I’ve been thinking lately that I should start submitting my library of original short stories to try and get some of them published. I expect a lot of this:
But I’m still going to try anyway 🙂
After lots of googling, I thought I’d compile my findings into a nice list and share it with all of you! I tend to write science fiction/fantasy/speculative fiction, so that’s what all these magazines deal with. This list is by no means exhaustive. It’s just the places I liked the most.
A note on simultaneous submissions: Of all the publishing venues I looked into, only about 2 of them allowed simultaneous submissions. But even if one magazine allows it, odds are, wherever else you want to submit won’t allow it, so I’m going out on a limb and guessing that as a general rule, it might be a good idea to only submit a story to one place at a time.
Publisher: Strange Horizons
What they’re looking for: Speculative fiction, broadly defined.
Requirements: Up to 10,000 words (under 5000 preferred).
Pay: Payment of 8¢/word USD, within 60 days of contract.
Response Time: A few weeks, MAX 40 days
Publisher: Fantasy and Science Fiction
What they’re looking for: Fantasy and Science Fiction
Requirements: Up to 25,000 words in length.
Pay: Payment is 7-12 cents per word on acceptance.
Response Time: Allow 8 weeks for a response
Publisher: InterGalactic Medicine Show
What they’re looking for: Science fiction and fantasy stories.
Requirements: Up to 17,500 words.
Pay: We pay 6 cents a word.
Response Time: ???
Publisher: APEX Magazine
What they’re looking for: Science fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.
Requirements: Maximum word length is a firm 7,500 words. Anything more will be auto-rejected.
Pay: Payment for original fiction is $.06 per word up to 7,500 words.
Response Time: 30 days
Publisher: Shimmer
What they’re looking for: Speculative fiction — Hard Science Fiction and Swords & Sorcery a hard sell.
Requirements: up to 7500 words (preferred length ~4000 words).
Pay: We pay 5 cents per word, minimum $50.
Response Time: ~ Two weeks
Publisher: LightSpeed
What they’re looking for: All types of science fiction and fantasy are welcome.
Requirements: 1500-10,000 words. Stories of 5,000 words or less are preferred.
Pay: 8 cents per word for original fiction, or 2 cents per word for reprints.
Response Time: 2 days – 2 weeks.
Publisher: Beneath Ceaseless Skies
What they’re looking for: “literary adventure fantasy”: stories with a secondary-world setting and some traditional or classic fantasy feel, but written with a literary approach.
Requirements: under 11,000 words.
Pay: 6 cents US per word.
Response Time: 2-4 weeks
Publisher: Clarkesworld
What they’re looking for: Science fiction and fantasy.
Requirements: 1,000-16,000 words, no exceptions.
Pay: 10¢ per word for the first 5000 words, 8¢ for each word over 5000
Response Time: usually under 2 days.
Publisher: GigaNotoSaurus
What they’re looking for: Science Fiction or Fantasy.
Requirements: 5,000 to 25,000 words long.
Pay: $100 per story on acceptance.
Response Time: 30 Days.
Publisher: Asimov’s Science Fiction
What they’re looking for: SF dominates the fiction published in the magazine, but they also publish borderline fantasy, slipstream, and surreal fiction. No sword & Sorcery, please.
Requirements: They seldom buy stories shorter than 1,000 words or longer than 20,000 words,
Pay: 8-10 cents per word for short stories up to 7,500 words, and 8 cents for each word over 7,500.
Response Time: ~Five Weeks
There you go! Should be a nice starting point for anyone in the Science Fiction/Fantasy short story niche.
Good luck!
Project Procrastination 
Best of luck to you. I’m trying to make myself write more short fiction, although at the moment, I’m only planning on doing a self-collection, rather than sell individual stories anywhere.
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Self-collections are great! But I don’t think I have the patience to work on a project like that haha. Good luck to you too!!
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I’m not sure I’ve got the patience either! 🙂 But I’mm going to give it a go.
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All the best with your submissions! I don’t write short stories very often because I tend to get distracted by my novel, but a lot of people think it’s great training for longer works.
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