How to Sell a Short Story to a Science Fiction Magazine

Selling your short story to a science fiction magazine can be an emotionally taxing experience, but the rewards outweigh discomfort. Seeing your work in print is a heady experience--something that you will wish to experience over and over again. So let's get started: read this eHow and submit your short story to a science fiction magazine.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Research before you submit your sci-fi short story. Read up on science fiction magazines by looking in books such as "The Novel" and "Short Story Writers Market," or checking out Mary Soon Lee's site and the sci-fi links she provides of paying markets.
2. Read each of the requirements carefully before even thinking of submitting your sci-fi short story. Is it the right word length? Is the short story in the proper submission format (generally double-spaced, and printed only on one side of the paper)? Is it the kind of science fiction short story requested? There are sub-genres within each major genre, so it pays to be able to exactly define your short story: i.e., sci-fi with elements of romance and time travel, or what have you. Reading a copy of the magazine to which you intend to submit your short story helps, and this you can do for free by going to a book store or library.
3. Prepare a self-addressed stamped envelope to have your work returned should it be rejected. If you do not wish to have your short story returned, just enclose a self-addressed stamped #10 envelope. The later is actually a better tack to take as you will find you will receive more hand-written replies from the editors, as well as have your rejected short story recycled. Good for you (any input is helpful) and good for the environment.
4. Include a cover or query letter if requested in the submission guidelines given by the publication. Be sure to include a brief description of the work (science fiction), the number of words, and the reason why chose that particular magazine to submit your work in the first paragraph. In the second paragraph, give a short synopsis of the piece. In the third paragraph, include a brief writer's bio and why you are qualified to write the piece. Close the letter with thanks.
5. Resubmit the story with edits only if requested.
6. Do not submit the story if the submission guidelines request you to only submit a query letter and a SASE (see Step 4). To do otherwise is just asking for an automatic rejection and a quick trip for your story into the revolving file (trash can).
7. Write more of those short stories. Even Tolkien got his share of rejection letters. If he could take it, so can you.

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