Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays

by Windy Lynn Harris

  If your work is appearing in a print magazine, you’ll need to watch your mailbox for those contributor copies. They could take up to a week or more to arrive after the publication date. The magazine will start promoting the new issue online before you even see your copy. But then your copy will show up at your house, and you’ll see your writing in print with your name right there below the title.

  Whichever medium your work appears in, spread the news about your byline through social media and mention the magazine by name. Add the credit to your website—if you have one—and add the new information to your third-person bio.

  Celebrate your success!

  How Many Magazines Should You Query at a Time?

  Send your work to five different editors (or more if you’ve got time to research additional markets) the first time you send a piece out the door. If you’re hungry for a first byline, send your story out to twenty editors that are accepting simultaneous submissions.

  This number will change as your goals do, of course. There will be times when you’re targeting a specific magazine. Maybe you’re sure a certain story of yours is perfect for Guernica. When you’ve got your eye on a prize like that, only send your work to that one magazine and wait patiently for a response. If they pass, you can always send that piece to five other editors.

  How Long is This Going to Take?

  Some editors will get back to you with a decision in the first couple of weeks, and others will take several months. You might get some hints about the response time in the writers’ guidelines, but you might not. Wait at least three months before raising an eyebrow. Yes, that long. Don’t worry; you’re a busy person. You’ve got new things to write. Just keep working, and let this process play out.

  I once had a piece accepted after nine months. The essay was only still for sale because I’d given up on it and had stopped sending it out. I liked the essay, but it had already been widely rejected. I had tucked it in with other stories that I might or might not revisit. When I got the acceptance letter, I read my work again and realized that I was proud to have it published. I liked it a lot. The editor told me she’d been hanging on to it, waiting for the right time of year to publish it.

  In another instance, I had an essay accepted after fourteen months of silence. Similar comments from the editor! The lesson: Just because you don’t hear something right away doesn’t mean your story has been forgotten. It might mean he likes it but is trying to find the right time for it.

  Once you get an acceptance letter, it could be anywhere from one week to one year before your work gets published. Online magazines have faster production times, but sometimes they acquire writing months ahead of when they need it. Print publications have a much longer lead time, and you could easily wait a full year from first submission to published copy in a magazine and sometimes longer.

  “When people tell me they write for themselves but they don’t submit, I usually nod and smile—at least at first. But it doesn’t take me long to encourage even the shyest writer to work towards submitting. I wonder if these writers are truly writing for themselves or if it is fear of rejection that keeps them from submitting.

  “I don’t deny that it’s hard, especially at first, to face the rejection that is ultimately part of the writer’s life. It takes tremendous strength to stand up and say: My voice has value. My story means something.

  “There is no magic formula to overcoming fear. However, you can build resistance to it, and in this way, slowly but surely, work to overcome it. The trick is that you can’t let the first wave (or the second or third or the hundredth!) knock you down. But don’t focus on all the waves that will come. Just keep standing through this wave. Over time, you’ll find that the longer you stand strong, the more firmly rooted you will become.

  “And you need to keep standing, keep writing, [and] keep submitting. Your voice matters. Art heals us in the writing and heals others in the reading. Your voice belongs in the world. Keep standing, and let the wave wash past you. When it does, you might look around and see the others out there with you. We’re all in this together.”

  —JENNIFER KIRCHER CARR

  HOW TO PRESENT & MAIL YOUR MANUSCRIPT

  For each submission method, there is an industry standard for presenting your work. Here’s what you need to know.

  Snail Mail Submissions

  Paperclip the pages of your manuscript together. Never use staples (editors need to make quick copies of your manuscript for editorial boards).

  Fold your SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) into thirds, and tuck it behind your manuscript, under the paperclip. The SASE is addressed to you. Write the magazine’s address in the top-left corner, and attach a stamp.

  Place your signed cover letter on top of the manuscript. Remember to sign your name at the bottom.

  Fewer than five pages can be folded into a standard business envelope. Five pages or more should be mailed flat in a manila envelope.

  Mail your manuscripts first class (with a regular stamp). Never certify or register a submission.

  E-Mail Submissions

  Begin the e-mail message with your cover letter, minus your contact information.

  Include your manuscript’s text in the e-mail’s body, below the cover letter (unless the writers’ guidelines specifically asked for manuscripts to be sent as attachments, which is rare).

  In the subject line, write the words “Query: Title of Your Story.” If the magazine’s writers’ guidelines give you other instructions, follow those instead. Some ask that you specify fiction or nonfiction in the subject line.

  Digital Upload Submissions

  All uploads have an online form that gives you a place to enter your contact information and cover letter. You do not need to change your cover letter to a Word file or PDF; just copy and paste it into the correct box. Your manuscript does need to be a Word file or a PDF. When you select the option to upload your work, you will be able to select the correct file type.

  COPYRIGHT LAW

  Copyright is the legal protection of your written work. It’s granted instantly each time you write a new short story or essay. You don’t need to mail anything to the United States Copyright Office to protect your writing. As soon as you put your name and the date on your written work, you are protected by the copyright law.

  When you enter into a short-story or essay contract, you are granting the magazine permission to use your intellectual property for a limited time. The copyright law assumes that writers are selling one-time rights when they enter a contract, unless the writer and publisher agree otherwise. Typically, the duration of copyright is the author’s life plus fifty to one-hundred years (in other words, copyright expires fifty to one-hundred years after the author’s death).

  Don’t put a copyright symbol (circle with a “c” inside of it) on your written work. Editors and publishers consider placing the copyright symbol anywhere on your manuscript to be a sure sign of an amateur. It signals that you don’t understand how copyright works and probably don’t understand how contracts work either. Some editors are even offended by the symbol on your prose since it implies that you don’t trust the person you’ve sent it to.

  The Rights You Sell

  When a publication offers to buy your piece of writing, you’re not actually selling the piece of writing. You’re selling specific rights governing the use of your piece. There are many rights available for you to sell, including print, electronic, film, foreign, and translation. In the absence of a contract or any stated rights, it’s usually understood that you’re selling “first” rights, but it never hurts to make sure. This is your property, after all, and you are in charge of managing the rights to your work.

  Here are the rights you’ll come across when selling short stories and essays.

  First Serial Rights (or First Rights)

  When you sell first rights, you’re selling a publication the right to be the first place to publish the material. This right holds the most monetary value i
n short stories and essays. A first-rights contract often comes with a specified period of time that the publication would like to have your work exclusively, usually 90–120 days. After the contract period, unless you’ve granted other rights or licenses, all copyrighted material reverts back to you. You can then sell other rights to that work, which is called “selling a reprint.”

  Sometimes first fights are referred to as FNASR, which stands for “first North American serial rights.” This term is added to denote a geographical location. This is an important thing to notice since signing an FNASR contract means that you still retain first rights in other geographic locations. With so many wonderful international magazines available to approach, this could be important to you. Consider first British rights, first European rights, and first Australian rights (to name just a few).

  Publications consider material posted online to be previously published and therefore unqualified to meet a first-rights contract. This includes work you post on Facebook, your website, or your blog, even if you have a small audience there. Don’t post any short story or essay online that you’d like to send to editors. If you already have, you can still sell the piece to a journal, but you will only be able to sell it as a reprint.

  Reprints (Second Serial Rights)

  What do you do once the rights to a piece revert back to you? You sell it again! You can never sell the first rights of a piece more than once, but you can sell the reprint rights as soon as your first contract has expired. There is no limit to the amount of times you can resell a piece like this, so a single essay or short story can appear in many journals. I’ve sold essays up to four times. Each publication had a completely different audience, so everyone was happy. Try to get at least two bylines out of every great piece you write.

  When you offer serial rights, you are telling the publication that first rights for the piece have been sold but that the publication can purchase the right from you to print the piece again as a reprint. Or, to phrase it differently, the publication can purchase the right to print the piece a second time. Reprint contracts are always spelled out carefully, so do take the time to read them thoroughly. Make sure that you will, once again, get your rights back at the end of the contract period. Reprint rights pay less than first rights, typically half of what a journal would pay for first rights.

  Electronic Rights

  Online journals purchase first electronic rights, which means that they are buying the right to be the first to provide the material electronically. Many journals that have both online and print publications acquire the first electronic and print rights at the same time. This happens often enough that you should assume that’s the case, even if your journal didn’t specify both rights anywhere in the guidelines or contract. However, you should always clarify with the journal what you’re selling.

  If the publication that purchased your first rights was a print-only effort, you can sell first electronic rights separately. If you are offering first electronic rights to a piece that has been exclusively in print already, it’s customary to mention this in your query letter. The publication might consider it a reprint at that point, or they might offer to purchase first electronic rights.

  All Rights

  Selling all rights to your work means that you are giving up any future rights to the piece. Nothing will revert back to you at the end of the contract period because there is no end to the contract period. This is common when selling greeting-card writing (and in some other industries), but I’d caution you against selling all rights for a short story or an essay. Should you wish to include that same piece in an anthology or collection of your works later on, you would have to purchase back the rights from the publication that purchased all rights from you.

  Anthology Rights

  This gives the publisher of an anthology—a collection of short writing—the right to publish your piece in their collection. Anthologies often purchase reprint material. Many magazines that put out annual “best of” collections negotiate anthology rights with authors whose work has appeared in their magazines.

  THE COMMON CONTRACT

  Contracts for short stories and personal essays are interesting in that they often don’t exist. What I mean is that they usually don’t exist in the traditional sense that other contracts do. For book projects—fiction or nonfiction—you’ll have a print or digital contract sent your way with a line for your signature. Sometimes this happens for the sale of a short story or essay, too. But more often than not, the contracts for short stories and essays are brief.

  When selling short work, it’s very common to receive an e-mail from an editor that goes something like this (in lieu of a formal contract): “Thank you for your submission of ‘Who Wants to Kill a Millionaire.’ We would like to publish it in the June 15 edition of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.” That’s it, end of contract. There might be another line reiterating what you’ll receive in payment if you have money or contributor copies coming your way, but other than that—done.

  The reason for this is that the meat of a short story and essay contract has already been stated in the writers’ guidelines. This is where you read that the publication wants an exclusive for 120 days. That’s where they stated that they will archive your work electronically. It’s where the publications said they’d e-mail you a PDF of the magazine. You’ve read the guidelines, so you already know what you’ll receive in exchange for publication. It is assumed that you “pre-agree” to the terms by submitting your work.

  Know what rights you are selling before you answer that e-mail and accept. You own all rights to your work (ex: print, electronic, foreign, film) until you agree to a contract. Double-check those online writers’ guidelines. Make sure you know when your rights will revert back to you, if ever. If you have questions, ask the editor in a polite e-mail response:

  Thank you for offering to include my story in the June 15 publication. I’d like to make sure I understand your terms before I agree. How long would you like to have an exclusive on this work?

  My advice: Get paid something but not necessarily money. All forms of payment have value to your writing career. Exposure and experience are both important pieces to the overall writing puzzle. Revisit your goals regularly. Decide what is important to you, and submit your work accordingly.

  GETTING ORGANIZED

  When selling short prose, you’ll typically send your work to more than one editor at a time. That can be hard to keep track of if you aren’t diligent, so be as organized as you can in this process. It’s important to keep track of the dates you submit, where you submitted, and the response. Beyond that, you might also keep track of the submission formats and the editors’ names.

  I like to keep it simple. Consider using the following submission tracker, or come up with one of your own (I know many writers who use Duotrope’s online submission tracker, one feature that comes with the $5 monthly subscription). I print out a new submission tracker for every piece of writing I’d like to sell. I fill in the title and word count and then list any appropriate categories. I send new work to at least five editors at a time. Sometimes more. As the responses roll in, I note them on the page with the date. A rejection would get an R 12/5/17, for instance. When someone offers to publish my work, I draw a smiley face in that last column. Then I drop down to the bottom two lines and fill in the specifics of the contract.

  SUBMISSION TRACKER

  TITLE OF PIECE

  * * *

  WORD COUNT ______________ CATEGORIES _________________________________

  DATE PUBLICATION RESPONSE

  PUBLISHED:

  * * *

  * * *

  * * *

  Every Monday I sit at my desk and check over the latest rejections from journal editors. I make decisions about where I should send my stories next and then follow my five-step process to get that work back out the door. Increase your chances of publication by keeping each piece of work circulating to at least five editors until you receive an acceptan
ce letter.

  Allow a minimum of three months to hear about a submission. After that time, it’s okay to write a polite letter or e-mail inquiring about the status of the manuscript.

  Nudging Editors

  When three months have passed without any word from an editor, check the writers’ guidelines. If they don’t mention anything about taking several months to respond, then you should send the editor an e-mail. When you do, assume the best. Perhaps the editor is still reading your work. Maybe it’s even at the last round of decisions. He might be typing up your acceptance letter right now.

  Be polite. Editors know each other; they talk to each other. Don’t ever risk giving yourself a bad reputation by blasting off a Why haven’t you read my work, you lazy editor? Instead, send a simple note, something like this:

  Hi Ms. Johnson,

  I’m just checking in on my January 7 submission of “This Great Story.” Are you still making decisions about the piece?

  Editors always respond to this type of note. Usually, you’ll get something back like:

  Dear Ms. Harris,