One of my new year’s resolutions was to get my first rejection letter, and of course the only way to get a rejection letter is to submit a story.

If you’re not aware, I’m 0-for-2. Yep, in the past I’ve submitted two short stories and have gotten absolutely no correspondence back.

Thanks to some encouragement from my new writing partner in crime, Brian, I brushed up my short story manuscripts and went hunting.

Using the ever-popular Duotrope’s Digest, I pulled up their search engine.

The genre? Fantasy. That’s easy.

The pay-scale? Well, that’s not so easy (I’ll come back to this later).

Acceptance Rates:

Duotrope lets me sort the results in many ways.

One of the coolest options is that it lets me sort by acceptance rate (Highest to lowest, Lowest to highest).

I don’t think I want to submit one of my stories to an online magazine that accepts 90% of all entries (yes, these exist) and they pay less than a cent per word (perhaps nothing). Maybe it’s better to aim my sights a little higher?

Pay-Scale:

There are different schools of thought on pay-scale. Some people say it’s better to submit to a professional magazine with pro-rates right off the bat, because if you submit to a smaller publication, you might forever wonder if your story could’ve gone further.

On the other hand, if you’re like me and have never been published, it might be a good idea to start building up a resume in the ‘proving-grounds’ before going for the big-leagues.

To test this, Brian is in the process of submitting one of his short stories at the same time as I am. He is submitting to professional grade national publications. And since I don’t care how much money I get paid as much as building a resume (and seeing my work printed somewhere other than here), I decided to go the route of courting the semi-pro market.

I’ll keep you updated.