3 Reasons Why Submitting to Non-Paying, Independent Story Presses Matters

If you're a writer, particularly one of short stories, you're probably already aware that it's not the most marketable of writing. After all, it doesn't exactly fit the pragmatism of other types of writing, whether it be the written word providing news (if that's what you want to call current mainstream journalism nowadays), or recreational writing in the form of the short story, memoir, autobiography, and the mass-market fiction novel. Notice the main distinctions here could be categorized into two genres: fiction and non-fiction. The focus of this particular blog will be on the former. The other parameter that defines the fiction category is the length of each; one of the forms of writing is long and the other short. For the sake of this blog, I want to focus on the latter. The reasons for this are less out of preference, and, like I mentioned earlier, more out of pragmatism. I have never published a novel. Yes, I have book-length manuscripts that I've written, and am in the process of completing a book-length novel, but I have never published a large, that is, lengthy manuscript. I have, however, had a lot of experience--and some success--in writing short stories. In fact, I have spent years polishing literally scores of stories, and through the graciousness of several different independent literary presses, have even had a lot of these stories published. Therefore, I feel humbled to be in a place where I feel comfortable offering some advice on just how to go about even getting someone else's attention with a story that you've written, and ultimately have them accept it to be included in their publication, whether that be a print or online journal.

To that end, you may be asking yourself, 'Why does that matter? Why would I waste my time submitting high-quality writing to some random, obscure publisher who has some banal website where they slap someone's story up? As underwhelming as it sounds, this may be the best thing that could ever have happen to you and a story you've written. But there are other, more compelling benefits to getting a story of yours out onto a public medium. Here are three of the most important reasons.

1. Engaging in the marketing process of your work.

Publishers today are just that: publishers. They do not care about you. They do not care about their clients. They care about profit margins. No, this is not some socio-political rant, it's simple economics. Publishing is a business. The main goal of any business is to (well, it used to be) provide products that meet the needs of their clients) make profit. That's fine, but that makes it very difficult to be a writer looking for a book deal. You are one in what, tens of thousands of potential clients for them? So, unless you already have become an established author, have lots of money, market your own book, pay lots of money for an agent, or your parents are both editors at a publisher (i.e. - you're well-connected), it's nearly impossible to get a book deal. Therefore, you are largely on your own. So as far as outlets go, one of the few places to turn to are small, independent literary presses.

There are literally thousands of small, literary presses that solicit various types of writing from a more-biased constituent of writers, but even if you don't fit the socio-political mold of these presses (I don't), there are probably still just enough non-socio-political magazines out there who may want to publish your work. As I mentioned before, I have been blessed to find a plethora of magazines who have published stories of mine, even though they are probably on the opposite end of the socio-political spectrum than I. The trick is to make a determination of the type of writing you do, the type of writing a particular press publishes by actually reading a bit of the journal, and then submitting the most-closely-related piece of writing you have that might serve their target audience, fit the type of writing their journal puts out, and fits a particular need of a particular issue or publication at a particular time. This may sound complicated, but the more you familiarize yourself with a journal by reading issues that are available for free, the better off you will be in knowing whether your writing is a good fit for their publication.

Most of these presses use some kind of submission system like Wordpress, Submittable, or Duotrope. Type these into google and have a look at how the whole process works.

But what's the point, you ask? The point is that you will be building a portfolio of actual, professionally-published pieces that will help build your writing resume. This may sound daunting at first, to seek out and submit writing to various publications who will largely reject your work, but over time, with diligence, you will find places who will accept your writing. You will also learn how to create and amend your own writing biography as you continue to get publications under your belt. You will learn to be a better judge of character of a publication and what types of things they want and where your writing will be a good fit and where it will not.

2. It will encourage you to take the drafting and revisionary process seriously.

Every time you browse the submission sites like duotrope or submittable, you are looking for a place to 'sell" your writing. True, most journals do not literally pay you for your writing in money (some do, don't get me wrong), but what I mean is every time you submit a story, you are marketing yourself as a writer, not only to that particular publication, but to the editorial and managerial staff of that magazine. No, they are not the same thing for two reasons: editors tend to work for multiple publications, and if you present yourself and your writing as unprofessional and not finely-tuned, you may be building more of a reputation in the writing community than you realize. Yes, this can always be overcome over time with good writing and general professionalism, but it can also be a setback if you're not presenting your best work every time you submit. One way that you can really enhance your presentation is, before submitting, always, always, do a read-through of your writing before you submit. Yes, that may sound taxing and tedious, but what that does is enables you to always have the best version of that piece available every single time you submit. And the other benefit is that each time you undertake this process, realize that the piece keeps getting and better until it's accepted somewhere.

3. It will give you hope that your work will be published, and when your work is accepted somewhere, it gives you the motivation and inspiration to keep writing.

Most writers--at least pretty much every writer I know--want to be published. The only way to do that is one of two ways: self-publish or market your writing to a variety of publications. I know we've all read those blogs or articles about how rejection letters and declinations are a normal part of being a writer and blah blah blah. That's what I'm partially saying here. But I think there is another element to this that is always overlooked in those little blogs or articles: the more you get your writing out to publications, the simple math and odds of getting published increases. It's like the lottery, except you're not just hoping for a reward (being published or getting paid for your writing), you're building your writing resume in which you can add these published pieces to a list of publications on your bio of the submission manager you use or in your cover letter when you're marketing yourself to a publisher, publication, or literary agent. The only way you can have those accolades added to your resume is by submitting and submitting until over time, you may have a string of published pieces, and that could be the difference in the future of further success in your writing career. The realization then, of someone else validating and valuing your writing, will energize and motivate you to keep writing because there are people who think your work is good, and they have an audience they can market your story to.

So the next time you finish a story, poem, or essay, don't just keep it hidden on your laptop or in your journal in your desk drawer, proofread it and submit it to a small literary press. It may be the biggest step you can take for your writing career.