(Don’t take this too seriously!)

If your story is accepted, will you get a contract? From a professional-level zine, yes. From an anthology, almost certainly. From semipro, paying, and “for the love” zines, maybe.

If the zine doesn’t send you a contract, should you insist on one? At the amateur writing level, it’s up to you. A contract works both ways in publishing, protecting both the publisher’s and the writer’s rights. I’ve had my own stories published on nothing more than an email agreement, and that’s always worked out fine for me. As an editor, in the early years, when The Harrow was new, I never bothered sending a contract to writers. I simply sent them an email accepting their work and asking them to give me permission to publish it, noting that rights would revert back to them upon publication. That and their “go ahead!” email was all the contract we had, and truth be told, it worked just fine.

Later, a lawyer joined our staff, and he kindly prepared a simple contract for The Harrow that laid out more or less the same agreement in proper legal language. We asked — and still ask — our writers to either sign it and fax or mail it back, or to send us an email with an “I accept this contract in its entirety” line that acts as an electronic signature between us. The contract has evolved a little over the years as our policies has evolved, and now that I pay a small amount for stories and poems, it’s become slightly more important to me to ensure that writers understand and agree to the terms of purchase and publication. But the only reason I bother is to protect myself, and so far, I’ve never needed to go back and pull a contract for any reason.

As a writer, the parts of the typical short story contract that you’ll want to pay special attention to are information about payment — is it in the amount and form you expected? — and the rights being bought. If they differ from what the zine states in its Submission Guidelines, query the editor about the discrepancies. If you don’t like the contract for some reason, don’t be afraid to ask for a change or turn it down. You may lose a potential publication opportunity, but it’s better than losing your rights to your work.

For most publications under the professional level, the rights being purchased will be extremely limited. First publication or first electronic publication, most likely, often with a short duration before the rights to republish the work revert back to you. Professional publications might be purchasing particular publication rights for a longer duration. Read this section closely because it will specify what you can and cannot do with your story in the future. Also, if the contract is buying “first electronic publication rights” and your story has been published on a website somewhere else, you could find yourself in breach of contract if you sign it. As I said — the protection runs both ways, and you need to read the agreement to ensure the publisher is on the up-and-up and to make certain you are.

Naturally, you should read the rest of the contract closely, but payment and rights are the two most significant areas. I’d say that in almost all cases, you’ll find short story contracts to be fair and pro forma. A zine isn’t going to last too long if it screws its writers, especially now that it only takes a writer a few minutes to spread news of a scam all around the web.

Sign the contract, make a copy of it, and send it back to the publisher. Keep your contracts filed someplace where you can find them later. After all, someday you’ll become a famous writer and be asked to publish a retrospective collection of your work. When that time comes, it’ll be useful to know the dates and places where it was first published. Plus, the publisher of your collection will want to ensure that you have retained the rights to everything!

Next, a few words about editing.

After your story has been accepted, it’s going to be proofread and edited. Professional zines may have a full complement of proofreaders and copy editors, but most likely, the section editor or editor in chief will take on the role of proofreader, copy editor, and layout designer.

The editor is not going to consult you on relatively minor edits — grammar, punctuation, spelling, fixing typos. These are technical issues; there are rules for proper linguistic usage, and if the editor understands the rules better than you, none of your complaining will do any good. Of course, there are situations in which the editor doesn‘t understand the rules as well as you. In those situations, politely request a change and support it with a link to a respectable grammar website or publication supporting your argument. When grammatical rules are optional, the editor’s choice will be preferred over your own (e.g., the use of serial commas, the spelling of all right vs. alright).

The editor should consult you, or give you a chance to view the prepublication proofs, if s/he makes substantial changes to wording in your story. An editor should never make changes to your plot without your permission.
Some zines will give you a chance to view a proof version of the story and return comments to the editor. If you’re given this opportunity, read your story through very carefully. Remember that this is not the time for major revisions! However, it’s a chance to see what the proofreaders and editors have done to your work and to make sure no typos have slipped through. Having worked on several journals and magazines, I can guarantee you that no matter how many eyes check a work, errors always slip through.

If you find substantial wording changes, look them over as objectively as you can. It’s not likely that such changes will detract from the story — it takes time and effort for an editor to make changes, so s/he isn’t likely to do it unless s/he thinks it’s going to substantially improve your prose. Take some time to read it through and try to figure out why the changes were made. You may find that the editor’s trained eye has simply caught a weakness or problem you, who have been staring at the story through many drafts, missed. That’s why they’re called editors.

As a writer, I love a good editor. I’ve had editors catch me when I describe a character making the same gesture over and over and ask me to strengthen the atmosphere of my work, and I appreciate their making my prose stronger and more descriptive. I wish more editors were willing to talk to me about my writing and request changes! On the other hand, I’ve also had editors try to change words and punctuation that were correct. In those cases, I’ve picked my fights; I don’t mind letting small stuff slide (only we grammar geeks are likely to know the proper rules for using a comma before a dependent vs. independent clause), but in some cases, I have to make a stand. I teach writing at a university, and the last thing I need is some snide student pointing out a grammatical error in my own story! “The editor made me do it,” though perhaps a legitimate excuse, doesn’t carry much weight with your average teenager.

So — choose your editorial fights.

If you aren’t given a chance to see a proof of your work but it’s being published on the web, don’t be afraid to email the editor if you notice a typo or mistake in the published copy. Again, forget making any major revisions at this point — only obvious technical errors are worth the editor’s time to repair. Still, it’s easy to fix a typo on a web page, and the editor will almost certainly appreciate being alerted to anything that might detract from the professional look of the zine. If the error is in a print zine, on the other hand, you’re simply out of luck. It costs a fortune to fix an error in print, and unless your story is in an anthology going into second edition, that correction is simply not going to be made.

Well, that’s about it for now. We’ve covered the basic short story submission process from beginning to end!

You see the letter or email with the editor’s name on it, and your breath catches a moment. This is it — are you going to be dancing or dejected?

The most common decision a fiction zine editor makes is rejection. We receive many more submissions than we can possibly publish, and the more a zine pays, the more submissions it gets — which means the more manuscripts it’s going to reject. Naturally, rejection is the most dispiriting of all decisions for a writer to receive.

If you get a rejection letter — and you will, especially as you start out (check out this post from Jim Hines) — the first thing to remember is that the editor is rejecting a work, not you. Don’t take it personally! The second thing to remember is that being rejected by one zine doesn’t mean being rejected by all. Editors reject stories for a variety of reasons, and not all of them are because the story sucked.

Relatively few editors will tell you why your work was rejected. The most common rejection you’ll receive is “this work doesn’t fit our needs at this time.” It’s meaningless, but it’s easy on the editor — writing detailed rejections takes a lot of time and diplomacy. If you’re fortunate enough to receive a substantive reason for rejection, be grateful the editor took the time to write — it means s/he considers you worth the investment of effort. (If you get a snarky rejection, the editor’s behaving unprofessionally.) You may not always agree with the editor’s reasons for rejecting your work, but at least you know what was going through the editor’s mind.

Never argue with an editor over a rejection. You’ll only make yourself sound unprofessional. There are lots of zines; just move your story along to the next.

Should you thank an editor for a rejection? Form letters/emails don’t require a thank-you, but if the editor took some time on the rejection, then a quick thank you seems reasonable, and good manners never hurt.

What do you do with a rejected story? You re-read it, fix up any problems you notice this time, and submit it to another zine. Submission costs you nothing (well, with the exception of some contests), so make a rule for yourself that every rejected manuscript should be sent out again within a week of your receiving the rejection letter.

Every once in a blue moon you may receive a request for revision. This is common in nonfiction but unusual in fiction. It means that your story is really desirable, but it contains some substantial problem or weakness that prevents the editor from snapping it up at once. A logic flaw, maybe, or a lapse in narrative voice, or a failure to sufficiently foreshadow an event — something fairly big but not damning. The editor will explain the problem and ask you to revise and resubmit the work.

If you receive a request for revision, re-read your story with the editor’s comment or complaint in mind and figure out how to address it. Revise quickly — within a few weeks, if you can — and resubmit the story with a cover letter reviewing the editor’s comments and explaining what you changed, added, or deleted to resolve the problem.

Yes, you can decline to revise; if you do this, politely inform the editor of your decision. A statement of your reasons would be polite but isn’t mandatory. I spent a lot of time writing requests for revision, so if a writer declines to revise, I feel a little put out. Still, that’s the risk an editor takes with such a request, and one reason editors seldom bother to issue it.

Note that a request for revision is not a guarantee that your work will be accepted. It’s possible your revision won’t satisfy the editor. However, most editors won’t ask for a revision unless they feel pretty strongly about the story, so consider such a request a promising sign and do your best to revise well.

The best of all decisions to receive is an acceptance. Sometimes you’ll get an unqualified acceptance, and all you have to do is jump up and down and tell all your friends. At other times your work will be accepted with a request for some minor changes — small problems that require some significant rewriting (as opposed to fixing grammar or spelling) but aren’t substantial enough to count as revisions. Go ahead and jump up and down and tell your friends, but then make those changes and send back the manuscript in a couple of days, if you possibly can.

A lot of publishing is “hurry up and wait.” In many cases you rushed to write and submit a story or poem for a contest, special issue, or anthology deadline, and then … everything stops, and you’re stuck in limbo for months or, in academic publishing, maybe even a year.

A good electronic magazine will send an acknowledgment of manuscript receipt; this is becoming more common as the submission process becomes automated. Otherwise, you may get an email from the editor in a few days, or in the case of print magazines, it’s likely you’ll get no acknowledgment at all. That’s frustrating, because sometimes manuscripts do get lost, but there’s nothing polite that you can do about it. I’d be annoyed if writers emailed me immediately to ask, “hey, did you get my manuscript?”

Many, but by no means all, magazines will provide an estimated response time in their submission guidelines. Market sites like Ralan.Com and Duotrope also provide response times — Ralan’s data is provided by the publication and Duotrope’s is provided by authors who take the time to go to the website and report how long it took between submission and decision.

You will often find that response time is longer than estimated, usually due to the perennial zine problem of high submission volume and low staffing. In the case of contests and anthologies, a slow response time tends to be a good sign; it suggests you made the first cut and the editors are hanging on to your work for a later decision. Rejection is easy; acceptance takes more time.

So, at what point should you send a query? If the magazine lists a response time, wait for that amount of time, plus a week or two, and then query. Your query should be something along the lines of

Dear [Editor Name]:

I’m writing to query about the status of my manuscript, “[Story Name"], which I submitted on [date]. Could you let me know if it’s still being evaluated?

Thank you,

[Your Name]
[Your Contact Information]

I’ve been sent, and used, the “just checking to make sure it wasn’t lost in email” line, too, which works if you didn’t get an acknowledgment — and, in fact, sometimes I’ve discovered that manuscripts have been lost in cyberspace, which is annoying to discover after one has waited three months for a decision. That’s why I think it’s important for zines to send an acknowledgments of receipt.

Sending a query scares many beginning writers who feel that queries are intrusive or fear that by querying they run the risk of an editor glancing at the manuscript, deciding it’s not worth the time, and immediately sending back a rejection.

As an editor, however, I don’t mind queries if they come in after the manuscript’s been sitting around longer than The Harrow‘s stated response time. When I handled fiction, I never immediately read and evaluated the work. I researched the problem — was the manuscript lost? are the reviewers late? am I behind schedule? — emailed a response describing the manuscript’s status, and then moved forward on evaluating it as soon as possible afterward, whether it meant kicking a reviewer or myself into gear. Now that I’m one step removed from manuscripts, I simply check my zine’s database for a manuscript’s status and forward the query on to the section editor if the review process has stalled out for some reason.

A quick “thanks!” email in response to the editor’s update is polite, although I didn’t care one way or the other if I received a thank-you. Still, it can’t hurt.

A few magazines state in their submission guidelines that they will not send decision letters unless they accept the manuscript. No answer equals rejection. That’s awful — you would never know whether your work has been rejected or is still being evaluated. I don’t know why they think this is an acceptable policy, I don’t condone it, and I don’t recommend you submit to any magazine using it. You worked hard on your story, and you deserve to receive a decision letter.

It’s what to do once you’ve received that letter that we’ll tackle next.

Now, before you submit your manuscript, check out the magazine’s staff box (or About or Contact page). What’s the editor’s name? If you can find it, and you should be able to in any zine worth your time, use it in your cover letter. If there’s more than one editor listed, choose the one who is in charge of the section to which you’re submitting your work (e.g., poetry, fiction, reviews, etc.).

Warning — take it from someone whose first name is the gender-neutral “Dru,” if you don’t know the editor’s sex, it’s better not to guess. Google the editor’s name and see if you can pick up any hints about whether the person is male or female from other sites. If you can’t, then you are safer using “Dear Editor” than guessing “Dear Ms. Tracy Smith” and realizing later that Tracy Smith is a man. I know writers have really done their research if they address their cover letter “Dear Dr. Pagliassotti” — which, for them, has the added advantage of being gender-neutral.

What should you say in your cover letter? Unless the guidelines ask for specific information, you might as well keep it short and sweet. Personally, I never particularly cared what writers wrote in their cover letters, back in the days before The Harrow moved to online, cover-letter-free submissions. All I cared about was the quality of their work.

So — unless the guidelines ask you for specific information, this is your general format:

Dear [Editor Name]:

I am submitting “[Story Name],” a [number]-word [genre] story, to [zine name] for your consideration. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]
[Your Contact Information]

Honestly. In most cases, that’s all you need. Don’t try to show off your charm or wit in your cover letter. Just get to the point and let the editor get to your story.

If a zine asks you to mention your other publications, then that’s your second paragraph, assuming you have other publications to list. If you don’t, there’s no need to make a big deal about it. Just write, I haven’t been published before. Don’t mention that story you got published in your junior high literary magazine. That’d just be embarrassing. If you only have one other publication, that’s fine. My story “Zombies Go Wild” was published last year in BrainDead. Good enough.

If the zine asks for a bio, add a few sentences about yourself. You may want to see what kind of bios writers who have been published in the zine already have written, and write yours to match. Usually, bios are written in third person (“Johannes Dhough is a…”) rather than first-person (“I am a…”), but after that, styles vary widely.

Now. You’ve chosen a zine that’s a good fit, formatted your manuscript correctly, and written a short, professional cover letter. Submit away! We’ll move on to waiting periods and queries next.

The first thing you need to do is decide where you should submit your short story (or poem, or article, but I’m going to assume genre fiction here). If you’re a beginning writer and haven’t been workshopping your fiction around university or prestigious literary writing critique circles, you’re probably going to want to start small and work your way up.

Now, if you have a lot of confidence that your work’s professional quality — maybe you’ve received positive feedback from those university or literary writing critique circles — then by all means, submit to a pro zine and see what happens. But for most amateur writers, starting small is a good way to make mistakes, learn the process, and gain confidence. So for them, I recommend aiming for the amateur paying market — zines that pay something, but not pro rates.

See, pro zines are swamped with submissions by writers that run the gamut from highly published professionals to complete beginners with more optimism than talent. Your chance of getting published in a pro zine is much smaller than your chance of getting published in a smaller paying zine, and if you’re trying to build up your writing credentials — I know how embarrassing it is in a cover letter to write, “I’ve never been published before, but…”! — then why not increase your odds of publication by aiming low and working your way up to the big time?

Two excellent places to go looking for potential markets for genre fiction are Ralan’s Webstravaganza and Duotrope’s Digest.

Once you find a potential market, visit the zine’s web page and check out the latest issue, if it’s available and free. (If it’s not, you may want to move along and try a different market at this early stage in your writing career.) Go on — skim a few of the stories. Maybe go back a few issues and check out those stories, too. Would your work be a good fit, or are you writing traditional horror while the zine publishes bizarro suspense? Or vice-versa? If your work’s very different from what’s being published in the zine, forget it. Go back and find a market that publishes the same kind of genre or style you’re writing.

If you think your work is going to be a good fit with the zine, read the submission guidelines carefully. This is the first point of weed-out for many zines. After all, if you don’t care enough to format your manuscript and email the way the editor wants them formatted, why should the editor care enough to read your manuscript? There are plenty of writers out there trying to get published; few zines go begging for submissions, especially if they’re offering any kind of monetary compensation at all. So read the manuscript formatting and submission guidelines and follow them carefully.

Okay. You’ve chosen a zine that’s a good fit with your work, you’ve prepared your submission exactly the way the editor wants it. Ready to go? Not yet. Let’s take a moment to look at that cover letter, in the next installment in this series.