>tfw your worst short story is the only story you've

>>7697606
website?

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>>7697606
>complaining about being published.

get the fuck outta here.

>>7697614
Submittable

>>7697640
This.

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>tfw you will never be published and you'll probably just die alone in your sleep
What's the point?

>>7697642
Explain this submittable ?

>>7697673
It's just a free website that a lot of lit mags and journals use in order to receive submissions from writers. You upload a .doc or .pdf and write a cover letter and hear back in 1-6 months.

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>>7697606
>DFW when you're still "in progress" and "received" on everything you've sent after months and months.

>>7697642
What organizations are you writing for and how can I get started?

>>7697721
No organizations, just shotgunning stories out to magazines, most of which don't even pay. It's not a very lucrative endeavor tbqhwyf, but then again I was never expecting it to be.

You can get started literally right now by polishing up a story, seeing which lit mags it'd be good for, writing your cover letters, and sending it out.

Do publishers actually use submitable?

>>7697721
You can either google literary magazines/websites one by one or buy a duotrope subscription. I use duotrope because it makes keeping track of magazine info and deadlines a lot easier.

>>7697734
>seeing which lit mags it'd be good for
How do people even find this out?

>>7697741
Yes, mostly for magazines though, it seems. Even Tin House uses one.

>>7697748
Typically by reading the "about us" section on a magazine's website and then browsing through their archives.

>>7697685
How do I create an account?

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>>7697673
>>7697721
>>7697741
>>7697748
>>7697765
>being this fucking useless

goddamn, just go to the fucking website, you retarded cunt
>http://help.submittable.com/knowledgebase/articles/225218-how-do-i-submit

>>7697789
yeah but I wanna get the info from a user rather than the websites copywriter

>>7697999
You literally just sign up. Though there's no point to making an account until you know which places you're submitting to because you're still going to have to figure that out on your own.

>>7697660
Is this board just a Marxist and literature version of /r9k/?

>>7698012
cool, how do you go about finding the mags? I read Granta and thas'it. Everything else I read is in book form?

thanks for the info btw

>>7698322
Either google "literary magazines" and try to find lists of them, or get a duotrope account. Duotrope lists most literary magazines/websites, has a calender that keeps track of upcoming deadlines, and some other features you might find useful. The only thing is you have to pay for it so if that's a deal-breaker to you, stick with google. Google "duotrope alternative" or "free duotrope alternative" and I'm sure something will come up.

>>7697606
iktfb

>>7697999
are you too retarded to read it? i don't think writing is for you

Nice. Which magazine accepted?

Maybe you should be grateful that ANY magazine/website has published your shit. You're ahead of most of the writers on this board.

>>7698368
Calm down mate, you don't even know me. Now, let's have a think, could it be possible that the experience of a user might provide a different type of insight into a service to that which could be gleaned from reading the copy designed to sell said service: yes, the answer is yes.

Is it likely that I am able to construct basic sentences but, as you posit, mentally retarded to such an extent that I am in fact illiterate: no, the answer is no.

Why did you write that?

>>7698197
Every board is like that.

>>7698422
I'm not Opie but I've been "published" on some random wordpress-based site that takes things from "emerging" writers, and a few "publications" on Medium. It really doesn't feel like it counts at all.

>>7698506
I had the offer to publish on a small website and I just thought: what's the point? It's not gonna be read by anyone who matters, I feel it'd be better to always aim high.

here you are lads
http://www.pw.org/literary_magazines?genre=Fiction&subgenre=9677&perpage=6&format=All&pay=All

>>7698524
It's technically better than nothing and you have to start somewhere, even if it doesn't feel like it's better than nothing.

>>7698545
yeah that is logical, I feel like it could make you complacent and not strive to perfect your craft, as you might do if you were rejected by a more respectable publication

>inb4 implying publication is meritocratic

>>7698483
what insight do you need for such basic questions that you can answer yourself if you weren't a complete and utter lazy moron.

>>7698561
It'll only make you complacent if you let it. You could set limits for yourself, like "I'll only publish in 3 shitty no-name publications and then not publish anything unless it gets into a real one". You're right that publishing isn't meritocratic, but it --is-- a circlejerk where hobnobbing and posturing matter. Being able to say you've been published anywhere by someone other than yourself grants your submission an air of legitimacy that it wouldn't have had otherwise. First impressions aren't everything but they're at least 30% of everything, and that 30% can be the difference between acceptance and rejection.

>>7698574
Convinced !

>>7697660
the possibility that i will kill myself in about 5-10 years is becoming more real by the day

congrats op what'd you get published in?

>>7698613
Getting published isn't that hard as long as you don't expect to be in The New Yorker with your first submission or some shit.

My advice for getting published ASAP is to just write some shitty poems and send them to really small websites/journals/magazines. There's practically no real measure of quality for poetry these days so the very first crappy poem you crank out can easily be considered "publishable". It worked for me and it's a time honored tactic of worming your way into publishing.

>>7698743
>worming your way
I can't do that. Will weaseling work?

I experienced rejection after rejection for nearly five years after seriously getting into writing. Then in the last two months I've gotten published twice. Count your blessings, OP.

>>7698816
Out of curiousity, what were you writing? Just short stories/flash fiction or were there poems as well? Because honestly five years would be a ridiculously long time if you tried using poems as a foot in the door.

>>7698743
>My first submission was to NYer

:^I
At least I got a response, r-right?

>>7698827
I actually didn't write poems for the longest time after dabbling in them as a high schooler. It's only recently that I've started to get back into writing poetry again.

No, it was short stories, flash fiction, and novels for me. I still haven't gotten an agent for the novel. But I've gotten two short stories published. That's something.

>>7698870
I've been down that rabbit hole myself, trying to find an agent before having anything published. Though my biggest problem was that my first novel was this avant-garde anti-realistic thing that had no chance in hell of being represented, much less as a debut novel.

I've gotten small things published since then and I'm working on a novel that actually tells a coherent story now.

>>7698906
MY trouble was that the first novel was so disjointed and contained so many elements that it didn't really work as a single story, even though it was really long.

In fact, I've gone back since then, taken plot elements of that first attempt at a novel, and turned them into THREE novels.

>>7697789
This website still fails to explain how to make an account besides finding it on some organization's page

>>7698834

that's actually retarded

the new yorker literally only publishes established authors

>>7698988
I was young and naive, brother. Anyway, are there any good one (not shit-tier throwaways just to get published) for an unpublished writer? I don't care to bother with meaningless publications, tb(heche)

>>7698996
You can try but not really. You'll most likely not get published in any halfway legit place until after you have some writer street-cred from being published anywhere first. Or spend years upon years just trying to get a couple of stories published like that other guy.

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>>7698996
From what I've managed to pick up, there are three tiers of publishing when it comes to short stories:

>God-tier:
The New Yorker, Tin House, etc. They only really publish very established writers with connections and are basically the Holy Grail for writers. Don't even bother trying to get your first publication in one of these, basically.

>Normal-tier:
Most publications fall into this category, with varying degrees of esteem, quality, and nepotism involved. For the most part, though, Normal-tier publications still carry with them a guarantee of quality regarding the stuff they publish, and some (like the one I got published in) even do blind submissions, so they wind up publishing anyone from seasoned veterans of the industry who've published multiple novels to high-schoolers with no publications at all, as long as they like the writing. I'm a 19-year-old college dropout loser with no other publications before this one, so this allowed me to get a bit of a foothold in the industry. That's the trickiest part, because it works just like the job cycle does--you need publications in order to get published, and you can't get publications because you can't get published, and so on. That being said, I still think my story is objectively trash.

>Garbage-tier:
These "publications" carry with them no guarantee of quality whatsoever and basically publish anything they receive. "Pay-for" sites fall into this category, as well as tumblr blogs, amateur wordpress sites, self-publishing, and so on. It might be good for your ego to get published in one of these, but it's not much good for anything else, and no one will really take you seriously if you bring it up.

Best of luck, man.

>>7699803
What did you write about in your cover letter?

>>7701050
Cover letters for publication submissions are supposed to be concise and straightforward. Something like this.

"Dear (editor, use their name if you can find it, just say editor or fiction editor if you're not sure),

Please find my short story "____" attached to this (letter/email/submission form/etc.).

(A sentence or two about yourself and your past publishing experience if you have any.)

I enjoy reading (whatever publication you're submitting to) and hope my piece will be a good fit. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Anon"

who accepted and rejected you

>>7701081
What do without publishing experience? Nothing to say without it.

>>7701151
Very briefly describe yourself in 1-2 short sentences. Just very vague details like where you live and what you do for a living (if anything) or what you've studied. Don't explicitly say that you've never published anything, it'll be clear from the fact that you haven't mentioned being published anywhere.

Another thing is, read the submission guidelines of whatever place it is you're sending something to because some of them ask for specific things like a word count of what you're sending them.

>>7701182
Thanks man.

>>7698197
This is a nationalist fascist board, sorry lad.

>>7698483
When I read mate, I started subvocalizing your post in an Aussie/British mixed accent.

>>7701232
Only on Third Reich Thursdays.

>>7701050
Include information about your pets, even if you don't have any. They love that shit.

are there any magazines that i can submit to that accept short stories aimed at children? i feel like my stories aren't serious enough to be taken as an adult work.

>>7701978
No. Even most adults don't read literary magazines. None of them are targeted at children.

>>7701997
what do they usually publish? can it be fantasy or goofy shit? or is it all adult melodrama and soliloquies?

>>7701999
There are scifi and fantasy publications, yes. And it doesn't all have to be "serious". It just has to read like it wasn't written for a 5 year old.

>>7701999
depends on the magazine genius

>>7702017
thanks

>>7702018
yeah, but i was wondering if there were /any/ at all that published that kind of stuff

>>7701081
This is very helpful for me; thank you. I am sitting on at least seven short stories I have not yet tried to publish. You don't give a brief synopsis of the story itself in the cover letter?

>>7702030
Not unless the guidelines specifically ask for one, which as far as I've seen, they never do. What I posted is basically the standard cover letter you're expected to use.

>>7702037
Let me thank you again. I am going to start submitting after I polish them up a bit. I'm hoping that in having written as many as I have, at least one will appeal to someone.