Whenever I try something new, I try to start as small as possible. So the first places I started looking up was publishers of poetry. Some of these published chapbooks, some published directly online, some I was just looking at for their contests. I used Writer’s Digest and other writing websites to help me search, as well as good-ol’-google. I actually have yet to submit any of my poetry, mostly because I haven’t written enough to fill and chapbook and most of the places are pretty intimidating, at least to a newbie like me.
The second place I went to was a small publisher that I was actually familiar with; Less Than Three Press. I actually followed Megan Derr (one of the founders, I believe) when she used to post to fictionpress.com. And now, I actually own about four of her books. Since I knew Less Than Three Press was a small company and I was familiar with the style of their premier author, I felt comfortable browsing their open submission page to see what I could give them.
I landed on their Fairy Tales Serial, which I own two volumes of. I decided that I would write something to submit. This was in January and it took me all the way through March to write a 20,000 word short story. This was mostly because I was desperately out of writing-shape. While I had been writing off and on a novel-length Harry Potter fanfic, I hadn’t written a short story since I was in school. But I found, after I was done editing it and ready to send it, I had enough juice left to write another 20,000 word short story for the same serial. That one only took me two weeks.
And Less Than Three accepted both of them, which was awfully encouraging to a budding author. For those of you looking for them on LT3, the first is titled The Blind City. It is currently running its serial on the website. It will be featured in Fairytales Slashed Volume 5, released as an ebook November 6th. Which you should have a look at, if only because the cover is reeeeeeally pretty. Then second is True Love, which will be running as a serial beginning December 4-January 15. You can see my links to them in my Publications link.
So, I had written my first query letter, which is really just a letter to the publisher/editor begging for them to publish what you wrote. I’ve found that for most publishers who accept unsolicited manuscripts (aka, you don’t have an agent submitting for you), they usually give a guideline for what they would like you to write in the email somewhere on their website. For submitting a short story, its a little simpler than a novel, but here is how I view a basic query:
Salutations
Brief Intro (name, penname, title of work, what is it for, word count)
Summary of Work
Writing Resume (where I’ve been published before, etc. If I haven’t, got creative with phrases like ‘this is my first submission to __press.’
Contact Info
DONE
But I usually read the publishers website closely if they wanted more from me, how I needed to format my short story for them, how to write the subject of my email, etc. And most of them got back to me within two weeks to say they received my submission. Then it was 4-6 weeks before they said whether they accepted it or not.
So, after my small success with Less Than Three, I found myself looking for more small romance publishers to submit to. While, I’ve been reading the romance genre for years now, I’ve never written in it before. I’ve always been more of a fantasy/young adult author. And though I looked around for Fantasy/scifi publishers, I just couldn’t find the sheer numbers that I could with romance. Especially since I am exclusively writing short stories for anthologies.
I got the idea from Less Than Three. Since I hadn’t really written romance before, I don’t have a stock pile of short stories to shell out, so why not just write whatever the publisher is looking for? I figured it would get me more success since I could cater to publisher’s needs, even if I wasn’t totally familiar with them.
So, by the end of March, I had created a summer to-do list (which is a lie, since it goes until the end of December) I tried to find a short story for every month, if not two short stories. I found more small publishers by searching through author pages and I wrote down the anthologies, their requirements, and dates they were due. Now, this summer do-to list has changed a lot since March, as I continue to find more publishers, loose interest in some anthologies, or just can’t make the deadlines. My overall goal was to submit 10 short stories by the end of the year. As of right now, in October, I have submitted 8 (though one I submitted twice since it was rejected by one publisher and I found another that it met the requirements for)
Out of the 8, four have been accepted and published. One was rejected. Two are in limbo, waiting for a reply. One was actually a speculative fiction that I wrote in college and found a publisher for, but it was also rejected.
Besides for Less Than Three, I will be published by Dreamspinner Press in their Advent Calendar anthology (TBA), and my most recent is from Crimson Romance in their Bells Will Be Ringing anthology (TBA). I have put links to my author page from these publishers, and the anthologies, when they are released.
I am still getting used to the editing process and keeping up with my email communication with my editors. I haven’t run into any problems with simultaneous submissions (submitting one work to multiple publishers) since I write the short story exclusively for the publisher’s open calls. If they reject it, it is probably unlikely that I’ll find another outlet for it.
For the rest of the year, I’ve only a couple more short stories on my agenda, though I certainly keep looking around for new anthologies and updates.
In this effort, I’ve discovered some things about myself. For one, I can now reliably write a short story in two weeks, maybe less if I really like it. For Holiday Anthologies, it really is Christmas in July. I’m incredibly tired of writing contemporary romance. And I’m rather tired of writing short stories, ha! I can make it through the end of the year, but I certainly couldn’t live off of short stories alone. I’m a novelist at heart, and there is nothing more satisfactory than spending months, or years, on one story, with one set of characters, and one plot-line, for me.
I’ve already created a to-do list for next year. It includes working more closely on my novels already written, writing new ones, and possibly a short story here or there. It will be a little less gratifying since I will probably only submit once or twice next year, instead of nearly ten times. But I think my writing demons will be more appeased. And this blog will turn into more of my daily writing life instead of me floundering through publishers and editing processes.
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