Seven Points To Consider When Submitting Short Fiction

From Booklife--Strategies And Survival Tips For The 21st-Century Writer, comes this article, Seven Points To Consider When Submitting Short Fiction. An excerpt:

The blogosphere saw a lot of discussion during late 2009 about short fiction submissions practices. My main concern with the discussion as it existed was a lack of strategic planning when it came to submitting short fiction. Which is to say, for many writers a top-down approach of submitting to the highest paying and most visible markets may make sense. But that there are good reasons to develop more nuanced approaches. Here, then, are seven points to consider when thinking about the submission of short fiction. (In altered form, the following post originally appeared in the comments thread on my blog, on a guest post by Jason Sanford.)

Also, no advice about short fiction markets is of any use to you if you don’t write a damn good story first. This may seem obvious, but I see far too many writers neglecting their craft by churning out stories at a ferocious rate. In this social media age, your mantra should be: SLOW DOWN. Take the time to edit. Put that story away for a couple of weeks after you do the draft. If you find that your second draft is pretty much the same as your first, you might not’ve seen the story’s full potential.

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