Where to begin if you want to submit your writing

A friendly guide to sending out your writing for the first time

When you first jump into submitting, you might find a flurry of resources. The Google searches “Where to submit” and “How to submit” generate tons of information, all of it theoretically guiding us on the path to publishing our writing. But it can be hard to make sense of that information, and it can be even harder to find a way to feel good about the process of submitting our writing.

That’s why I wrote How to Submit. I wanted a book about the process of sending out our writing that channels all the good energy I’ve received from literary magazines and small presses over the years. I wanted a book about publication that prioritizes keeping writers inspired. It’s so easy for the submission process to get us down or to distract us from the writing itself. I wanted make a manual that would help us feel at home in our publishing lives.

How to Submit will be shipping in late February, and you can order it now:

If you don’t have the book yet, I have also created this Substack post in order to give you a start as a submitter. This post will guide you toward essential resources for submitting your writing, and even more importantly, it will help you think through what it means to send out your work.

A Few Pieces of Advice

There are many reasons you might have arrived at this page: Because you’re in a college class and you’ve produced a piece you’re proud of that you’d like to try sending out. Because you’re working on your MFA and want to explore the publishing side of the writing life. Because you’ve been writing on your own for years, and you’re finally ready to take the leap of sharing your work. Or maybe you’ve submitted before, but you want some guidance for the process. Maybe you want to explore pathways to publishing that don’t involve querying agents. Maybe you’re looking for community and moral support in the act of sending out your work.

Thank you for reading, no matter who you are. I think it’s important to seek out meaningful support for the act of seeking publication.

It’s also important to think about the big picture before we get into the details. Here are four pieces of big-picture advice for your submissions, which I believe will allow you to pursue publication with happiness and heart:

1. Stay in touch with your goals.

It’s easy to get caught up in the whole “publish in the fanciest venue you can find” rat race. Prestige is the easiest measurable rubric for choosing where to submit. But prestige is not the most important thing! The most important thing is what you want out of submitting.

Take some time to reflect on what it means to you to share your writing. If you are clear-eyed about that, it’ll help your inner compass bring you to a place that satisfies you on a deeper level.

2. Slow down. You don't have to do it all at once.

The expansive landscape of literary magazines and small presses can be overwhelming! It’s OK. If you choose to do this work in the long term, you’ll eventually come to a wide knowledge of the submission process and the venues you want to prioritize. But you don’t just start with that knowledge. Instead, you’ll probably feel like you’re jumping into the deep end at first.

Don’t worry. You can send your writing out a little at a time. You can send it out a couple of times and then take a break, or slow down, or change your approach altogether. You can submit at your own pace, your own style. No one gets to tell you what your trajectory should be except you.

3. Expect rejection.

Rejection really is the rule, whether you’re a writer with multiple books or someone who is just starting out. I get that it’s hard not to take a “no” answer personally. But the person whose relationship to the writing really matters is you. If you believe in your writing, keep working on it and keep sending it out. Eventually (it may take years, even decades), the story you want to tell will find a home. Years and/or decades sounds like a long time, but it’s not uncommon for reaching your publication goals to this long. We’re all in this together, collectively waiting for that next acceptance, and sometimes it takes a really long time.

A good way to avoid focusing on the outcome of your submissions is to set process goals, not accomplishment goals. If you do this, you’ll remain in charge of your writing life, rather than giving the power to judge our writing to others.

4. Only submit in ways that give back to your writing.

Here’s my biggest piece of advice: Avoid any submission practice that makes you feel emptied out, tired, and discouraged about your writing. Instead, find a way to seek publication that motivates and inspires your work.

There are many ways to do this:

• Read widely, exploring a variety of literary magazines and publishers, as “research” but really to inspire an expansive sense of the possibilities for your own writing.

• Set aside a specific day, time, and space where you submit. Make yourself tea, get yourself treats, and relax. Invite friends over for a submitting party. Use submitting as an opportunity to connect.

• Organize your writing schedule around external deadlines and publication possibilities, a long as they feel like positive motivations.

• Get involved by contributing your labor to publications. For example, you can volunteer as a submissions reader. Getting involved helps you build community and become an authentic part of the publishing landscape.

Only pursue publication as much as it inspires you. Once it starts to become stressful or worrisome, forget about it. Focus on writing for you.

Resources for Submitting Writers

Now I’ll share a few posts that will guide you step by step through the process of submitting your writing.

I’ll remind you again: All of this can be overwhelming, but you do not have to make a big deal out of submitting. I’m sharing a lot of information here, but the only thing you have to do to submit is 1) write a piece you really care about, 2) revise the heck out of it, and 3) send it to a venue that’s open for submissions.

That’s it. Everything else here is meant to support you, but you only need to read it as much as it is helpful to you.

Here are the posts that will guide you through the process (or you can buy a copy of How to Submit to get a fuller picture of what I recommend).

The first bit of information you’ll probably want is how to find literary magazines and small presses to submit to:

If you’re sending out a full book, you may also be interested in deepening your research of small presses or learning more about submitting to university presses.

Next you might wonder: How do I make a decision about where to submit my writing? This post should help:

Once you’ve reached the submission portal of a venue where you’d like to send your writing, you might wonder what your cover letter should look like. Here’s how to write a cover letter when submitting to a literary magazine:

I also think it’s essential to organize your documents and files right off the bat. If you’re curious about efficient ways to keep track of your submissions and your research about publication, read this:

Finally, it’s good to stay inspired as a writer and reader if you’re seeking to grow your presence in the literary world. That’s why my Substack has several other sections, including prompts for finding new ways into your writing, mini-interviews with writers who publish with small presses, and regular writing advice for staying true to your creative process.

More submitting advice will appear here as I write more and answer questions. You are cordially invited to follow along.

Pep Talk

The last thing I’ll tell you is this: Getting your writing published is a long process. It takes time. It might never work out exactly the way you want it to.

That’s OK, because if you stick with it, something will happen, and that something might even be more beautiful than what you envisioned. The thing that happens will ultimately become your own.

That’s why the community aspect of literary magazine and small press submissions never stops resonating for me. This is how you get your writing published, yes. But it’s not strictly a deal, a quid pro quo. Instead it’s a place where we build the connections that will sustain us over the course of our writing lives.

And I’ll say it one more time: You don’t have to do everything at once. You don’t even have to do everything ever. You can just try submitting writing you care about to a venue you like, and see what happens.

Who knows? It might even click on your first try. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll have taken the first step. All the possibilities follow that.