Great short story writing/publishing tips!
Short stories are strange little things. They are easy to write – but not so easy to sell. Unlike novels, which require a lot of time to finish, a short story can be written in a few hours and ready to submit within a week – but what do you do with them then?
Ten Things You Can Do With Short Stories
Submit them to professional paying magazines. There are many paying markets out there for short stories, but this is a tough market. It is a crowded field because so many people write short stories thinking they are easier to sell than novels, which is not necessary true. Most high-circulation magazines use established writers to fill their editions, leaving only a few places per year for other writers. Every magazine paying professional rates will receive hundreds of submissions per week. Many editors keep stories for years before publishing them…
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Michelle Proulx - Author 
Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Michelle.
It’s quite interesting, isn’t it? And it gives a lot of really great ideas about what to do with short stories, which I found really helpful. A short story anthology … tempting 🙂
Yes, it is on all counts. Thank you so much for sharing. 😀
Great stuff, thanks for sharing! Though I don’t totally agree that a short story can be written in a couple of hours. I think that the great ones probably took a lot longer than that. A great short story is packed with good stuff, and it’s tricky to cram it all into less than 7500 words. That takes time.
Ah yes, very true. Short stories do indeed take time — my latest short story attempt can attest to that! I think the point was that, compared to a novel, short stories involve a much shorter time commitment 🙂
Awesome share, Michelle! I’ve never thought about it, but there are really lots of things you can do with short stories. My favorite is to get a taste for a story you’re contemplating to turn into a novel. Definitely make the most use of them so they don’t go to waste.
That’s a really clever one, isn’t it? I believe that’s what Orson Scott Card did with Ender’s Game — first he wrote a short story, and then he published it, and he got such a positive response that he turned it into a full length novel!
Basically an awesome way to test the waters before devoting a year of your life to a novel lol. Unless you’re super confident in the commercial value of the story, test it out first for sure.
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