Short Story Writing Markets — Creative Freelance Writing
Attention Short Story Writers — Open Calls For Fiction Submissions
5 websites and journals open to receiving unsolicited fiction submissions from new writers.
When looking for good fiction markets, I have noticed far more nonpaying markets than paying markets. I suppose that is okay when you are into telling a story, and the money does not matter. I am sure in the future I will share some of those markets as well — as literary magazines can undoubtedly be wonderful.
However, I wanted to find a few markets to which people can submit and get paid for their stories. Today I have discovered 5 markets for you, and they all pay. One of these markets (the last on the list) is a brand new website, so if you love getting into publications and websites from the ground up, this is your chance!
I hope you find a suitable place to submit a story. Good Luck!
Uncanny
Looking For: Fiction
Payment: 10 cents a word
Although this article is about fiction submissions — you should know that Uncanny, a Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine, also buy nonfiction, artwork, poetry, and novellas. Okay — onto the fiction.
As already mentioned, they are a sci-fi/fantasy magazine, and they do read freelancers’ submissions of fiction articles. They are looking for speculative fiction that is unpublished with a word count between 750–6000. The payment is 10 cents a word, including granting them audio rights to your story.
Green Prints “The Weeder’s Digest”
Looking For: Fiction
Payment: Up to $150.00, usually less.
Green Prints is a gardening and outdoors magazine. With that being said, they are looking for good fiction stories that include or center around gardening. However, this is a themed magazine, but they do not look for genre diction. They are pretty open to the type of story you write, and the most important thing is that it is a good story.
The length should be under 2,000 words, and it has to have a good, strong ending. Besides unpublished stories, they will also consider essays and poetry. For poetry, the payment is $20.00
Minola Woods
Looking For: Dark or Horror Fiction
Payment: $10.00–25.00
Minola Review is a literary magazine that only accepts women and non-binary writers’ submissions. They do not accept or publish any writing that includes racism, homophobia, misogyny, or transphobia.
For Fiction, they are looking for pieces of up to 5,000 words. You can also send micro fiction (less than 1000 words), and it can be serialized. For accepted fiction pieces, they pay $175.00 per published story.
If you write something besides fiction, they also accept Poetry ($50.00), creative nonfiction ($175.00), and reviews (50.00). If you are interested in doing reviews, you will need to pitch the review first, do not send a review manuscript.
The Georgia Review
Looking For: Literary Fiction
Payment: $50.00 per printed page
The Georgia Review is a literary magazine that considers unsolicited manuscripts between August 15 — May 15 yearly. They accept fiction, poetry, essays, and book reviews.
If you want consideration for fiction, they want one story of literary fiction, double spaced, and this story should be no longer than 9,000 words.
If you are a subscriber or submit your manuscript by mail, there is no entry fee. However, if you decide to submit online, there is a $3.00 processing fee.
Seize The Press
Looking For: Dark, transgressive speculative fiction
Payment: 0.08 cents a word
If you like to get in on brand new publications, this is the one for you. This literary publication/website is so new that their website is currently just a Coming Soon page. On December 15, 2021, they announced that they are looking for submissions on Twitter — which is what the link is to — the tweet.
They are looking for “transgressive speculative fiction. Bleak science fiction, dark fantasy and horror only.” They want no happy endings, and there is a strict 2,000-word limit.
By going through all their tweet replies to the questions others posed, it seems that for now, this will be an online-only magazine buy they may make ebooks as well.
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Finally, If you are really interested in writing markets and potential writing opportunities, I write about magazines, websites, and writing contests all the time! I love helping other writers find potential markets for their work (and getting paid is pretty awesome too!). Check out all the other markets I have written about!
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