A short guide to help you publish professionally

Okay, so you are a writer and you want to publish your story: it's a great one, everyone who's seen it loves it; you're sure any editor who reads it will want to publish it, so you set out to get your story published.

Well, it's a little harder said than done: getting published professionally takes a lot of time and a lot of work.

Why? Simply because there are so many writers out there who all want to publish their work; most publishing houses have what is called a 'slush pile' which is all the submissions they receive from unknown writers.

STAY OUT OF THE SLUSH PILE, IF YOU CAN

If you have a family member or a friend who works in a publishing house, ask their help; ask all your friends and family members if they know anyone who works in a publishing house; having a person you can talk to as a person and not as one more faceless submitter increases your chances immeasurably.

READ AND FOLLOW THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Most publishing houses publish a set number of stories/books a month so every month someone wades through the slush pile to find that number of stories; usually that number is in the tens, but professional editors receive hundreds, sometimes thousands of submissions every month, so when a person is looking through the slush pile, he is not looking for a story, he is looking for A REASON TO NOT READ A STORY: if an editor sees a submission that does not fit the submission guidelines, 99% of the time he will breath a sigh of relief and toss it away; even if he does read it, not following the guidelines is very bad for your chances.

If there is something in the guidelines you do not understand, don't guess: read their FAQs; if you still don't understand, then write to them asking for an explanation. Only submit a story when you're sure you understand the submission guidelines AND FOLLOW THEM.

FORMATTING & EDITING

Below is a link to a guide to formatting a story for publication: almost all professional publishers will accept stories formatted like this, but still, READ THEIR GUIDELINES AND FOLLOW THEM.

Edit you story before you submit it: fix all the typoes you can find, the dangling paragraphs, mixed sentences, everything. Then go through it all again, then have someone go through and fix everything you missed.

Seriously, get someone else to do it: I'm writer myself, so I know: there is always something you miss, that you need a second pair of eyes to find.

I sometimes do some editing, if I have the time; no harm in asking.

FINDING A PUBLISHER

Thanks to the internet, that's easier than it used to be; another link below is to Duotrope's Digest, an online listing of publishers; there are other sites like it, but Duotrope's Digest is the best I know about.

START SMALL; ESTABLISH CREDIT

I advise you to not send your ground-breaking story to the big boys to start with: write more stories, build up a portfolio of your work, then send some of them to smaller publishers, ones who pay little money or even(like me) no money: this is to establish what I call 'Publishing Credit'; if you send a story to an editor at magazine X and you say that you previously published a story with magazine Y, the editor at magazine X will know that the editor at magazine Y liked your work and so will pay more attention to your story.


If you have any questions or comments, please write them; if you want to self-publish, I can offer advice on that too.