Transcripts
1. 1 INTRODUCTION: So you wrote a story. Now what Well, you raise is centered in
and get it published. And I'm here to help you figure
out just how to do that. I'll show you how to find the markets and how
to submit to them. My name is Adrian link graphs, and today we're going to
talk about submitting your fiction writing in
order to get it published. I'm a former journalist
and copywriter, and it worked now as
a freelance editor. And my published writer. I absolutely love helping other authors polish their
work and get it ready. And it's not enough to
just write a good story. You need to know
where to send it, who wants to buy it, and how it should look when
it lands on their doorstep. Our project will be to create a submission tracking system
for your short stories. And the markets that we find. It is vital to track
your submissions. Writing fiction and publishing
stories is a long game, one requiring patience
and good record keeping. A simple tracking system, whether digital or old school, can really keep you out of some sticky
situations and can be incredibly inspiring as you add sales and new stories and
markets to your chart. I earned honors in
journalism 30 years ago. And I've had my writing
published in newspapers, magazines, websites,
anthologies, marketing copy. You name. My debut novel launched in 2019. The sequel is
forthcoming this fall. My goal in this class is to help you find a home for your
amazing fiction stories. I'll bet you have
stories, novels, and manuscripts the
publishers would love. Here's a guide to
finding those publishers and sending in your
work. Are you ready? Let's find some markets
and get published. First when you look
at how to find the markets and are
open to your story.
2. 2 FINDING MARKETS: Okay, you have a short story and you're ready to send it
in and get published. One of the best places to find a market to send your story too, is a big fat book called
The writer's part. You can purchase this book, which is produced every
year with updated listings. Or you can go to your
local library and look in the reference section and
search up what you need there. There are many
sources for finding markets online,
especially these days. One of my favorites
is Ralin.com.com. This wonderful free
resource lists paying and non-paying markets of various lengths and helps you to find the right market
for your story quickly. There are also membership
websites that help you with tracking and finding the appropriate
markets for your work. One is called duo trunk. This green capture
shows a page from Rawlins website and
you can see that is loaded with
detailed information on what each publication
is looking for, what they pay, what rights they are purchasing, and so on. Don't forget to pay special attention to the
submission guidelines. We'll have more on that later. The other important thing
to consider is your genre. Genre your story is, let's talk about that
in the next video. You can write all wonderful
stories in the world. And no one will ever know
if you don't send them in. What do I mean by sentiment? There are paying markets
out there and some for the loves want fresh
new fiction every day. And a lot of those markets are really interested in
hearing from you. One way to find a
good market for your fiction is to look at
the fiction that you read. If you read a lot
of short stories, then you already know what
magazines are out there. We carry the short
stories that you like. If you look in the
publication information, usually within the first
piece to that information, will show you quite often
how to submit your story, or at least how to
find their guidelines. Another great way to
find markets is to go along the spines of books
in your own library, at the bookstore, at
the public library. And have a look at who
published those books. You can also look at the
acknowledgements times to find out who edited those books
and who was the ancient. If you go to your
own personal library and you find that there is a lot of novels all published by the same
publishing company, then there's a good chance that the fiction that you enjoy most and that your writing would suit that
publishing company. Your best bet then is to go
to their website and find their submission guidelines and follow them very carefully.
3. 3 GENRES: Okay, We know where to
look for markets now, there's an awful lot
of them out there. Remember that book I was talking about, the Writer's Market. So we know where to
find the market. How do we narrow it down? How do we make sure that we're
only sending our stories to markets would actually
be interested in buying. The best thing to start with is knowing what genre
you're writing. Sometimes it's really
obvious if they're spaceships, it's likely
science-fiction. If it's caught, Reagan's, it's likely fantasy in this day and age of crossovers
and mashups, though. Sometimes it can be really
hard to pigeonhole yourself. Sometimes we question
whether we want to or not, but it is important to know what sort of genre
you are writing. Science fiction,
fantasy, horror, crime, westerns, romance. Romance alone has a whole slew of rules that apply
to writing roadmaps. Next important thing
to do is to read the publications
that you're looking at submitting to read, but they're actually
publishing right now. What are they buying right now? Get a feel for what they
already like and buy. Another way to narrow down
who to submit your work to is in looking at what it
is that you want to get out. If you're really hoping to build a publishing
career of your own. Start at the top. Start
with the big magazines. If you write science fiction, start with analog and
asthma and the big guns. The advice to me was always
to start at the top. Then if the store I came back, you could submit to the
next one and the next one. So once you've got a
list of places that you think would be
interested in your story. We need to have a look at their individual
submission guidelines. Whether submission guidelines. I'm going to ask and we
will talk about that more. But first, I'd like to have
a chat about word count.
4. 4 WORD COUNTS: When you are considering
submitting your writing, you need to also
know something about word count limits for
different types of fiction. For instance, flash fiction, generally a thousand
words or less. And there's even another
sub-genre inside of that. That's for really,
really short stories. Short stories are often
between 58 thousand words, although these numbers can
fluctuate a little bit. But once you start getting into tens of thousands of words, now you're dealing
with novella, does, and novel, which each
have their own range. That can also fluctuate depending on which market
you're talking to. Novels are generally
80 thousand words, give or take, 10
thousand words or so. Your door stoppers are the
ones that tend to go up. The sixth sentence, a 100
thousand more and more. So if you send a 40
thousand word novella to a flash fiction market, chances are they're
just trash it. They're not even
claim to respond to you here sending it Tom market, that it doesn't fit at all. Get it right. And you have a
much better chance at selling your story
and seeing it published. Might even get paid
for your painting.
5. 5 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Okay, Let's talk about
submission guidelines. Every market out there will have their own specific guidelines
for what they want to see, what sort of formatting
they wanted in, how they want it sent in, et cetera, et cetera. In those guidelines usually
also explain what they pay, if they pay and how long they own the rights
of your story for. Submission guidelines are
simply the instructions for how to send your writing in to see if they
will publish it. Each market does have their own, and they tend to change
depending on who's at the helm. It's always wise to check for the most current submission
guidelines available. So for instance,
if you're looking in the Writer's Market and you happen to have a coffee
that's a year or more old, is really important to
go to the website of that publisher magazine and make sure that guidelines
haven't changed. And to make sure that the
market is still open, not following
sufficient guidelines can get to a really
fast rejection. In fact, a lot of times, nicotine, no response at all. Glitter and bribery
will get you nowhere. It's really important
to make sure that your story looks
professional, neat. And in a format that we call standard
submission formatting. This just makes it
easier for the editor who's reading through what
we call the slush pile, which is stacks and stacks and stacks of stories
just like yours. Some people feel that
if they put it in awhile font or use some color, maybe that will help. And out. And all it tends to do is
irritate the slush pile reader and can sometimes get to reject it just because in this case, standing out with
color, glitter, bribery, Well actually
gets you nowhere. You're far better off
to have a nice, clean, polished manuscript that is in the standard
submission format. Standard submission
formatting is a way to keep positive submissions easier to read by having them
format consistently. This makes it much
easier on the eyes. When you're reading story
after story after story. Believe me. It's the story that needs to stand out,
not the front. There are plenty
of sources online for standard submission
formatting rules. But let's go over that
quickly in the next video.
6. 6 STANDARD SUBMISSION FORMAT: Okay, Let's talk about standard
submission formatting. Your first thing to
think about is just use normal white standard
letter paper 8.5 by 11, leaves the right margin
ragged, not justified. Only print on one side. That's an old rule, of course. Most things are digital now. One inch margins all around
for nice whitespace. Keep it double-spaced and
indent each new paragraph. Scene breaks. Okay, let me show you say you've got some
writing long hair. Right now. You want to seem break. So you leave a blank line
and you hit Return again. And then you put in an asterisk or common one is a hashtag. Then you need
another blank line. And then you start the next day. And you indent right here. When it's time to indicate
that you're at the end. You can put three
hashtags like this. Or you can simply just write the this should be
centered by the way, just like with the scene breaks, your asterisk or your
hashtag should be centered. Use the headers and
footers section of word to add your author's name, the story name, and your
words, your page count. Sometimes it's shown like
this over on the left margin. And then over here you
would have page one. Sorry, this would be to perhaps
because when you do this, you would have this
happen at the top of every page except
for the first one. Let's talk about the title page. Your title page should
have your name, your address, your
e-mail, and overhear. Approximate word count. Then in the middle, centered the title of the story. The author's name. This
especially is important. If you're using a pen name, your real name is
going to go here, that's what will be
on your contract. Your pen name would go here. That's what would
be on the cover. Once you've got these
things in place? Your story can start right here. And the first-line
would be invented. This side should be ragged, not justified, not straight. It used to be that
you didn't put anything in italics
in manuscript. You simply underline the word. And the people building
the book would know that that meant for
it to be in italics. Because we're in a
digital world now, that one role has
changed quite a bit and it's more
acceptable now to simply go ahead and have used italics in
your manuscripts. The biggest one in
my mind, foreign. Go with a nice Courier. Courier New ten points or 12, or Times New Roman. But this is your safest bet
and it's easiest on the eyes. Have a look at this
example right here. See how the font makes it so
difficult to read clearly. A lot of the letters
are smashed together. This can be really
tiring if you're reading story after
story after story. A nice font like Courier New, very clean, very pouring. That is also easier
on the reader's eyes, especially if there's a. Now let's take that
same manuscript and instead do it in
standard submission form. Can you see how much
easier it is to read? This is why you look so
much more professional. If you use standard submission formatting when you're
sending your manuscript, Sam.
7. 7 COVER LETTER: Now that you have a
story that's properly formatted and you found
some markets to send it to. Your cover letter. In your cover letter, state the story title in all caps, approximate
word count. List your credentials and thank them for
considering your story. Don't try and explain the story. Not at all. The string needs to
do that for itself. But you do need to summarize the story in a way that
will hook the reader. In this case, often a board
tired slush pile reader. If you have any credentials that may not be about
writing in particular, but actually pertain to the
subject matter in your story, then that's good to
mention those two. For instance, if you're writing a crime story and you're a
lawyer or lawyers assistant, the event, it would
be helpful to mention that it gives you
some credibility. So just like with
your manuscript, it's a good idea to keep this clean, crisp,
unprofessional. Keep it short. A lot of
times they don't even read the cover letter until after they've
looked at your story.
8. 7 TRACKING OUR STORY SUBMISSIONS: Alright, you've got your story. It's formatted properly. You found some places
to send it to. Now let's find a way to track our submissions so that
if a story comes back, you can send it out to
another market right away. My favorite way to do this is
to simply have two columns. Want more stories. And one with markets
that I found. Then when you've got a story and you're
sending it to a market, you can write the date. You can put a little box there
waiting for information. And when it comes back rejected, you can put an x and the date. You'll know how long it
stayed at that market. And you can tell the glands that that story
has already been. To see that particular market. A word about rejection. Even the big guns face
rejection on a regular basis. If you receive any
feedback at all, counted as a good rejection
and carry on with a smile. Here the agent apologize
for the lack of feedback. But just knowing that
they saw obvious strength and enjoyed what they read
kept me moving forward. Rejection is simply
part of the process. If you've got a nice big
stack of rejection letters, then you can comfort yourself and knowing that you're
doing the right thing. And it's the only
way to get started. Maybe that's why a lot of acceptance letters start
with, congratulations. It's a pretty big
moment when you get an acceptance letter. Now on your chart, instead of an x, you can put a little check
mark in that box. And I like to highlight
that with some fun color. You can look at your
chart and you can see here your little
colored spots, your little story
publications pile up. And that feels really good. To count this acceptance
letter that I received. Take note of the request
for certain rights, and then offer of
a proper contract. This lets me know exactly
what rights they're buying. How long do they hold those rights before
they revert back to me? Want they'll pay, and so on. This allows me to submit stories for publication
again later, what's often referred
to as a reprint. Some markets except
stories that have been published by other
markets before. But some don't accept
reprints at all. So that's what it
means when you see that in the submission
guidelines. I know it sounds like
a lot, doesn't it? Here's four easy steps to
getting published. The story. Send it out to keep track
of your submissions, and keeps sending it
out until it's off. If you consistently do this, you will find success. It's pretty short. In my opinion. You should never give up on the story that
you believe in. Just keep sending it out. There are a lot of
markets out there. And a lot of anthology markets open up only for a brief time. So keep watching and
keep sending it out. It's the best way to success. Alright, storytellers, it's
time to show off your work. If you created a tracking system based on this class here, do a screenshot or something like that and share it with us. Bonus points. If already has all
the check mark or an x in there showing that you're actually
sending stories out. And please remember to
always be helpful and supportive to other people
in the comments or hurtful. My name is Adrian lay craft and I hope I helped
you today and learning how to take your writing and send
it out for submission. You can learn all about me
and a few like craft.com. And you can watch the curve at carving the
cottonwoods on YouTube. Thanks for joining me today. And remember, you can't
edit a blank page. So just keep writing.
Carving the Cottonwood Adria Laycraft, Editor, Author, Artisan
