in contact with a author whose work you respect.
• Volunteer as a reader for a literary journal. Many literary magazines want preliminary readers of submissions to assist them slim down their queue.
• Begin or assist out with a studying collection. Writers at all times want someplace to current their writing once they come to city. Creating the house for reside occasions places you in contact with each writers and publishers of just-released books.
• Comply with and have interaction on social media. As irritating as social media is, it can be a supply of connection and heat, the place you possibly can construct a private relationship with publications’ and brokers’ work in actual time.
• Take part in writing teams, workshops, and courses. Getting along with different writers frequently will make it easier to construct group and share information, even when it’s indirectly associated with the publishing world.

Simply keep in mind: taking part within the literary world isn’t a quid professional quo. It received’t really feel nice—to you or to anybody else—in the event you become involved in order that you may get printed. As an alternative, you’re investing in a group you wish to be part of. As I see it, your entire purpose of submitting and publishing our writing is to become involved in a collective literary life. You may as nicely begin now.

To me, the fantastic thing about the publishing panorama is that there is no good submission useful resource. You merely can’t comprise the variety, idiosyncrasy, and ranging publishing practices of all of the locations the place we are able to submit our writing.

This leaves some stage of the unmappable in our submission apply, regardless of how acquainted we change into with the publishing world. However it additionally mirrors your entire expertise of being a author: we dive into the unknown with spirit, with hope, and emerge on the opposite aspect realizing slightly higher who we’re.

Notice from Jane: In case you loved this put up, be sure you take a look at Tips on how to Submit by Dennis James Sweeney.

Dennis James Sweeney is a small press creator and longtime member of the literary group. His books have been printed with Autumn Home Press, Essay Press, Ricochet Editions, and Stillhouse Press, amongst others, and his writing has appeared in shops corresponding to Ecotone, the Southern Evaluate, Witness, and The New York Occasions. Whereas serving as small press editor at Entropy, he constructed the “The place to Submit” record into an in depth, well-known useful resource. His class at GrubStreet, “Tips on how to Submit: Publishing Your Writing with Literary Magazines and Small Presses,” has run frequently since early 2021 and receives rave critiques from college students. Sweeney holds a PhD from the College of Denver and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.