Two Tips for Submitting Your Work for Publication

Many people want to have their scholarly work or other writing published after they finish their university degrees. Some, especially those pursuing higher degrees such as their PhDs, begin the publication process during their degree program.

I’m a writer, and I know what it’s like to be eager to be published. I’m also an editor, and I know that it takes discipline to keep reworking a piece until it’s polished and ready to submit, especially since the revising process could take weeks or even months. You don’t need to rush the submitting process. Academic journals, literary journals, and publishers aren’t going to disappear (maybe publishers will disappear if you believe what you read).

Here are my first two tips for submitting your writing for publication.

1. Do submit your most polished work.

Run your work by a critique group. Take writing classes. Read some great short stories and examine their greatness. If you’re pursuing academic writing, find published scholarly articles similar to what you wish to write and examine why they work (and consider how yours will be different). Give yourself time to grow into the writer you want to be. I know we live in the “I want it now” era, but there’s no rush. You’re on no one else’s timetable but your own. Make sure your writing is the best it can be before you send it off to editors.

2. Read previous editions of the journal/publication to see what they publish.

This is so important. Many writers waste their time, as well as the editors’, when they send their work to journals that aren’t interested in the type of submission the writer is sending. Most journals, both academic and literary, are online these days and offer free samples of the types of work they publish. If you’re writing fiction, sites like New Pages or the Literary Magazines page from Poets & Writers are great resources for finding journals that publish stories like the ones you’ve written.

When I first started writing historical fiction, I searched for journals that published that genre, but I couldn’t find any. As a result, I started my own. Even though the journal focuses solely on historical fiction, you’d be amazed at the countless submissions we’ve received over the years that are not at all historical in nature. Writers waste their time sending their non-historical submissions to us. That’s one more rejection letter they wouldn’t have received if they had checked our website. Even a cursory glance would show that our journal is a journal of historical fiction. If you write science fiction, seek out science fiction journals. If you write mystery, humor, romance, inspirational, literary, academic—whatever it is, there’s a journal out there that publishes it. Send your work to those journals because you’ll have a better chance of being published.

When editors consider submissions, they’re looking for pieces that fall in line with their journals’ overall theme. Taking the time to study various journals and understanding what they like to publish will save you time and frustration as you begin the process of building your publication portfolio.