Tips for Sending out Writing Submissions

Maybe you've accepted that rejection is part of writing, but you'd still rather get more acceptance letters than rejection ones. We all would!

So here are some practical tips that might help you end up with less "no's" and more "yes's".

1. Send your story to more than one place. If a magazine or publisher indicates you should, mark it as a "simultaneous submission" or if not you can just see who says yes first.

2. Try to have 5-10 articles or pieces out at once. If one gets rejected, it's not the end of everything. You've got more out there.

3. If something does get published, unless they bought full rights, send it somewhere else! You already know it's worth accepting, so keep it going to another market. (My favorite stories have been used 5 times or more.)

4. Rearrange your piece for different markets. For example, I have one story (about Milo in Bangladesh--the little boy I based one of my book characters on in the Stolen Series) that has been published in a kid, teen and adult version.

 5.Do your homework. The Writers Market Guide is the book you need to know what publishers are looking for, who to contact, word count, etc. I get a new copy every year (of the Christian Writer's Market Guide) to keep it up to date, and use it all year long.

6. Do more homework. When you do find a magazine or publisher you like, look up their website and see if they have submission guidelines. Follow those to the letter. A lot of rejections come from simple failure to follow guidelines for format, word count, etc.

Ideally, if you're a writer for magazines or devotionals, you want to get a few markets that you write for regularly. If you can do that, to the point the editor knows you, and you know what the editor is looking for, that's a huge step toward a lot more acceptance letters than rejections ones. Also, if you write for assignment, then you already know it is accepted, which takes away the risk of spending time writing something that will never get used.

Happy submitting!