Writers need to submit stories if they want to get published, but the task is daunting, and many writers are wary of this “business of story submission”. Below are some notes I created as part of my getting-to-write-fiction mode; the list could still be useful so I’m posting it.
Finding a market
There are some excellent resources to find a market that seems to match the story you have written.
The two resources I find up-to-date are Duotrope and Ralan.
Duotrope has a very systematic organization, and allows searching on various criteria. You can even create your own account and customize how you view the data. The website provides data on response times, often a criteria for many writers while selecting where to submit a story.
Ralan’s website is organized by category, separating pro, semi-pro, token, and for-the-luv markets. It also includes submission information for some publications that do not provide online submission guidelines on their own site.
Both these resources are excellent, free and up-to-date, and between them, contain a large number of markets to aim for. They include information on whether a market is “dead”.
But how does one decide where to submit a story?
At a minimum, it makes sense to read and follow the submission guidelines of the publication, and make sure the submission being made matches the criteria laid out, and that the mode of submission also matches the procedure and format they follow 
Many publications suggest reading an issue or two to understand the type of story they like, and that makes sense, too.
Personally, I like to submit stories only to places where I would like them published, so if I don’t like the sort of stories a magazine publishes, or am not happy with the magazine’s publication, I’d not think of sending a story there.
Of course, different writes use different criteria to select which market to try out first. Some send the stories to the best-paying markets first (typically, the”pro” markets) and then go down the ladder, so to say. Others have criteria on whether the publication allows electronic submissions. Some prefer to select markets that respond very fast, others want to send to slower markets(because they find it annoying to get a story rejected within hours of submitting it). Some like markets that provide feedback, and select such markets first. For others, this is not a criterion. To each his/ her own.
SFWA professional markets
For those keen to get published in “professional” venues, the SFWA list of such venues is at: http://www.sfwa.org/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements
Manuscript formatting
Manuscripts need to be formatted professionally before they are submitted. While some publications specify the exact format in which they want stories, many just say, use “Standard Manuscript Format”. Almost all editors feel inconvenienced, if not downright bugged if the manuscript is not formatted the way they would like it to be, so it makes sense to learn about formatting. Why offend the editor and reduce the chances of a story acceptance
An article on manuscript formatting that many submission guidelines refer to, is available at: http://www.shunn.net/format.html/
More articles can be found at SFWA’s page on manuscript formatting.
Keeping track of submissions
For anyone serious about submitting and getting accepted, the business of submission includes tracking stories, markets, and which story is subbed to which market. This usually gets tricky once there are multiple stories and multiple submissions per story. For example, you cannot submit more than one story to one market, and you should definitely not be submitted a story to a market that rejected it earlier.
Submission tracking systems help, because the writer is able to:
- have a list of available stories (name, genre, length)
- know which stories are ready-to-submit/ under submission/ trunked/ sold
- know which markets are available, and the basic characteristics of each market (market site name/ postal address, pay rate, length of story they accept, type of story, whether postal sub or e-mail or online form, typical response time, and so on)
- know the submission history of each story
With this information, it is possible to:
- send follow-up queries in time
- decide on what to submit to a market as soon as it rejects (or accepts) the current submission
- decide where to submit a rejected story next (after editing it, if required)
Getting published is not just a matter of writing well, but also a matter of persistence, and having information easily available helps a lot.
Most serious writers use index cards or some form of a spreadsheet to stay in control; some, inclined to nerd stuff, design databases. There are also some submission tracker systems available, free and paid.
