I have a few stories seeking a home currently, so I've been consulting my usual sources to find some places I can send them, and figured they might also be intriguing markets for some other writers out there, too. I mostly focus on places that publish fiction, since that's what I'm shopping around, but a lot of these places also publish creative nonfiction, poetry, or other things like visual art, if you're looking for places to send those. And of course, these aren’t even close to all of the options that are out there. If you don’t find any that speak to you here, give a quick look at Duotrope or ChillSubs. You might be surprised how many spots are still out there reading, especially for writers in the genres.

Augur

Deadline: 7/15 Genres: Literary speculative (sci-fi, fantasy, apocalypse, fabulism, splistream, etc.) Fiction wordcount: up to 5,000 Pays: .14/word (CAD) Duotrope acceptance percentage: 0.82%

A top Canadian publisher of speculative fiction, Augur is only open to international submitters during limited windows, one of which is in the first half of July. This is a good home for pieces that straddle the literary/genre fiction divide, and they’re open to work from most speculative genres.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Deadline: always open Genres: Secondary-world adventure fantasy Fiction wordcount: up to 15,000 Pays: .08/word Duotrope acceptance percentage: 0.78%

Beneath Ceaseless Skies has a very specific focus: fantasy stories set somewhere other than Earth, or in an alternate history version of Earth, and where some kind of adventure happens. Within that category, they’re an excellent home for fantasy written in a literary voice, though the clarity of the plot and character development should always be paramount.

Black Cat Weekly

Deadline: Always open Genres: Sci-fi, fantasy, mystery Fiction wordcount: 1,500-45,000 (up to 15,000 preferred) Pays: .01/word ($5-$50) Duotrope acceptance percentage: 11.03%

Black Cat Weekly publishes fantasy, sci-fi, and mystery stories, and since it comes out weekly they need to buy a lot of them. This is an excellent home for quick-paced plot-driven stories. Genres like space opera and epic fantasy do well here. Note that they don’t accept simultaneous submissions.

Black Fox Literary Magazine

Deadline: 11/30 Genres: All Fiction wordcount: up to 5,000 Pays: $20 Duotrope acceptance percentage: 0%

One of the unique things about Black Fox Literary Magazine is that it accepts genres that are often hard to find a home for in a short length, like mystery, romance, and YA. It is also a highly competitive market, and with good reason because it can make a beautiful home for stories in a broad variety of genres.

Body Shots

Deadline: Currently open (deadline not stated) Genres: Any Fiction wordcount: up to 7,500 Pays: $35-$150 Duotrope acceptance percentage: 3.03%

The literary journal of Subtle Body Press, Body Shots is relatively new, debuting in late 2024. Their vibe veers toward bizarro, transgressive, and counterculture work, though they’re not limited to things in that area. Generally, it’s a good home for work that’s got a bit of an edge, or work that blurs genre or takes experimental approaches to form and voice.

Dragon Soul Press

Deadline: 7/31 (Midnight Bites), 8/31 (Once Upon a Tale, Curses & Crystals), 9/30 (A Winter in Love) Genres: Sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romance Fiction wordcount: 3,000-20,000 Pays: Royalties Duotrope acceptance percentage: 44.12%

Dragon Soul Press publishes themed short fiction anthologies that all generally fall under one genre umbrella or another. They usually have several anthology calls open at any given time and they’re often announced several months in advance, so you can plan ahead if you have stories that might fit their aesthetic.

The First Line Literary Journal

Deadline: 8/1 (The line of people stretched all the way around the block), 11/1 (Lawrence was the last to arrive). Genres: All Fiction wordcount: 300-5,000 Pays: $25-$50 Duotrope acceptance percentage: 4.55%

The First Line does something I think is unique in literary journals. Each issue’s prompt is a sentence that starts every piece published in that issue. They announce all of the year’s themes at the start of each calendar year. They same press also runs The Last Line, which is the same concept but the final line is provided, which has a deadline of 10/1 (It was after midnight when we finally made it home.)

Fusion Fragment

Deadline: 7/31 Genres: Sci-fi and literary sci-fi Fiction wordcount: 2,000-15,000 Pays: .04/word (CAD) up to $400 Duotrope acceptance percentage: 0.68%

This online sci-fi journal is open to a range of subgenres, but across them tends to favor character-driven stories and is more drawn to work that focuses on things like voice, language, and emotion than ones that are primarily built around an adventurous plot. They’re especially interested in getting work from underrepresented voices in sci-fi.

Havok

Deadline: Rotating theme deadlines (next one 7/10) Genres: sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, thriller, comedy Fiction wordcount: 300-1,000 Pays: No payment for online; $25-$50 if picked for an anthology ChillSubs acceptance percentage: 8.33%

Havok publishes a story every weekday in a rotating set of genres: Mystery Monday, Techno Tuesday, Wacky Wednesday, Thriller Thursday, and Fantasy Friday. They also have occasional seasonal themes that stack on top of those, so make sure to check on that before submitting

Image

Deadline: 8/1 Genres: Literary Fiction wordcount: up to 6,000 Pays: $25/page Duotrope acceptance percentage: 0.75%

The focus of Image is on work that engages with religion, specifically the religions of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. It can be in a critical or a slant way, but they’re looking for work that somehow engages with those faiths. They’re currently reading on a theme of “trash” in all possible meanings and interpretations.

Phano

Deadline: Currently open (no deadline stated) Genres: sci-fi Fiction wordcount: up to 5,000 Pays: .02/word Duotrope acceptance percentage: 0%

Even though this is a newer journal, just founded in 2024, it’s quickly shot up to become a highly regarded publisher of literary science fiction. They are the best home for near-future sci-fi that makes realistic use of technology but doesn’t focus only on that, but also has deep emotion or explores deeper philosophical themes.

Sally Port  

Deadline: Always open Genres: Fantasy Fiction wordcount: 1,000-13,000 (sweet spot 6,000-7,000) Pays: .05/word Duotrope acceptance percentage: 10.45%

The mission of Sally Port is very cool: it’s a truly all-ages fantasy magazine, publishing middle grade and young adult work alongside stories intended for adults. Because of that, this isn’t the best market for especially violent or vulgar stories, though they do publish stories that have deep ideas or “grown-up” themes. Speaking of themes, they have those for their issues and you can see the calendar here.

Solarpunk Magazine

Deadline: 7/14 Genres: Solarpunk Fiction wordcount: up to 7,500 (sweet spot 1,500-4,000) Pays: .10/word Duotrope acceptance percentage: 3.03%

This journal is run by Android Press, which is a respected publisher of book-length fiction. As you might guess from the name, the journal is focused on solarpunk, along with adjacent genres like solarpunk horror. They also occasionally have themes, which you can see on the submission guideline site if there are any currently active.

The Submission Pit

Deadline: 7/31 Genres: Sci-fi, fantasy, horror Fiction wordcount: up to 10,000 Pays: $100 Duotrope acceptance percentage:  0%

This is another new one, though it’s riffing off an established formula. Similar to the Short Story Substack, The Submission Pit is a Substack-based journal that publishes one short story each month. The focus of this one is exclusively on speculative fiction, though it is tricky to narrow down what they’re looking for much more than that since they are so new.

subTerrain Magazine

Deadline: 8/7 Genres: Literary Fiction wordcount: up to 3,000 Pays: .10/word Duotrope acceptance percentage: 2.7%

Another Canada-based journal, subTerrain Magazine regularly publishes international contributors. Their emphasis is on literary fiction but they also publish work that’s around the fringes of genre, especially stories that have a surreal feel or exist in a slant reality.

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This weekend I've finally had some time to sit down and go through all of the info, books, and swag I picked up from my bookfair tours. I found a surprising number of intriguing new-to-me publishers and organizations this year. I say “surprising” only because I've been to an absurd number of AWPs by this point (Baltimore was my 12th, if I'm doing my math right), and I spend a decent amount of time researching and reading literary journals between cons, too. But that's one of the beautiful things about literary publishing: it's always changing, and there's always something new to discover, no matter how long you spend immersed in the world. 

In any case, here are some literary magazines and other neat things that I'm very glad I know about now. 

The Enthusiast Press

I'm a sucker for a well-made hand-bound book, so I was predictably enamored by The Enthusiast Press. All of their books are hand-bound, unique, and gorgeous. They publish chapbook-length poetry and fiction manuscripts that fall generally under the umbrella “dark-leaning literary.” They're open for sumissions year-round and you can find information on how to send them work on their About page.

Scrawl Place

Something else I'm a sucker for is unique, human-centered travel writing. There are a few great magazines publishing this kind of travelogue-meets-personal-essay kind of stuff, and based on what I've read from them so far I'll be adding Scrawl Place to that list. All the work they publish is connected to a place, but that includes poems and stories alongside essays.

Issues are free to read online and I definitely encourage folks to give them a read. They're also open year-round for general submissions, and currently have a specific call out for work about Chicago (through July 31st).

Scryptid Games

My top panel for the conference was the one I went to on writing for tabletop games, which was led by the crew from Scryptid Games. When I went by their table, I also saw they have a submission call out for Tales from the Cryptids, where they'll publish games, flash fiction, and poetry that tell stories from a cryptid's point-of-view. The call is open through April 30th, for anyone else who's got a story in that category to share. 

Scryptid also publishes some very fun-sounding story-based TTRPGs (Psychic Trash Detectives in particular caught my eye, and is one I might be buying for the group to play in the near future). For anyone else who's been considering making their own games, they have a couple of workshops coming up, including one on Zoom at the end of March. 

Hellbender Magazine

I feel especially well tuned-in to the literary scene of Northern Appalachia, so the fact that I had to travel to Baltimore to find out about Hellbender Magazine I consider to be something of a personal failure. This lovely little literary journal is based in Morgantown, WV, where it's run by graduate students from WVU. It's a revival of the university's previous literary journal, Cheat River Review, and in its new iteration relaunched in the fall of 2023.

Hellbender Magazine publishes flash prose (up to 1,500 words), poetry, and art. They're not open at the moment but I'll be keeping my eye for their next call because I enjoyed what I saw and read from them. 

Books Not Bans

The mission of Books Not Bans is to send free boxes of banned and queer books to people who might otherwise not be able to access them. They work with schools, youth groups, bookmobiles, and other organizations across the United States, largely in rural areas, and have already sent out over 2,100 books in their first year and a half, which is pretty awesome. 

I chatted with the founder for a while in the bookfair and she's super enthusiastic about the mission of making sure everybody has access to quality, diverse literature, no matter where they live. Anyone who's also into that and wants to volunteer can sign up on their website (or any organizations that want to get books can find a form in the FAQ).

Weird Lit Magazine

Anything that has the word “weird” in the title is going to instantly have my attention. Then I saw that Weird Lit Magazine's logo is a sea monster coming out of a planet, and I felt like I'd found my people. They're a quarterly based in the Pacific Northwest and publish online. They just publilshed their 7th issue, so they're still fairly new. You couldn't tell it by reading the issues, though. They're well-designed and fun to read, especially if you enjoy stuff in the slipstream or absurdist category. 

Weird Lit Magazine isn't open at the moment but they'll be opening up on April 15th. When they do, they'll consider fiction up to 3,000 words. They have fairly detailed info on the kind of stuff they're looking for on their submission guidelines.

Silly Goose Press

As an often highly un-serious person myself, I appreciate other literary projects that don't take themselves too seriously. That's the instant vibe I get from Silly Goose Press. Their mission is to publish “craft-forward whimsy”, and you can read their online issues to get a sense for what they mean by that. They started in 2024, so they're still fairly new, but they've published an impressive number of issues given their short history.

Silly Goose Press is currently open for submissions through the end of March. They publish poetry, art, and fiction or creative nonfiction up to 3,000 words. Something I love about their submissions page: they link to other resources for submitters right there, including info on cover letters and a link to ChillSubs. They also have a sample version of their contract available to view, which is a huge green flag for me as an author that the editors have their shit together.

Cola Literary Review

Cola is a new-ish journal from an institution with experience in the lit mag world. It's run by the University of South Carolina's MFA program, which used to run the literary journal and chapbook press Yamassee, which ran from 1993 through when it rebranded in 2022.

I was a few years behind on this rebranding, obviously, but I will say it seems to be a deeper alteration than just a new name. The design of Cola is more modern than I remember Yemassee's being, and they seem like a good home for character-driven literary fiction, based on the recent pieces they have available to read on their website. They're not open for submissions currently but will have a free reading period in September for their next print issue. 

A Reason to Write Retreats and Workshops

I haven't taken a writing retreat in a minute, so I had my eye out for ones that looked interesting as I perused the bookfair. One reason this one stood out is because it's pretty much in my backyard, just down in Harpers Ferry, WV. I've also seen enough of West Virginia to know it's friggin beautiful and would make a wonderful place to get some writing done, so A Reason to Write is definitely on my radar of places to apply.

I also noticed poking around their website that they have some flash workshops coming up in the fall. They also offer 7-day fellowships, up to 5 of them every year, so if you want to take a retreat but the cost is an issue, that could be something to look into.  

This is obviously just a small sampling of the many cool things I saw in the AWP bookfair, but hopefully there's something in there that's a new and exciting find for other folks, too. I'm personally off to send out some submissions and hopefully keep the momentum from the conference rolling. 

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Currently, After Happy Hour pays contributors $2.50 per issue page, with a minimum of $15 and a maximum of $50 per work. Functionally, this means we end up paying $15 per poem or work of art, with prose writers getting $15-$50 depending on the length of their work. That puts us into semi-pro territory for art and poetry, and we perch on the border between token and semi-pro payment for fiction and creative nonfiction depending on the length of the work. 

For context of what I mean by these terms, I'm basing them off of Duotrope's classification system, which essentially reflects the industry standard. They break markets into 4 pay categories:

• Non-paying – No monetary compensation for contributors
• Token payment – Pays less than .01/word for fiction or creative nonfiction, less than $5 per poem,  or less than $10 per work of art
• Semi-pro Payment – Pays .01-.05/word for fiction or creative nonfiction, $5-$49 per poem, or $10-$49 per work of art
• Professional payment – Pays over .05/word for fiction or creative nonfiction, $50 or more per poem, or $50 or more per work of art

I was curious, both as an editor and a submitter, about where After Happy Hour falls in the broader literary landscape in terms of our payment structure. So I decided to scrounge up some data and crunch some numbers to get a sense for what pay rates are across the literary journal world. And since I figured I'm not the only person who might find this info helpful, I put that data into some pie charts and decided to make a post about it. 

All the data used in this post came from Duotrope. I used the Advanced Search for Publishers feature with contests excluded and temporarily closed markets included, so while it's not a fully comprehensive picture of the short fiction and poetry publishing landscape, it covers the majority of markets that are out there.

I should also note that when it gives an acceptance ratio, that's based on the user-reported stats on Duotrope. That means it's not necessarily completely accurate to what would show up on the editors' back-end for those markets since not every submission gets reported on Duotrope. That said, typically the real acceptance percentage will be lower than what gets reported on market databases, so something that's in the “under 10% acceptance percentage” category on Duotrope is most likely still in that subset of markets IRL.

On to the data!

Pay rates for short fiction publishers

Duotrope categorizes short fiction publishers according to the length of what they publish, which means that flash fiction (up to 1,000) is a separate category than short fiction (1,000-7,500). I started off by looking at each of these categories for both print and electronic formats to get a broad overview:

This confirmed a suspicion I had: you're slightly more likely to get paid by a print publication than an online one when it comes to short fiction. It was also a bit surprising to me, though, that the percentage of markets offering professional publication are about the same for flash as for longer short stories. I would have thought more markets would end up in semi-pro or pro territory for flash work, just since they're shorter. Instead, it seems to be the opposite. I imagine this is because more of the non-paying markets have a lower word count cut-off and that balances out the markets that pay a flat honorarium regardless of work, which would be the situation where a market would end up potentially paying pro rates for flash but semi-pro or even token for a longer piece (e.g. a $50 per story policy, which would be considered “pro” for a story up to 1,000 words, semi-pro for a 1,001-5,000 word story, and “token” for one that's 5,001+).

I had another suspicion based on my experience as a submitter: that the percentage of paying markets for genre fiction is higher than for literary or general publications. Here's what the data showed when I restricted the search to just fantasy or sci-fi:

I would say these numbers partially confirmed my suspicions, though there were also some surprises. The biggest for me was the disparity between pay rates for sci-fi and fantasy—I had thought those would be nearly identical, but it seems as if there are more non-paying publishers in fantasy than there are in sci-fi. Thinking through why this might be, I suspect it's because fantasy is a broader genre and there are simply more markets that publish it compared to the slightly more limited category of sci-fi.

In either case, though, across both short stories and flash, the odds of being paid are higher in the genres than across all markets in general. Considering those sci-fi and fantasy publishers were also included in that overall stat, by extension we can infer that the percentage that pay for straight literary work are lower than what's presented here as the overall figures (since the genre-only publishers are giving the stats a wee boost). 

The big picture takeaway here: you're the most likely to at least be paid something in a print sci-fi magazine, while fantasy has a broader spread, with slightly more non-paying markets as well as the highest percentage of markets paying pro rates across both print and electronic formats. 

I also thought it would be interesting to break things down by acceptance percentage. Again, I had a suspicion going into this, which was that the markets with the lowest acceptance ratios would also be most likely to pay. So I started with Duotrope’s list of the 100 Most Approachable Fiction Markets (the ones with the highest acceptance percentages):

Then I shifted over to the markets whose reported acceptance percentage is 10% or lower, which is the rough cutoff point in my mind for what you might consider a “mid-list” publication:

Then I took that down to 5% or lower, which is where I mentally put my cutoff for “upper-tier” publications:

Then I took it down one more step, to a 1% acceptance ratio, which is generally my cutoff for an “elite” journal:

And finally I looked at the journals that appear on Duotrope's 100 Most Challenging Fiction Markets:

…I will say I was surprised by how similar the distribution was across the 10%, 5%, and 1% acceptance markets. I sort of assumed that the percentage that pay would gradually go up as the percentage of submissions accepted decreases. From the 100 Most Challenging breakdown, it’s clear that the majority of markets at the very top do pay (and typically quite well), but it seems that shift happens at a lower acceptance percentage threshold than 1%.

Something else I was curious about was whether you’re more likely to get paid from submitting to journals that have a submission fee. And, oddly enough, it actually seems like it’s the opposite:

…which I feel like is representative of a deeper ill among certain types of literary publishers, and a topic that could warrant its own future blog post. Especially considering that over half of all journals with a 1% or lower acceptance percentage that require payment to submit don’t pay their writers. Considering the sheer number of submissions they must receive to have an acceptance percentage that low, it really makes you wonder exactly where all of that money is going if not back to the authors.

Pay rates for poetry publishers

I took the same approach to start with journals that publish poetry as with the fiction markets, breaking it down by electronic versus print publications:

…this seemed to confirm a suspicion I had coming into my research: a smaller percentage of poetry markets pay compared to fiction markets. Checking out the numbers for Duotrope’s 100 Most Approachable Markets seemed to double down on this:

…but then I switched over to the markets with a 10% or lower acceptance rate, and the ratios started to look more familiar:

When you get up to the very top, then the balance shifts and poetry markets are again markedly less likely to pay contributors than fiction ones:

…but when you’re looking at the mid-range markets, all the way up through the lower end of “top tier” territory, the difference in pay rates between poetry and fiction publishers is minor. The biggest difference seems to be that there are fewer in the “token” pay range, which makes sense. For poetry, that’s something that pays but less than $5 per poem, which honestly gets down into the level where it’s almost not even worth it to send the payment for a single poem, depending on how you do it.

The other main difference I saw with the poetry markets was with how submission fees impacted the percentages:

The difference is more pronounced when you take a broader view across mid-range and top-tier markets, which makes sense to an extent. A lot of those 1% or less acceptance journals have such a reputation that a lot of people will pay to submit to them for the prestige of potentially getting published there, even if they don’t pay (not that I think that’s fair, but I can see the thought process of submitters). But at least the majority of poetry publishers that charge submission fees send at least some of that money back to writers, which is heartening.

So what’s it all mean?

I think there are heartening and disheartening takeaways from this data. On the positive side, there are definitely plenty of markets out there that are compensating writers well for the words they write, and not all of them are white whales (although the whales are, on the whole, the most likely to pay professional rates). 

The most disturbing insight, to me, is the fact that charging submission fees without paying writers has become such a widespread practice. I suppose I had naively assumed it was something reserved to a few university affiliated literary journals, but these numbers suggest that's not the case. As the editor of a literary journal, I completely get that publications need to do something to keep the lights on, but if it's writers financing said lights it only seems fair to me that they stand to see some kind of benefit from that if their work is published. 

I would be curious to dig deeper into some of these stats, and see how pay ranges break down based on factors like whether the journal is university affiliated or what year it was founded. But this at least gives a big-picture overview of how lit mags are paying writers, and hopefully it's interesting and/or useful for other folks out there. 

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#Submissions #ShortStory #Poetry #PublishingAdvice

• 16 Journals with Guaranteed Feedback
• 19 Publishers of Fiction Chapbooks
• 50+ Markets for Long Short Stories and Novellas

…all three now up-to-date and accurate, at least for the next little while. I also figured, since I’m in researching markets mode, I’d round up a few others that folks can send their work to no matter when they stumble across this post. Here are some literary journals not featured on any of those lists above that generally stay open for submissions year-round and have been around for at least 10 years (which means the odds are good they’re not going anywhere anytime soon).

Berkeley Fiction Review

• Established in 1981
• Publishes fiction up to 30 pages
• Pays $25

This annual is a student-run publication out of UC Berkeley and publishes “innovative short fiction that plays with form and content.” They also run a short fiction contest in October with different length limits (2,000 max).

Cimarron Review

• Established in 1967
• Publishes fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry

Another university journal, this one out of Oklahoma State University, Cimarron Review is one of the oldest quarterlies in the US. They publish literary fiction with a focus on voice, and have published some household name level literary figures in their decades of publishing.

The Dark

• Established in 2013
• Publishes fiction 2,000-6,000 words
• Pays .05/word for originals (.01/word for reprints)

Definitely a journal every horror writer and reader should be hip to. The Dark publishes horror and dark fantasy online, with four stories a month, and has beautiful covers along with fiction that’s as entertaining as it is disturbing.

Evergreen Review

• Established in 1957
• Publishes poetry and short videos
• Pays $250+

Not only is the name on brand for this post, this journal has been pushing the poetic and social boundry for decades, and has managed to keep up with the times better than many mags in the old guard.

The Missouri Review

• Established in 1978
• Publishes fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry
• Pays $100

Published by the University of Missouri, The Missouri Review is one of those white whale publications, consistently ranking among the most challenging fiction and CNF markets on Duotrope. They’re also gorgeous issues that I genuinely look forward to reading. Mostly a home for literary fiction, though they’ll publish things with a touch of the odd or surreal as long as the writing’s strong and the characters are the focus.

Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

• Established in 1998
• Publishes fiction
• Pays $400

This started as a journal only for work rejected by other places. They’ve since dropped that rule, but they’ve kept the spirit of a home for things that are a bit off-trend, off-kilter, and off the wall. Another fun fact: they’re one of the very few journals that still only accepts submissions via snail mail.

That’s just a quick list, but hopefully between those and the updates you find somewhere to send whatever work you have looking for a home.

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While I spent much of my conference time in the book fair representing Scribble House and After Happy Hour (and having some excellent conversations with the folks walking through, including a chance to geek out about Appalachian folklore and the ruins around Mérida), I was able to sneak away to hear a few other folks talk. My brain is mostly focused on the book publicity and marketing process at the moment, so that's what I focused on. I figured I'd pass along some of the things I learned in case it's also helpful insight for other folks out there!

1. Focus on the human connection when you're marketing yourself as an indie author.

In the one panel I attended, there were two bookstore owners, an author who runs a podcast, and a magazine editor, all of them offering advice on how to make connections with book sellers or other sources of publicity as an independent author. One message resonated across all of their talks: they're much more likely to say “yes” to someone they already have a relationship with. This applies to getting your books on bookstore shelves, securing an author interview or book review, or finding places to hosting events like launches, signings, or readings. 

This isn't just nepotism or favoritism. It's a practical move. From an editor's standpoint, for instance, they're more likely to assign stories to writers they know will deliver the article on deadline and up to their quality standards, because that makes their job easier and helps them put together a high-quality publication. Same deal for bookstore owners. Their goal is to sell books. They might also be passionate about supporting local authors—but their first priority is their store and its customers. If they already know a writer, and know that person will either bring in local readers or will actively work to promote their book and the store, then they'll feel better about giving that person shelf space.  

So what's the “actionable advice” part of this suggestion? Be an active part of your literary community even when you're not currently publicizing a book. Buy your books through local bookstores and attend their events. Listen to the podcasts you might want to become a guest on. Read local publications that might be places that could promote your events or review your book, and maybe contribute a few things for them like local even write-ups or reviews of books from other local authors. Just in general, the more you engage with and support your local ecosystem of publishers, readers, and writers, the more likely there will be people eager to help you out when you want to get your stuff in front of more readers. 

2. Start small when you're pitching to someone for the first time. 

This is another piece of advice that can apply broadly. It was first given in the context of sending pitches or book reviews to publications like newspapers and local magazines. When you're reaching out to an editor for the first time, they only have your pitch letter and your clips to go on. Those can show your writing ability, but the editor still doesn't know your work process or communication style, how well you meet deadlines, or how you respond to feedback. It's less of a risk to give you a shot at a 600-800 word book review than a 2,000-word feature.

The same is true whenever you're making an initial ask. When you're approaching a bookstore, ask to try out just a few copies on consignment. If you want to join the staff of a journal or local writing organization, start with a small volunteer role like a reader. This lets both sides test the waters before making too much of a commitment.

3. The literary ecosystem is always evolving. 

The final event of the conference was from Rescue Press editor Caryl Pagel, who gave a very cool talk on “Small Press Ecologies.” She highlighted poets like Gwendolyn Brooks who chose to publish with small presses specifically to build and amplify platforms for otherwise unheard voices. She also talked more generally about the role that small publishers have played in the growth of literary movements and how they're continuing to do that in the present day. 

One point that Pagel made during this talk is that it's common for small publishers to fold, or for local literary organizations to dissolve—and that's not always a bad thing. As she put it, that clears out space for new voices and projects to step up and fill that gap. This is something we've definitely been seeing in Pittsburgh lately. A lot of cool projects have unfortunately died away over the years, and the literary landscape was looking especially sparse in the 2020-2021 era. But over the past year, there's been an explosion of cool new reading series, open mic series, book festivals, book clubs, and other events where writers and readers can connect, and it's been very heartening to see. Lately, I've regularly had the problem of having two or more events I'm interested going on at the same time—and, honestly, that's a very good problem to have, from the standpoint of the Pittsburgh literary community.

4. Don't sleep on your local literary scene. 

One of my biggest takeaways from my brief visit to Youngstown was that it's a fucking cool city, and one I definitely want to go back to soon. From a cool things for creative folks standpoint, the city has a gorgeous library, free world-class museums, and an active calendar of readings, open mics, and other literary happenings beyond the lit festival. 

I've seen the same thing when I've visited other cities for conferences lately. Places like Youngstown, Wheeling, or Johntown—or even bigger rust belt cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh—aren't necessarily thought of as creative hubs. But there's very cool stuff going on there, and I think that's true of small cities across the countries. Granted, I do think the Appalachian region is particularly rich territory for storytelling traditions, but I don't think our area is unique in having a lot of smaller creative communities that often get overlooked. The more support and attention these smaller creative communities get, the more they’ll be able to grow and thrive.

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Currently, I’d say there’s three clear top publisher databases: Duotrope, Submission Grinder, and Chill Subs. All three have built-in submission trackers, which means they provide user-reported stats along with info on submission guidelines and other relevant details. I've used all of these sites at various points but I wouldn't say that any one of them is perfect, or even the definitive best option for every writer. Here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of each site and which situations, genres, or types of writers it's the best for. 

Duotrope

This was the first online market database, founded all the way back in 2005. It's also the first one that I became aware of, and as a result is the one where I track my submissions. I also gravitate toward it when I'm researching markets. This is partially out of habit, but also because it has a lot of features that I find useful, like:

• Generally very accurate listing information. None of the marketplaces are 100% accurate, but in my experience Duotrope gets the closest with info like submission periods, demographic restrictions, submission fees, and the user-reported statistics on response times and acceptance rates. They're also very quick to update listings that haven't published in a while or may be defunct.
• Easy-to-use search functions for quickly finding open markets. The Smart Search function was a very nice addition, and is a great way to get a quick, manageable list of places to check out. When I have more specific criteria, I find the options on their Advanced Search give me everything I need.
• Excellent info on publishers. The listings on Duotrope are well laid-out, leading with the key info then getting more granular as you scroll down. Flags at the top of the listing tell you about submission caps or demographic limitations, along with info on any submission fees they charge. The new-ish Stastitics Synopsis section gives you a sense for how the publisher compares to others in terms of response times and acceptance rates. I also find their editor interviews to be very helpful as a way to get first-hand insights. 
• Useful weekly newsletter. You can pick which day of the week you get the newsletter, which is helpful. You can also have it focus on specific genres (fiction, poetry, etc.). The newsletter includes recently opened calls, recent closures (both temporary and permanent), and upcoming theme deadlines. Paying markets are separated from non-paying ones and they also say in the newsletter whether it has fees, both features I appreciate.

You'll notice a couple of the things I mention there are new features, and in a broader sense that's something else I like about Duotrope: it's not just well-maintained but actively and regularly improved. There are enough strong features of Duotrope that it's the database I'd recommend using the most for the majority of people, especially writers of literary fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.

That said, it does have some downsides. Notably:

• It's pay to play. You can see bare-bones listings without a subscription, but to access all of the most useful features of Duotrope you need to be a paid member. It's not much ($50 a year if you pay annually) but if you have a tight budget or don't send submissions regularly, that might not be worth it.
• It's got some blind spots. All of the established genre publishers are listed on Duotrope, and so are a lot of the smaller journals or anthology series. Even so, there's a definite tilt toward literary publishers on the site, which impacts the accuracy of the submission stats as well as the calls you'll find listed. Newer markets often take longer to show up on the site, too, and historically it's been skewed toward US, UK, and Canadian publishers, although recently I've been seeing more international representation.

The Submission Grinder

The second-oldest market database, established in 2013. The Grinder is run by the team at Diabolical Plots, a speculative zine, who started it specifically to help writers of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror find publishers. That's still its primary user base, though you'll also find many literary publishers listed here, too. The main strengths of the Grinder are:

• It's completely free. You can track submissions, search for publishers, and sign up for the newsletter, without ever paying a dime. They do take donations, and if you have the means and use the site it's nice to toss them a few bucks now and then, but you never have to. 
• It has a huge number and variety of listings. Since it's skewed toward the speculative genres, you'll find the widest variety of listings in those categories. It has listings for smaller and newer anthology series, online mags, zines, etc. in the genres that you won't find on Duotrope.
• The search function and newsletter have helpful customization features. The newsletter includes info on recently opened calls, recent closures, and upcoming status changes (markets about to open, approaching deadlines, etc.). You can set it to send info on just certain genres, or only paying markets, so it only includes markets you might actually want to send stuff to. 

The flip side of the fact that Submission Grinder is free: it's run by volunteers, not a paid staff. That means they're not as proactive about updating market changes, and leads to the main cons of the database:

• It's the least accurate of the three. For markets that have a regular submission schedule, The Grinder is usually spot on. It's slower to mark markets that have gone defunct, though, and doesn't always catch changes to submission schedules right away, so you're more likely to see a market that looks perfect only to find out that they're not actually open. 
• The listings aren't as detailed or informative. The Grinder's listings are the most bare-bones. There's a brief description followed by info on the genres and lengths they publish, pay rates, and basic details like if they take simultaneous submissions or translations, then it ends with user-reported stats. That's it. For me, the listings on the other sites are more useful for doing my initial screen-out of new publishers, before I go to their website. 

What both of those cons mean is that you'll need to do more of your market research on the publisher's site instead of through their listing, which can slow down your submission process. That said, you can't beat the price, especially if you mostly write in the genres. 

Chill Subs

Chill Subs is the new kid on the block, founded in 2022, and I would say it's risen already into the slot of most ambitious market database. I say that because that's not all they do. They also have workshops, a literary journal incubator program, and online groups for writers to submit work together. Similar to Duotrope, Chill Subs is constantly adding and updating stuff, and I appreciate that they're so willing to try new, cool things. Some of the other things I like about Chill Subs:

• They have a lot of useful newsletters. Like the other two sites, Chill Subs sends weekly mailers of recent call openings. But they also have a weekly list of writing jobs and internships, along with other lists focused on agents or specific call themes. They actually have so many newsletters it can be a bit much if you get them all, but you can select and unselect specific ones in your profile to make things more reasonable. 
• They're a great place to find new and international markets. New places often find their way to Chill Subs before they end up on other sites. I think this might be because of a feature on their submission tracker that let users add a market that's not currently in their listings, but it could also be a result of the Chill Subs team's aforementioned gung-ho-ness. Whatever the case, you'll see a lot of journals in their listings that were founded within the last couple of years, as well as a good number from beyond North America, that aren’t yet on the other sites. 
• Very useful listings. Chill Subs updates its listing format quite often, and usually those changes are helpful (or at least a lateral shift). One recent addition was a recommendation option at the top of the listing, where you can see what other users have said about the publisher. They also have all of the most pertinent info quickly summarized early, like which calls are open, whether they charge and/or pay, and their genres of focus. Elsewhere on the listing is more detailed info on their open calls and submission guidelines, which the editors are able to edit themselves if they want to, increasing the odds of accuracy.
• Double the user-reported stats. Chill Subs tracker stats are under the “Stats” tab of each listing. If that publisher also has statistics on Submission Grinder, you'll see those underneath the stats from Chill Subs so you can compare and get info from a broader swath of writers. 

Chill Subs is also mostly free. They do have paid tiers that unlock extra features, like the “See similar markets” portion of listings, free access to their workshops, and more newsletters (although IMO the free tiers come with plenty). You don't need to pay to use their tracker or browse the database, though.

As far as downsides of Chill Subs, the main ones I see:

• Accuracy of information varies by market. Since they let editors control their own listings, it's not always Chill Subs' fault if the info on the listing doesn't reflect reality. It could be that the journal's editor forgot to update their listing when they made changes elsewhere. But that still means that you can see a listing marked as open on Chill Subs then find out the journal is closed after you've already put some time into checking them out. Many listings are managed by Chill Subs, and those are usually correct but can take a little bit to catch up to recent changes, similar to Submission Grinder. In terms of overall accuracy, I'd say Chill Subs is in the middle—not quite as good as Duotrope, but better than the Submission Grinder. 
• Internal stats can't always be trusted. Chill Subs is growing, so this issue is becoming less pronounced over time. The more people use its submission tracker, the more accurate its stats will become. As of right now, though, the user-reported acceptance statistics on most listings should be taken with a grain of salt. The fact that you can see The Grinder's stats too helps to mitigate this a bit, but not every listing has submissions reported on their Grinder equivalent, and overall I'd still say Duotrope's statstics are generally more accurate (especially for publishers of literary fiction). 

The tl;dr summary

Duotrope is the best database IMO, and worth the annual payment. For free options, I'd go with Chill Subs over Submission Grinder unless you're primarily submitting sci-fi, fantasy, or horror fiction. Of course, there's also no reason you have to limit yourself to one. I primarily use Duotrope but get the newsletters from all 3 and vary which ones I open and check depending on what stories I'm shopping around at the moment. From an aesthetic standpoint, I really enjoy the listings on Chill Subs, and I'm excited to see how that database continues to improve over the coming years. 

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With this new goal on my radar, I've been doing a lot of research lately into all of those skills beyond just writing well that you need to be a successful self-published author, and figured it might be helpful for other folks contemplating this question. As I see it, there are four big-picture steps beyond the writing stage that each require their own sets of skills.

Step 1: Prepare the manuscript.

Any manuscript goes through various stages of editing before it's ready to release into the world. During the traditional publication process, a lot of other folks will step in to help with that process. This starts even before a publisher sees it, if you're working with an agent. At minimum, you'll have an editor giving the book a line editing and proofreading pass, and they may also suggest structural or developmental edits early in the process. Someone else's reputation depends on this, aside from just yours, so there are multiple people committed to making sure the book that's released is showing its best face to future readers.

As a self-published author, you're on your own. This makes having outside editors a non-negotiable. Paying for developmental editing is the fastest way to get a manuscript from rough draft to print ready, but input from skilled beta readers who are knowledgeable about your genre can get you to the same place. I'm lucky in that I have a group of other writers whose opinions I trust, many of whom edit professionally. That said, I don't expect these folks to give the manuscript the kind of fine-toothed-comb level of line-by-line attention they put in when they're getting paid about it. This is why, even though I work as a professional editor and I have a solid workshop group, I do plan to pay for professional line editing before self-publishing my fiction. It isn't just about whether or not I have the skills. I'm too close to this work to see it with full objectivity.

Any book that you want to self-publish should have gone through at least beta reading and copyediting from someone other than yourself before it goes to print. I would also say these two levels of editing should come from different people, for the same reason I don't trust myself to be the only line editor for my book. Once an editor has read through your book from a developmental standpoint, they're also very close to it, and may miss the finer points of the prose as a result.

Step 2: Layout, formatting, and design.

Formatting a book for self-publishing is very easy if you have the right tools (or understand how to make the not-as-ideal tools work), but there is a learning curve for anyone who's starting completely from scratch. There are two big areas you need to think about here: the interior layout, and the cover design.

Formatting a manuscript for self-publication isn't the same as formatting it for submission, but it's not super complicated. For most books, you can produce something that's functional very quickly even just using a program like Microsoft Word. That said, if you've never laid out a book for publication before, it's smart to study up a bit before you start. Little details like page numbers, text justification, how section breaks are formatted, and the book's front matter (table of contents, title page, etc.) really do a lot to make a book feel professional, even if they aren't things most readers consciously think about. All that said, this is one area where I think just about any writer can DIY things if they have a few hours to invest in learning. If you don't care to learn, you can hire book layout experts, and some editors offer formatting along with services like proofreading.

Cover design is a different beast. I did a post on designing covers a few weeks back that goes into some of the intricacies of it, but the gist is: it can be complicated, and if you get it wrong, you can actively hurt your book’s chances of selling. Because of that, if you've never done it before, I would strongly recommend hiring someone to do it for you. Not just an artist to create an image for it (though you can do that, too) but somebody who specifically designs covers for books in your genre and can send you a file with the right dimensions and format for your publishing method.

Step 3: Publication and distribution.

Self-publishing can mean:

• Ordering books directly from a printer
• Publishing books print-on-demand (POD) through a service like Amazon, IngramSpark, Lulu, etc.
• Printing and binding your own books (more common with chapbook-length than full-length)
• Digital-only publishing as an ebook or serialized on a platform like Wattpad
• Recording it as a podcast or audiobook

...that's what's great about self-publishing: you have all the options, and it's up to you to decide which works best for your book and budget. Think about where you expect to find your audience and how you plan to sell the book. For instance, working with a printer can get you higher-quality books, often at a lower cost per book if you order in a high enough quantity—but if you plan to sell online, that means you'll need to handle shipping yourself, something that's baked right in when you sell through a POD platform.

There's a similar give-and-take with handbinding. There's an extra level of artistry involved that can be very appealing for readers, and it's a way to get very beautiful, distinctive books at an affordable price, but it's far more time-intensive and you'll need to distribute them to readers yourself. Of course, that may not be an issue if you plan to mostly sell your books at in-person events like readings or festivals.

Distribution can also include selling your books in bookstores, although this can be a challenge for self-published authors. Some bookstores are willing to order books from certain self-publishing platforms, like IngramSpark, but they aren't likely to just stumble across your book—if you want to be on their shelves, you're going to need to take the initiative to let them know that you exist. Which leads nicely into...

Step 4: Marketing and promotion.

Yes, traditionally published authors are increasingly expected to be active with the marketing and promotion of their books, too—but they at least have help. Even a very small publisher has some strategy for selling their books: a network of followers, connections with reviewers and booksellers, and/or a presence at literary events. Those are all things that can help your book find its way to readers beyond your circle.

Some amount of skill in marketing or promotion is necessary for any author who wants to actually sell copies of their book. Those skills don't need to all be yours, though. Hiring a book promoter or marketer can give you a similar set of connections, fans, and followers to what you'd get from being published by a press—as long as you hire the right one, and figuring out who's actually good at marketing your kind of book can be very tricky when you don't actually know what good marketing looks like (something I've experienced first-hand, as I've been perusing potential marketers).

Marketing can get very expensive, very quickly, but it doesn't have to be if you figure out how to be smart about where you pay for help. The advice I've gotten is to start by listing out two things:

• Types of marketing and promotion you're able and willing to do
• Types of marketing that you hate and/or completely don't understand

...focus your energy on the things in the first column and, if you're hiring someone, look for somebody who's an expert in those areas where you're weak. For instance, I don't think I'd hire someone to write a newsletter for me, because I’ve done that before and know it’s within my capabilities. Where I struggle is with social media and digital marketing, and that's where I'll focus if I decide to hire someone to help with marketing.

The timeline to self-publishing

One last thing that I've been thinking about as I start this process: a lot of people praise self-publishing for its quicker timeline compared to traditional, but I think this can also be taken too far. There's a reason book publishers have such long release timelines. It leaves space for multiple editing passes, to order print proofs and make sure everything looks right on the page, to send the book out for reviews, organize launch events, or set up readings and workshops that can help you generate publicity.

Getting a self-published book into readers' hands takes a lot of skills beyond writing, and developing those skills takes time. I think a lot of writers rush to self-publish, and I'm hoping to avoid that mistake by targeting a 2026 release date. Maybe by then I'll understand how BookTok works.

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This has become especially important in the modern era of publishing. It's a great thing that self-publishing has taken down some barriers that used to stop writers from sharing their work. That said, it also means readers can't count on a book being well-written or telling a complete, interesting story just because it's been put out into the world. These days, readers can't be sure whether a human even wrote the damn thing. If your book's cover is pixelated and grainy, or looks obviously AI generated, that doesn't inspire confidence in readers that what's inside will be worth their time. 

I will also say this doesn't just apply to self-published authors. I've also seen a huge variety in cover quality between small presses and literary journals, and I would argue it's even more important for these organizations to have professional-looking covers for their books and issues. It isn't just about the individual book, at that point. You're representing yourself to writers as well as readers. If your covers look like you put them together in 20 minutes using Microsoft Paint, a lot of writers are going to be wary about entrusting you with their work. 

There's also no excuse for publishers and authors to have terrible book covers at this point, because there are so many tools you can use to design things to at least an acceptable standard without having a shred of visual artistic talent. I speak here from experience. I can't paint or draw worth a damn and I'm an average-at-best photographer. But I have Photoshop and a functional understanding of basic design concepts, and I think I've made some pretty darn good covers for After Happy Hour. So I figured I'd share some of my advice for other non-artist writers and publishers for how to make covers that look professional and will make readers want to see what words come next. 

What makes a book look self-published?

Making a book look professional is as much about what to avoid as it is about what to include. In my mind, there are a few common issues I see in book covers that make them look like they were done by an amateur:

The images used are low-quality.

It's especially important to pay attention to the image resolution for printed copies. Even for eBooks or online issues, a low-resolution image will end up looking pixelated and blurry, especially if it’s been resized or it’s placed beside images with a higher resolution. This is a dead giveaway that whoever made it is an inexperienced designer (I say as someone who made this very mistake in some of my early covers).

What image resolution should you use, you ask? If it's printed, use 300 DPI (dots per inch). For eBooks or online publications, the standard is 72 DPI, so you can consider that your minimum.

The typography sucks.

Typography is basically how text is arranged and styled. It includes things like the font, text color, and effects like shadows or borders, as well as how the text is sized and placed on the page. Within this broad category are common mistakes like:

• Text that's illegible because it's too small, the font is too busy, or it's too similar in color to other elements behind it
• Using a basic sans-serif font (Arial, Calibri, etc.) with no styling 
• Using a font that doesn't make sense for the content (e.g. Comic Sans for a horror novel cover)
• Using multiple fonts for no discernible reason
• Excessive text effects like glows, drop shadows, 3D text, etc.
• A lack of intent or care in how the text is arranged relative to any images or other design elements 

That's certainly not a comprehensive list, but you get the idea. With a book cover, the text is arguably the most important thing, and it shouldn't just look slapped on or like you plopped a five-year-old in front of Photoshop and told them to go wild. 

It's too busy.

There's a way to do collage-style covers effectively, but the more elements there are involved in a cover, the more careful you need to be about showing the reader where to direct their attention. There needs to be a focal point that all of the other elements are placed relative and secondary to. Usually this is going to be the title, though you can certainly find examples of book covers where this isn't the case. That's the key, though—something needs to stand out immediately as the most important thing. Otherwise it's just going to look cluttered and make it harder for the reader to figure out what the book is and whether they want to read it. 

Poor use of proportion and white space.

Riffing off of that “too busy” point, you definitely don't need to fill up every bit of space with text or an image. But it also looks very amateur when the cover is just solid-colored text on a single-color background, especially if that background color is white. The best covers fall somewhere in between these extremes, and also make smart use of how all the elements are sized and placed relative to each other. If, say, everything on the cover is crammed up into the top half, or the margin is much wider on one side than the other, that makes it look like the designer made a mistake. 

...I thought about finding examples for these but that felt a bit mean and call-people-out-ish. But if you want to see the things I'm talking about, just peruse the self-published books available on Amazon and you'll find ample examples of the above sins.

Notice that none of these have anything to do with what you might call “artistic” qualities, except in the most conceptual sense with things like balance and proportion. Yes, a custom image depicting your book's characters or world could be very attractive for the reader. But if you don't have the skills to do that (or the budget to pay someone who can), you can still make an appealing and polished-looking cover if you make smart use of text, color, and other basic design building blocks. Which leads nicely into...

Tips to design professional looking covers as a non-artist

1. Study well-made covers in your genre.

I mentioned one goal of a cover is to tell readers what to expect from the book. They pick up clues from the images, font, color scheme, and overall vibe of the cover about what kind of story this book is telling. For instance, if there are people kissing and the title’s in a cursive font, it’s probably a romance—but if one of those people is a skeleton and the title looks like it's dripping blood, it's probably horror. Different genres also have different expectations about design aspects, like the use of white space and the placement of titles, things the average reader might not consciously register but that send them subtle signals that this book is similar to other ones they've read. 

This is why it's worth it to spend some time studying the covers of successful books in your genre. Look at recent best-sellers in your niche online or take a stroll through your genre's section in a bookstore. How many use art versus just words? How often are there characters or scenes on the cover, as opposed to more abstract images? What does the title look like, and where is it usually placed? What about things like the author's name, blurbs, tagline, or other “extras”? Also take note of how the text looks. You can often find the exact name of the font in either the front matter or the back of the book, and if you look the name up online you can get some potentially useful descriptors to clarify the kind of fonts authors similar to you often use. 

2. Use the right tools. 

I'm the lucky owner of an incredibly outdated but still functional copy of Creative Suite 5, which gives me magic Photoshop and InDesign power. These programs are admittedly not cheap (though if you're running a small press or plan to self-publish many titles, they may still be worth the investment), but there are equivalent free tools you can use instead. My partner uses the free program Inkscape for image design and Affinity for layout, which is a paid program but only costs $70 bucks once (instead of the yearly subscription model of Adobe). 

I'm sure there are other cheap-to-free options out there that will let you make a solid book cover. What you don't want to do, though, is just resort to making it in Word or Paint—get a dedicated program that gives you full control over the size, resolution, placement, and design of images and text. 

You can supplement these programs with freebie design elements from the internet. Sites like Pixabay and Shutterstock are useful for images. My go-to site for fonts is 1001fonts.com, which has a huge variety of free fonts that are licensed for commercial use. One thing worth noting: some fonts that come with programs like Adobe or Word are only licensed for personal use, not commercial use. Technically, you need to buy a separate license to use that font in something you're going to sell, and while it's highly unlikely that a font maker will ever know that a self-published author or small press used their font, it's safer to just use a commercially licensed one and avoid any potential issues. 

3. Study up on design basics. 

You don't need to go to school for graphic design to make good looking covers, but it does help to get some kind of education about what makes an image appealing to the eye. There are a lot of ways to get this knowledge for free. The California Institute of Design has an 11-hour Graphic Design Tutorial for Beginners course on YouTube that will teach you pretty much everything you need to know to get started. There are also free classes on sites like Alison Online and Udemy. If you prefer in-person learning, check with your local library, community centers, and arts organizations. You can often find cheap-to-free classes that are open to community members.

4. Know your weaknesses and selectively outsource to fill them. 

I'm not necessarily saying you need to hire some for the entire cover design process—although, if you have more discretionary income than you have artistic or design chops, that might ultimately be the best way to go. The cover design absolutely can impact your book's sales, so it's one area that it's definitely worth it to invest in quality. If you don't feel confident that you can design the cover well, and you aren't willing or able to put in enough time to adequately develop those skills, then outsourcing the entire process could be the way to go. 

You can also go with a middle approach to cut down on total costs if you have some design skills but aren’t an artist. I get to cheat a bit with the covers for After Happy Hour. We get artwork submitted to us to use in the journal, and we always pick one of those images for the cover. All I have to do is choose the right color and placement for the text around it, but the artist is the one who does most of the heavy lifting. 

You can easily hire an artist to create a custom image for you online. Sites like DeviantArt and Behance let you peruse artists' past work to find people whose style matches your book's vibe. For folks on a budget, check with the art schools for any colleges in your area. Student artists will often do work at a lower rate because they need to build their professional portfolio, so you can get excellent work for less than from an established professional. If you're looking for a free option, you could offer a skill exchange—maybe you can help the artist write or edit something like descriptions for a gallery showing or copy for their website, in exchange for art for your book cover. 

5. Get feedback on the proof before you go to print. 

I suggest this for two reasons. One is the same reason it's helpful for writers to get feedback in general. With anything that you create, you're too close to it to see it truly objectively. There might be issues that you're overlooking, or you may think that certain things are obvious that don't stand out as clearly to an outside viewer. 

The second reason, and the reason you want to do this at the physical proof stage, is that sometimes things can look different IRL than they do on the screen. The image resolution may look fine in the PDF but end up blurry on the page, or the color settings on your monitor might make hues look brighter than they really do once they're printed. A physical proof lets you see it as the reader will, and outside opinions help you to do that, too. 

One last tip I'll give to wrap up: It's okay to keep things simple. In fact, for some genres, most of the book covers are. A straightforward cover with just the title and the author's name can absolutely work if it's presented the right way. It really comes down to being thoughtful with your design choices and what message they send to the reader. 

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This is probably going to be a slightly more random-feeling blog post than my usual because the topics covered at IYWM were pretty varied, and the notes I took on them were filtered through the lens of “shit I find neat and/or useful”. But I also figured I probably wouldn't be the only one to find said shit neat and/or useful, and putting them together into a blog post seemed like a useful way to trick myself into actually going through my notes before they just got shoved into a folder and forgotten about—so here we are. Read on for some random but hopefully beneficial advice. I also did a similar post for last year’s conference if you’re looking for more random writerly advice.

On writing mysteries

I've been toying with the idea of writing a mystery set on Kirri (the primary planet in my main sci-fi sandbox) ever since working with D.P. Brown on a police procedural style mystery set in his Theme of Thieves universe, so it felt like kismet to see Michael Dell's workshop on Writing a Mystery on the conference schedule. It proved to be a very fun and interactive session, where all the attendees came together to establish the bones of a potential mystery story.

Granted, I'm hardly an expert on writing mysteries still, but I did get some very helpful takeaways from this session that I plan to apply when I try my hand at this new genre:

1. Plot is king. Every scene in a mystery needs to move toward its solution, and it's imperative that the plot follows internal logic with no holes. This is smart advice for writing in just about every genre, honestly, but especially important in a mystery, where part of the joy of reading it is trying to solve the puzzle. A reader can't do that if the story doesn't make sense.

2. The author needs to play fair. Speaking of solving the mystery, the reader can't do that if they're not given all of the information. This means introducing suspects early and providing the reader with the clues they need to solve the puzzle on their own, even if those clues are presented in such a way that hides their importance initially, or exactly how the pieces fit together only becomes obvious at the end.

3. Five suspects is the ideal amount. Too few suspects, and the mystery is too easy to solve. Too many, and it's confusing. For a book-length work, Michael suggests having five people who are set up to potentially be the murderer.

4. Give every suspect a secret. You want every suspect to have something that makes them look guilty, even if they're not. To accomplish this, Michael suggests giving all of them both a strong motive for killing the victim and a secret. If they have something to hide, this gives them a reason to act suspicious and warrant investigation from your protagonist, even if their secret ends up being completely unrelated to the mystery in question.

5. Set up the clues so that they could point to any suspect. Again, this just helps to build the puzzle and make it a bit trickier to solve. At the least, each clue should potentially point to multiple suspects, at least up until the big final one that ultimately leads your protagonist to correctly identify the perpetrator.

On promotion and author platforms

These are insights that actually came from two separate workshops: Lori Pollard-Johnson's session “Promotion for Writers who Hate Promotion” (which is I'm pretty sure all of us) and Ed Downes' session “Build it and They Will Come: Launching an Author Platform that Attracts Readers”. The big-picture message from both of these sessions was similar: if you want people to read your writing,  you need to somehow let them know it exists.

Toward that end, here's some of the advice I jotted down:

• Vary your methods of promotion to capture more audience segments. Lori suggested started by making a list of things you'd be willing to do in order to promote your book, then going through that list and labeling them 1-5, based on this metric:

1. Things you can do right now

2. Things you can do this month

3. Things you can do this quarter

4. Things you can do in the next 6 months

5. Things you can do in the next year

…this can help you to bring some order and control to the vast world that is potential methods of promotion.

• Consider being a guest on other people's platforms. Content creators always need stuff they can share with their audience, and by providing that stuff, you also get the chance to potentially make their audience into your audience, too. One type of content I've never considered is looking for opportunities to be a guest on a podcast. You can find lists of podcasts seeking guests on the appropriately named website PodcastGuests.com, if that's a route you want to take. If you're more of a “words only” kind of writer, guest blogging is an option. Look for people who write blogs in your niche, and don't only focus on writing. You can also think about the location and content of your books and seek out blogs in those areas, for instance writing a guest blog for a cryptid site if your book features Bigfoot, or writing a post for a blog focused on Appalachian culture if your book is set in West Virginia.
• Start building an email mailing list ASAP, even if you don't have a newsletter to send them yet. As Ed said, “The best time to collect email addresses is when you don't need them yet.” This is advice I plan to take in the very near future. I already have a website and blog, but there's not really a place on either for people to sign up for a mailing list. With Scribble House, since we do have a monthly newsletter, I've been proactive in seeking out sign-ups—and it's started to yield dividends. The more people on your list, the more potential readers you can reach the next time you get something published.
• Make sure your content is valuable, interesting, and only 10% has commercial intent. By “commercial intent”, Ed means social posts or email blasts that directly ask folks to buy things. That's the kind of stuff that makes people feel sold to, so you want to separate that kind of content with stuff that's more just interesting or useful. Think things like writing prompts, reading lists, behind-the-scenes looks into your process, or craft how-tos.

On time management

Maria V. Snyder did a couple of helpful talks and panels at this conference, including a reprise of the talk I went to last year on self-publishing. The one that I took the most notes during, though, was her time management talk, maybe just because it's the advice I feel like I'm in most need of right now.

Some highlights:

• Post-Its are a useful way to visualize what you need to do. Maria actually color-codes her Post-Its based on what the task is and its urgency, which can add another level to the quick visual organization. This strikes me as potentially a good creative adaptation of the Kanban board that's popular in corporate settings, or at least aims for the same basic goal. By making it easy to see your current tasks and their deadlines at a glance, you cut down on the number of decisions you need to make before you start working, letting you spend more of your mental energy on the tasks themselves.
• Use an Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize your tasks. This is another one that's ported over from corporate world, I think, or at least I've also seen it applied in an entrepreneurial context. The Eisenhower Matrix is a 4-quadrant graph, like so:

This gives you four buckets to put tasks into, and how you approach the task will vary depending on which bucket it's in:

1. Urgent and important: do it first

2. Urgent and not important: Find a person, company, tool, etc. that can do it for you

3. Not urgent and important: Schedule it as soon as is feasible

4. Not urgent and not important: Delay or delete it

• Know your prime brain times and use them for the most important things. As Maria said, “Never give prime time to mindless chores.” Everyone's brain works on its own rhythms and schedule. If you're at your best in the early morning, try to reserve that time for your writing and other high-importance things that need your full attention. On the other hand, if you're more creative at night, then those are the hours you should hoard and safeguard for getting words on the page. Working with your brain's natural rhythms will help you to feel more productive because you'll be better equipped to get more done with your time.
• Don't let your task organization system become another source of stress. Something else Maria made a point of (that I at least needed to hear) is that, for task-oriented people, the to-do list will never be empty—and that's okay. The goal isn't to wipe the slate every day, but to make sure the tasks you're passing forward to future you aren't the important ones that need to be done right away. And if you do miss an important task, don't beat yourself up over it. That guilt is only going to waste more time and energy.

On the objective correlative

If you have no clue what an “objective correlative” is, don't feel bad—I didn't either until I went to this session by writer Iris Matthews. But it's actually something that's quite common in fiction once you know to look out for it.

In brief, objective correlative is the repeated use of an object to evoke a feeling in the reader. This could be an actual physical object in the story's world or something more intangible, like a color, the weather, or the tone of the writing. The point is, it's something that the writer establishes that reinforces the character's emotions while eliciting them in the reader. What differentiates it from similar concepts like themes or symbolism is that, in the case of the objective correlative, that meaning is assigned by the viewpoint character, and may be very personal to their situation or worldview rather than a broadly accepted meaning like “roses equal love” or “rain equals sad”.

Another way Iris explained the concept is that it's like the application of the meme “Tell me you're X without telling me you're X”—it's using a trait or detail as a stand-in for a broader concept, allowing you to establish a kind of emotional shorthand that threads throughout a work.

A couple other tips on using objective correlative:

• It needs a payoff to function effectively, otherwise it's basically just symbolism. By payoff, this means that it aligns somehow with the character's emotional growth or journey.
• It works best when the object is used as a background element woven into descriptions or passing comments, rather than a focal point or an item that's integral to the plot.
• It's going to stand out to the reader because of how often you mention the object, to the point that it may feel like you're overdoing it. Because of that, you want to make sure you're applying it strategically, in the specific moments where reinforcing that emotion makes the most sense or will have the biggest impact for the reader.
• It's most commonly used in the genres of romance and horror, in large part because these are the two genres whose main defining trait is aiming to elicit a big emotional response from the reader. This isn't to say you can't use it in literary realism or sci-fi, but those are the genres where you're most likely to find it in the wild, if you're looking for some examples of the concept in action.

On crafting resonant work from raw emotion

One of the last workshops I went to during the conference was led by Pittsburgh poet and friend of Scribble House Kendall Snee. The topic was billed as poetry-focused, but I suspected it would have just as much value to offer a prose writer—and I was correct!

The workshop went through a series of exercises that were very helpful in clarifying how to convey emotions on the page without explicitly spelling them out. Some of the ways we did that:

1. Personify an emotion. This started by picking an emotion. Then, we went through and decided things like: What would that emotion wear? Who are their friends? What are their hobbies? How do they hold a pencil? What songs do they listen to on their commute to work (if any—maybe they prefer talk radio or silence)? If you took a candid photo of the emotion, what would they look like?

2. Shift the emotion into an image. Pick an emotion and describe it in a physical way using simile or metaphor. Alternatively, you could describe actions a person might do when feeling that emotion, or what they'd look like when experiencing it. The idea is to create a bank of imagery that can be employed to evoke that emotion rather than stating it outright (e.g. the old show don't tell chestnut).

3. Find the emotion's foil. For this, we used a handy emotion wheel (like this one), and started by picking an emotion then going across the circle to find its opposite. This proved an interesting exercise in itself, because the things that were positioned across the circle from each other weren't always obvious pairings like happy vs. sad. Once you have a pair that appeals to you, write the same poem (or scene, for us fiction writers) in both of these opposing tones.

Another big point that Kendall made: not everyone experiences or visualizes emotions in the same way. If your perception of happiness is drastically different than someone else's, that's not a problem—it just means you get to present a unique perspective on that to your reader. On the flip side of that: not all of your characters are going to feel emotions the same way, either, so varying the way they express them could be another way to craft a unique voice for each character.

...there were other neat things I learned during the conference, like how real forensic investigators process a crimescene, some tips on building a worldbuilding bible, and advice on independent publishing. I might do a follow-up in the future that highlights some of that learning, but for now this seems like plenty of new information to process. Which might be my new criteria for whether I felt like a conference was worth the invested time: if I come home with more new info than I can reasonably shove into a single blog post, I'd say it was mission accomplished.

My big final takeaway: I've left the IYWM workshop with lots of great info and connections two years in a row, now, and I'm already excited to do it again next year.

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Part of the problem is that these terms aren’t standardized, and slightly different ones are often used depending on the context. What a fiction editor calls “line editing”, the editor of online news articles might call “copy editing”, and there’s similar overlap between terms like content editing, structural editing, and developmental editing.

Why does any of this even matter? The main time you need to care about the specific definition of different editing terms is if you’re either A) planning to hire a professional editor or B) offering editing services to other people. In these cases, clarifying terminology makes sure you understand exactly what level and type of revision is being offered and paid for.

Understanding these terms can be useful for writers in general, too. Knowing the different types of revision that a piece might need can help you to refine your self-editing process and figure out when it's most helpful to bring other people in on it, either by connecting with a workshop group or by hiring a professional.

A quick glossary of editing terms

Let me first reinforce the caveat that editing language can be oddly squirrely. If you’re hiring an editor it’s always smart to clarify with them exactly what services they provide and how deeply they read and edit work at each level.

With that said, here are some generally agreed-upon definitions for editing terms, arranged by roughly what point in the writing and editing process they’re most often used.

Developmental editing Best for: Manuscripts-in-progress, Rough drafts, and similarly early-stage work Also known as: Substantive editing, Content editing, Structural editing, Comprehensive editing

Developmental editing is the “forest not the trees” stage of revision. It's concerned with big-picture building blocks like plot, character, setting, and themes. At times, this means developmental editing is generative, with the editor providing ideas for additional scenes, characters, plot points, etc. that could enhance the work. They also point out common issues like flat characters, plot holes, timeline inconsistencies, and other problems that may require major additions, cuts, or rewriting to address.

Structural editing Best for: Completed early drafts Also known as: Developmental editing, Substantive editing

This term is sometimes interchangeable with developmental editing, but it may be used more specifically to refer to an even more high-level form of editing. In this meaning, structural editing is making revisions to the arrangement of scenes, chapters, and plot points, as well as the use of form and narrative time—in other words, the components that give a work its shape. With things like short story, essay, or poetry collections, this often also includes the arrangement of works within the manuscript, as well as the structure of each individual work.

Content editing Best for: Completed early drafts Also known as: Developmental editing, Comprehensive editing, Macro editing, Copy editing

Content editing is the most nebulous term on this list. In online web copy world, Content Editor can even be more akin to Managing Editor, the person who assigns, selects, arranges, and/or reviews articles for a blog or magazine. For a down-and-dirty definition, though, it's editing a piece for flow, clarity, readability, and consistency. It balances a wide and tight focus. A content editor will flag issues with the plot, pacing, arc, and character development, like a developmental editor, but they also read for issues with the writing itself, like awkward sentences, overused words and phrases, or weak language and cliches.

Alpha reader Best for: Completed early drafts Also known as: First reader, Early reader

This is something you'll rarely see offered as a paid service, and is the de facto function of many workshop groups or feedback partners. Your alpha readers are basically the first people who see the piece and will ideally approach it as both a reader and a writer. Like content editors, they take a mostly big-picture view but may also zoom in on specific points the writing itself needs to be improved. Unlike content editors, they usually won't provide many line-by-line comments, but instead offer general feedback on what's working in the piece, what doesn't make sense, and suggestions for how to improve it.

Beta reader Best for: Mid-to-late stage drafts Also known as: Early reader, Pre-reader, Manuscript reviewer

Beta readers are often other writers, but even if so their job is to approach the manuscript like a reader first. They read work at a later stage in its development than alpha readers, after the author is pretty sure they have all the plot holes filled and the right scenes in the right places. Beta readers typically don't suggest major revisions, but instead give feedback on the reading experience like what kept them immersed or where they lost interest or broke their suspension of disbelief.

Copy editing Best for: Mid-to-late stage drafts

From here on down, we're firmly in “trees not forest” territory. A copy editor reads for the consistency, clarity, and accuracy of the words and sentences, not the story itself. They may catch some broad-lens type issues, like jumps in the timeline or if a character's physical description changes from scene to scene. But they're not concerned with the quality of things like characters, plot, or setting—they only care whether you've written about them in a way that makes sense.

Line editing Best for: Late-stage drafts Also known as: Close editing, Style editing, Sentence-level editing

Line editing zooms the focus in another notch over copy editing. It's a close review of each paragraph and sentence to improve the flow, clarity, and overall quality of the writing. This is also when you read for inconsistencies with the tone and voice, adjust the rhythm and punctuation, and remove weak language and cliches, either by cutting them or substituting better words in their place.

Proofreading Best for: Work about to be published

Proofreading is solely focused on correcting errors. This can get into style, in the sense of ensuring consistency with a style guide, but it's primarily about making sure everything's spelled and punctuated correctly.

When does it make sense to hire a professional?

Where the types of editing you want will depend on how close your piece is to being in its final form, I think there’s a more important question to answer before you pay someone for editing services: what you plan to do with the work once it’s finished.

There are 3 situations where I see it as most worthwhile to pay for editing services:

• If you plan to self-publish. Presses, journals, and other publishers have people on their team (or that they hire) who edit the work before it goes to print. When you self-publish, you’re on your own. Even if you’re a very strong self-editor, you should at least bring a professional in for a line editing and/or proofreading pass. A developmental editor can also be valuable, especially if you don't have a workshop group to give you feedback. They can verify the book actually makes sense, and catch issues that might escape your notice as the author since you’re so close to the work.
• If you’re submitting a book-length manuscript to presses as an unagented author. Presses do employ editors—but you’ll only benefit from their services if your work is accepted. The more polished your manuscript, the higher your odds that someone will want to publish it. A professional line edit can be very beneficial in making the best possible impression and improve your chances of the book making it to shelves.
• If you’re submitting work to top-tier, highly competitive markets. For most short stories, personal essays, or individual poems, I would say there’s no need to pay for professional editing—feedback from a workshop group or beta reader is often the better option. The exception to this is if you’re submitting work to highly prestigious journals like The New Yorker or The Paris Review, places where pieces need to be damn near perfect to clear the slush pile (and that pay enough the expense of professional editing can feel justified to boost your chances of getting a yes).

…this isn’t to say these are the only times a professional is called for, but these are the main situations where I would say their services are most likely to be worth the expense.

There are some other specific circumstances where a professional can be valuable. For instance, if you’re a new writer who’s never received formal training or classroom instruction. In this case, working with a developmental editor who also has experience in book coaching can be a kind of surrogate instructor, helping you to develop your eye for strong storytelling and refine your writing craft while they improve the specific manuscript they’re working on.

Another scenario a professional could be useful is if your manuscript has already been through workshopping or beta reading but you’re still getting lots of rejections, or just generally don’t feel comfortable with how it’s reading. Getting a professional’s perspective can identify lingering issues that your free readers are missing—or, if they don’t spot any issues, can give you confirmation that your work is ready and those “no”s are coming for a different reason, like that your query letter is weak or that you’re not sending the work to the right markets.

Whatever your reason for hiring a professional, you always want to take the time first to figure out exactly what kind of editing you're looking for. Even editors who provide a range of services will need to know what you want them to focus on, and editors often have specializations in certain types of editing, along with certain genres, styles, or categories they tend to work on. Be as specific as possible when you start looking for an editor. If you want someone to tell you if your space opera's secondary universe is effective, for instance, don't just pick someone who works on “fiction”—look for a “developmental sci-fi editor with expertise in worldbuilding” and you'll be much more likely to get the exact kind of editing your manuscript needs.

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