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- It can be really overwhelming trying to figure out
where you send your work out.
A lot of times I hear from people
that they say, "I don't have any connections to New York."
Well, guess what? Neither do I.
We all start in the same place, which is not knowing much,
but knowing we want our workout in the world,
and this is where all of that reading
that you've been doing comes in really handy.
When you read work, oftentimes that you like,
that's a publication that you can aim for.
And so one of the things that I always did
when I was starting out,
and that, quite frankly, I still do now,
is when I read something from a writer I like,
I look at their bio and see where they've been published,
and I try to submit my work to those publications
because I think if they like this person's work
and I feel like my work is similar,
then perhaps I'll be able to find a home
for my work in that way.
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There's a publication that used to be in print,
and I think is still in print,
called the "Writer's Market",
which is a list of pretty much every magazine
in the country.
And online, there's a website called Duotrope.
It used to be free,
but now it's a nominal fee of, I think, $35 a year,
and it lists pretty much every single magazine.
And what's great about Duotrope
is that it's an interactive database
and so you can put in search criteria,
like the genre that you're looking for,
the word length that you're looking for,
and it will give you a list of magazines
that meet whatever criteria you enter into the search.
And oftentimes they offer
response times
and how often they accept work
so you'll get acceptance rates.
It will really help you understand your chances
and what each market is like.
There are websites like "NewPages" and "Poets & Writers"
that also offer markets.
The most important thing to remember
is that you should not have to pay to submit your work
unless you're entering a contest,
and you should only enter a contest
if you really admire the judge
and you really think that it would be a good fit
for your work for whatever reason.
In general, contests are ways for publications
to make money to print themselves.
And so, you know, money should flow to the writer.
Oftentimes, you don't get paid
as a fiction writer in magazines,
but you should always be paid as a non-fiction writer.
So don't let anyone take your work for free.
Pretty much every single publication
in this day and age has a website
and on their website somewhere,
they have submission guidelines.
If they don't have submission guidelines,
that's God trying to tell you something,
which is that they don't accept unsolicited work.
You can look on the masthead or the About page,
and really great magazine simply have
a clearly demarcated submission guidelines section.
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Oftentimes, you have to write a cover letter
with your submission,
and a cover letter is a really simple document.
It's literally a letter
where you introduce yourself and your work,
and it can be one sentence if you need to.
It's just "Dear editor,"
and hopefully you have gone to the website
of that publication or looked at the masthead
if you have the print copy
and you are addressing the actual editor
or the non-fiction editor,
and then you can include your bio.
So "My work has appeared in 'Cat Fancy',
and I am this person or that.
I'm a student at Grinnell College in Iowa."
Whatever information you want to share.
You should develop a writer bio.
If you don't have any publication credits,
don't worry about it.
Everybody starts somewhere.
And you simply say,
"This would be my first publication. Sincerely, your name."
Never explain what your essay is about ever.
You want to let your work speak for itself,
and so the cover letter should just be short and simple.
One of the key things that you need to know as a writer
is that rejection is an integral part
of the writing process.
You are going to be, especially early in your career,
rejected far more than you will meet with acceptance.
One of my first blogs was called
"I Have Become Accustomed to Rejection"
and I wanted to have a regular blogging schedule,
so I told myself that I would write
every time I got a rejection.
So sometimes that meant I blogged five days a week,
and sometimes that meant I blogged once or twice a week.
And in each of those posts,
I would write about the experience of being rejected
and I would get all in my feelings,
but I would keep that to myself and like 10 readers.
Rejection is just part of the process and it hurts,
and you can definitely have feelings about it,
but this is, even if you're writing a personal essay,
a professional environment.
And so you have to take that rejection and then move on
and send your work somewhere else.
You will be published eventually
and you just have to be patient and you have to persevere.
I tend to take rejections and stride
and just submit to another place.
If you've written something
and you've gotten like 40 rejections,
then you might want to take another revision pass.
And sometimes, editors will be generous enough
to offer feedback,
and just as with your workshop or your writing group,
you can take that feedback or not.
But most of it is well-intended
and can help you make your work even stronger.
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