Okay, hear me out before you read further. I am not claiming to be an expert writer. I am not claiming to be a know-it-all when it comes to the world of publishing. I am not going to guarantee you that if you abide by all of the information I present to you in this post that you will get your story published. However, I will warn you that if you do not heed all of the information presented in this post, you may guarantee that your stories never get published. So, what I can do is guarantee you a chance!
I am going to share with you some of the specific things that I have seen publishers request when calling for submissions from the general public and things that I have done to make sure I at least had a chance of being published.
Maybe you are an aspiring writer but haven’t tried to submit anything yet. Maybe you have tried submitting stories, but haven’t had your first acceptance yet. Thus far, I have submitted to 44 different calls and have 7 acceptances. That translates into a 16% success rate. Not much. But it’s something. So, while you can definitely find advice from better and more successful writers (and I suggest you do that too), I can still give you some tips.
There’s no way to guarantee that your story will be accepted, but there are ways to guarantee that it will be rejected. One certain way to have your story rejected is to ignore or miss the publisher’s requests. The following are common specific or general requests that publishers often make when calling for submissions, so make sure you watch for them.
A specific theme and/or genre. It may seem obvious, but please don’t submit a sci-fi romance story to a call for horror stories about the occult. Publishers will always list the genres they are looking for and will always list a theme, even if that theme is listed as “general,” or “open.” Publishers will also often list genres or content they absolutely don’t want. Even in calls for horror, it is common to see things like: “we do not accept stories with gratuitous violence, explicit sex, or harm to children or animals.” If you read it, heed it!
Some publishers will list other works that are of the style they want. If you see this, I would strongly suggest reading two or three of those works to get an idea of what they like. Finally, if you are not sure whether your story fits into the genre or theme they are looking for, submit it anyway. Most publishers will encourage you to submit your story if there is any uncertainty and let them decide. Just be ready for a possible rejection on the grounds that it’s not a good fit.
Grammar. Good grammar comes with education and practice. If you practice good grammar as you write, it leaves you with more mental energy to focus on your story rather than worry about whether you should use a colon or semi-colon. The importance of good grammar is that it makes your story easier to read. You could have written a story comparable to Hemmingway or Dickens, but if the publisher is tripping over every sentence trying to read it, they are going to throw it out.
Having said that, don’t fixate on making your grammar perfect. Almost every publisher has a professional editor who will make editorial suggestions to your work before it is published. Let them worry about the more difficult nuances of grammar, but please don’t make their job any harder than it has to be.
Formatting. The majority of publishers request, what is called, Shunn Manuscript Format. I’m not going to go into detail about what this is as you can look it up online, and it’s better that you learn it from the source rather than from me. Of the 44 calls that I have submitted to, I think only two or three requested something other than Shunn formatting, so it is helpful to be familiar with it. You may even want to set your Word document defaults to this kind of formatting if you mostly use Word to write.
Submitting your story. Believe it or not, this one varies quite a bit. I would say the most common way publishers want you to submit your story is via email as a .doc or .docx attachment. They will usually ask you to add a cover letter, or bio, or synopsis in the body of your email and then attach your story. I did have one submission call that asked for the entire story to be pasted in the body of the email… that was weird as most publishers explicitly state that they don’t like that.
There are a lot of publishers that only accept story submissions through submission platforms like Duosuma, Subfolio, or Submittable. You have to create an account in order to use these platforms, but they are all free to use. They can be a bit cumbersome to set up, but once you sign up, it does make it easier to manage your stories and make future submissions.
Obviously, the old way to submit manuscripts and stories was through the post via letters and envelopes, but in the current digital age, that method has almost completely disappeared… almost. In the past five years since I started looking for open calls, I saw one call that requested stories be submitted via the post and not e-mail. It’s still a thing!
Something else to pay attention to is if the publisher notes that they read submissions blindly. This means that they want you to remove any and all identifying information from your manuscript so they have no way of knowing who wrote each story. I actually like that idea because favouritism can happen to the best of us, and this way, you can be sure that your story is accepted based on its own merits. I would estimate that about a third of all calls to which I have submitted a story have requested that they be read blindly. For that reason, I often save two versions of each story; one with identifying information, and one without.
Word count. The requested word count for a short story is important because it allows publishers to include the number of stories they want per publication. Nine times out of ten, the word count is non-negotiable and it should be respected. I have worked my ass off multiple times trying to get the word count for a story down to the maximum limit, but it’s worth it as most publishers will not even consider your story if it is over the word limit.
Because most publishers are trying to get the greatest number of stories possible into a smaller book, you will often see word count limits in the three to four thousand range. I have five stories that are over 7k that I’ve only been able to submit once each because that high of a word count limit is rarer. If your story falls in the 3k-4k range, it becomes more desirable to a publisher. In all honesty, calls that have a word limit of 10k or more may only come up a handful of times a year.
Finally, with regards to word count, they expect you to round it to the nearest 100. If your story has 3,489 words, then it is considered 3.5k. If it is 4,243 words, then it is considered 4.2k. So, yes, that means that a story with a word limit of 4k actually means anything from 3,950 to 4,049 words. You can use your Word document to count the words for you, including your title and author’s name. Then, round it.
Deadlines. I have never yet encountered a publisher who was flexible on deadlines. They, themselves have strict deadlines and, therefore, must impose strict deadlines. Do your best to have your story fully complete (reviewed, edited, finalized) before submitting it, and make sure you submit it before the final hour. If your story is not complete and in its best possible form, most publishers will not come to you asking for your completed version after the submission window has closed. I have missed submission opportunities because I wasn’t able to complete a story on time.
Multiple and/or simultaneous submissions. Multiple submissions means a single author is allowed to submit more than one story to a single call. This is not common, but does happen. Usually, when a publisher allows for multiple submissions, they limit it to two or three. Please do not inundate them with a deluge of stories, however, I do recommend taking advantage of it as you have an extra opportunity for acceptance – provided that all stories you submit still adhere to the publisher’s criteria.
I once submitted to a call that allowed for two stories per author. The theme of the anthology was general enough that I had multiple stories that could have fit. I chose two stories that I thought had the best chance. One was rejected and one was accepted. Had the call only requested one submission per author and I submitted the story that was rejected, I would have missed out. While multiple submissions are not the norm, take advantage of them when they appear.
Simultaneous submissions means that you are allowed to submit the same story to multiple calls at the same time. Most calls will allow for simultaneous submissions with the caveat that if your story is accepted elsewhere, you must notify them immediately. This is a professional courtesy by the publisher to ensure that you don’t miss out on opportunities to have your stories published. While most publishers will allow them, not all do, so please read carefully if you try to do this and let them know that the story has been submitted elsewhere. You don’t need to say where, but you must tell them if it is accepted elsewhere and then withdraw it from all other submissions.
Advertising. Most publishers will ask accepted authors to help with advertising, if possible. You may see some calls that mention a request for successful authors to advertise the publication on their social media platforms or websites. While this is rarely an obligation, I have seen instances in which publishers have said they require it for a successful acceptance.
I sincerely hope this helps. This is everything I can think of that you should be aware of when submitting to a publisher. In my next post about writing, I’m going to talk about payments, contracts, and everything else that comes with an acceptance.
Thanks for reading,
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