Where to Submit Your Short Stories

In Today’s Journal

* A New Short Story
* TNDJ Contests Reminder
* Where to Submit Your Short Stories
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

A New Short Story

“Focus, a Hit, and an Egress” went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free.

If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else.

TNDJ Contests Reminder

Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get info about your various TNDJ Challenge results in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.

I’ll report the week’s results from the Bradbury Challenge first, then the Stephen King Challenge, then the Run With Harvey Challenge.

To my surprise, all three challenges are growing. Feel free to jump into any of them, or into Bradbury and either of the others. (Yes, you can count the numbers in both.)

Having a place to report really does help with your writing.

Remember, if you finish a story earlier in the week, you can send the info to me early too. It never hurts to avoid pushing the deadline.

Where to Submit Your Short Stories

I think I’ve never talked about this before. In fact, if TNDJ didn’t exist, I wouldn’t mention it.

I’ll never recommend going the tradpub route with your novels, unless you stumble into a deal whereby the publisher will pay you a life-changing amount up front in a nonrefundable advance.

But I do recommend traditionally publishing your short fiction to traditional (paper or online) magazines or even to anthologies that pay professional rates.

Despite the time involved with submitting, then waiting for a response, it really can be worth it. For one thing, you get actual real money immediately.

Later, when the rights revert (I recommend no longer than a year, and 3 or 6 months is preferable) you can publish it yourself as a stand-alone story and/or put it in a collection and publish the collection.

That’s how you make money as a short story writer.

That said, not to sound like a snot, but I’ve worked hard and very long hours to develop my skill as a writer and storyteller.

If you have too, then I recommend you don’t publish your work just anywhere. Put some thought and research into venues where you want to submit your stories.

Read a few issues of the magazine. Be sure the quality of the stories is at least similar to the quality of your own. Usually, even if you don’t personally like a story, the quality (or lack thereof) is evident.

A Cautionary Tale

Once upon a time, I was invited to submit a short story to an anthology. What’s worse, I allowed myself to be lured by a few names I recognized.

So I submitted a short story and expended a lot of time promoting the anthology.

Fast forward to receiving the proof of the anthology. I eagerly read every story in it. By the time I finished, I regretted that my work was included. Of course, at that point it was too late.

I was surprised to find, and am sad to report, that of the 12 writers who contributed to the anthology, I would be happy to share my reputation as a writer of quality fiction with only 5 of them. I would even consider collaborating with 4 of them.

Of the remaining 7 writers, most were only so-so.

But it was painfully obvious that one, arguably the biggest “name” in the anthology, was a beginning writer. You could’a knocked me over with a very light feather.

The guy had no clue about Story, story flow, pacing, or even basic paragraphing. In fact, had he attempted to engage me as a copyeditor and submitted that story as a sample of his writing, I would have declined.

The point is, when you submit your work to a magazine or anthology, remember that you’re showcasing your work, ostensibly among similarly skillful writers. So do your homework.

Read a few issues of the magazine (or previous anthologies compiled by the same publisher) to determine whether the included writers/stories at least approach your level of storytelling skill.

If at least two-thirds (so in my case, at least 8 of the writers) aren’t at least roughly on your level, I recommend you give the venue a hard pass and look elsewhere to showcase your work.

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Cliffhanger Magazine Take a look. Some good writing. Places like this is where you want your work showcased.

Bohemian Rhapsody Not about writing but if you like “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen), you should really watch this. 🙂

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 770

Writing of Blackwell Ops 47: Sam Granger | Special Duty

Day 1…… 3250 words. To date…… 3250
Day 2…… 1110 words. To date…… 4360
Day 3…… 3323 words. To date…… 7683
Day 4…… 1656 words. To date…… 9339
Day 5…… 1413 words. To date…… 10752
Day 6…… 3135 words. To date…… 13887
Day 7…… 3338 words. To date…… 17225
Day 8…… 1228 words. To date…… 18453
Day 9…… 1985 words. To date…… 20438

Fiction for September……………… 7701
Fiction for 2025………………………. 541850
Nonfiction for September.………… 10480
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 196730
2025 consumable words…………….. 732951

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 13
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 117
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 301
Short story collections……………………. 29