If you’re fairly confident that you can write then there are things you can do to increase your chances of getting published and earning some cash.
- Write a genre you’re comfortable with. If you usually write fantasy then you may struggle to write a romance. Choose magazines to submit to that play to your strengths. But do compromise. While you should write for familiar genres, if you want make money then you’re going to need to be flexible – both to appeal to a specific readership and so you can apply for more than one really niche magazine. Plus there’ll be a lot of guidelines you need to follow, speaking of which… Stick to the guidelines. Make sure you follow the instructions provided by the site to the letter. Nothing will blow your chances of getting published faster than submitting a 4,000 word story for a competition that allows a maximum of 2,000 words. Some guidelines will specify what shouldn’t be in the story (e. g. explicit sex scenes) while others will go so far as to specify who the main character should be (for example, a women’s magazine may want a female character who their readers can relate to.) Do your research. Decide which magazine you’re going to submit to and read it regularly. See what sort of stories they usually publish and if there’s something similar between them, whether it be genre, tone or style, then you’d be wise to do the same (I know this might sound crushing to your creative and original mind but, as said above, you’ll need to compromise to make money. Save your genre defying masterpiece for when you’re a bit more established!) Also make sure you have a good sense of the readership from the articles and adverts in the magazine because they’re the people you need to be writing for!
If you follow those steps then you’re increasing your chances of getting published.
