Are you among the countless writers with a problem finding magazines that pay for short stories? Look no further than our carefully curated list.
All emerging writers are familiar with the stress of finding the right literary magazines that pay for short stories. Initial submissions are notoriously difficult to get published.
Even writers who are now considered classics struggled with this issue.
With thousands of literary magazines available to choose from, even just narrowing the selection down can be a tricky task.
We've created this list to highlight the best literary magazines to which you can submit short fiction.
If you're in a hurry, here's a list of our top picks. Scroll further down if you want to learn the details.
Before moving on to the rest, consider submitting to one of these two magazines as your preferred option.
The best literary magazine in the category is The Threepenny Review.
The Threepenny Review is a highly reputable quarterly magazine with the best overall balance of features that writers want from such a publication.
Another factor that makes it stand out is how fast its editors respond to new submissions.
The magazine with the highest payments for short stories is The Sun Magazine.
The Sun Magazine is a monthly publication that focuses on personal essays. It pays for short stories per written page of text, starting from $200 and going up to $2,000.
There are several features to consider when choosing a magazine to send short story submissions to.
Most of them can be tracked on Duotrope, a subscription service dedicated to helping writers and artists find agents and publishers.
Magazines that pay for submissions will always have much tighter submission criteria and, therefore, lower acceptance rates.
The rates, realistically, tend to go between 5% and close to 0% for unsolicited submissions.
Seek magazines with higher chances of acceptance, but don't get demoralized by rejection — it's a simple fact of life for all writers.
Literary journals pay for submissions at a fixed rate for the full finished work, per printed page of text, or per written word.
Bigger is always better, but higher pay also means bigger competition, and that means lower acceptance rates.
Many magazines don't like when you submit the same work to several publications at once, apart from their own.
This is why a fast response time is critical; it lets you know if you've been rejected in enough time to forward your short story to a different address.
Not every literary magazine caters to the same niche.
If your main interest lies in writing science fiction, sending your stories to magazines with a "no science fiction" policy will get you nowhere, no matter how well-written they are.
Always research a magazine's submission guidelines in detail.
Getting published in more prestigious, well-known magazines will always be a significant boost to your writing resume.
Reputable magazines also get better funding, which usually translates into higher payments.
We've assessed the features of some of the best literary magazines and selected the top three.
The Threepenny Review is a quarterly magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, with a special focus on cultural criticism.
It's one of the more highbrow publications on this list, with a long tradition and great reputation in the literary community.
Its submission period extends from January 1 to April 30.
Although its prestigious reputation and high-profile contributors may make it appear unapproachable, The Threepenny Review has a lot to offer, even to fledgling writers.
The generous pay, openness to fresh faces, and broad thematic criteria should make it one of your first choices when looking for a magazine that publishes fiction.
The Sun Magazine is a monthly publication with a full 50 years of tradition. Its mission is to encourage authors to share highly personal, emotionally poignant art.
The submissions may come in the form of personal essays, short fiction, and poetry, but also photography.
If personal essays are your primary focus, you should consider The Sun Magazine as your first submission choice.
The pay is one of the best in the industry, and the monthly publication rate makes the chance of acceptance relatively decent.
One Story isn't a literary magazine in the traditional sense. It's a paid service where, once per month, subscribers receive a single short story that was previously chosen by the editors.
The magazine publishes all genres of contemporary short fiction, chosen from a pool of submissions that are sent every year.
Despite the low acceptance rate and a long submission response, a solid earning potential makes One Story a strong contender.
Its thematic versatility makes it a good fit for almost any story you wish to publish. This makes it a clever idea to send submissions to One Story, at least as a backup option.
Although they didn't make it into the top three, the following magazines are still worth mentioning.
Some of them focus on more specific story niches, while others are solid choices all-around.
Strange Horizons is an online literary journal that publishes all sorts of speculative fiction every week: fantasy stories, horror, weird fiction, science fiction, and the like.
It's also known as a reputable platform for poetry, nonfiction, and art on related themes, such as the strange and horrifying aspects of human existence.
The magazine favors short-format submissions, with a preference for stories with less than 5,000 words. The uppermost limit is 10,000 words, though.
Strange Horizons also publishes a spin-off quarterly known as Samovar. It publishes fiction and poetry from international contributors, showcased in dual languages: original and English.
As one of the niche's pioneers, Strange Horizons is among the most prestigious publications in the speculative fiction niche.
Many successful science fiction and horror writers have found Strange Horizons to be an excellent jumping board for their careers.
Three stories originally published in Strange Horizons won the Theodore Sturgeon Award.
The pay rates for submissions are more than solid, with some of the best rates you may find in a magazine focusing on genre fiction.
Due to the weekly publishing schedule, the magazine has a considerably high acceptance rate. But the editors are quick to respond to submissions, never taking more than a few weeks to do so.
For many writers who aren't interested in science fiction and fantasy, Strange Horizons' thematic focus may prove constraining.
Due to a high interest in the magazine, submissions are closed for most of the year. The submission policy also bars you from sending simultaneous submissions.
Everyone has heard about The New Yorker. With an unbroken publishing schedule that goes back to 1925, The New Yorker is a weekly magazine focusing on cultural topics.
It's internationally famous for its literary section, consisting of short stories, poetry, essays, and reviews.
The New Yorker accepts prose submissions between 2,000 and 10,000 words. The website is notably untransparent regarding its submission guidelines; they can be found on the Contacts page.
The magazine is similarly untransparent about its pay rates, too. All information on the topic can be reached only through unofficial sources.
The New Yorker is easily the most famous and prestigious magazine that publishes fiction submissions in the whole world. No weekly issue goes without at least several notable contributors.
Getting published in the New Yorker is a surefire way to skyrocket one's literary credentials.
The expected pay rates are jaw-droppingly high. According to word of mouth, getting a short story published in The New Yorker is worth up to $7,500.
The most obvious drawback is the magazine's lack of transparency. Most of the information on pay rates and submission policies can be gained only through second-hand sources.
Getting published in The New Yorker is notoriously tough, too. According to Duotrope, the acceptance rate is as low as 0.14%.
Allegory is a biannual online magazine that publishes fiction in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror niches. It's a non-profit, independent outfit that operates on a purely volunteer basis.
It publishes fiction submissions between 500 and 5,000 words long, with rare exceptions.
The editors are open to submissions outside of the magazine's niche as long as the stories are original and quirky enough, with a unique twist.
As an indie publication that nevertheless holds a degree of authority in the niche, Allegory is a great option for writers looking for a beginner-friendly fantasy/science fiction magazine.
The high acceptance rate helps its case, too.
Indie publications tend to struggle with money, and Allegory is no exception. This means that writers shouldn't get their hopes up for astronomically high payments. Indeed, Allegory pays a flat rate of only $15 per story.
Story submissions are reviewed in two rounds. The first round is within six weeks of submission.
If a story passes the first review, it'll be considered for the second round, which is held two months before publication. For writers, this translates to a prolonged period of submission anxiety.
Ninth Letter is a literary journal published by the University of Illinois' Department of English. It takes a particular interest in experimental stories and poems that thread new grounds in terms of form or content.
Ninth Letter's print and web editions both come out on a biannual basis, but they have separate editors, separate content, and even separate submission guidelines.
The print edition accepts story submissions either as a single piece of literary fiction that's up to 8,000 words long or up to three separate flash fiction pieces.
The web edition lets you submit fiction stories no longer than 3,500 words related to an issue-specific theme.
If you're feeling adventurous and want to test your writing chops by publishing a more experimental piece of highly imaginative writing, Ninth Letter is the perfect choice.
It may accept submissions that would otherwise be too eccentric for most publications.
The biggest issue with Ninth Letter is its low submission rate, as well as the long average response time.
After sending a submission, it might take the editors as long as four months to send a response.
Apparition Lit is a quarterly speculative fiction magazine focusing on dark fiction, horror, science fiction, and fantasy.
The magazine publishes fiction, essays, and poetry and holds monthly flash fiction contests based around a particular theme.
Regular submissions also have to follow an issue-specific prompt since every issue is centered around a particular theme (such as Dread, Nostalgia, or Symmetry).
Story submissions need to range between 1,000 and 5,000 words.
Apparition Lit boasts a decently high acceptance rate, which makes it an ideal choice for aspiring speculative fiction writers.
While themed issues may appear constrictive, following a specific theme makes for excellent writing practice.
The magazine has an incredible average response time, with the editors rarely taking more than two weeks to respond.
Themed issues may help with focus and serve as great writing practice, but following themed prompts can prove restrictive in the long run.
This may get especially dire when combined with the sometimes narrow demands of the magazine's niche.
Flash Fiction Online (FFO) is a monthly online magazine that exclusively publishes fiction between 500 and 1,000 words, also known as flash fiction.
It's open to all genres and themes as long as they manage to fit into the bite-sized, punchy format.
Submissions are open between the 1st and 21st of each month unless the magazine reaches its submission cap of 425 stories.
Flash Fiction Online allows reprints, which is rare for literary magazines, although under a reduced rate of $0.02 per word.
The regular pay rate of $80 per piece is highly formidable if considering the word count. Flash Fiction Online pays at a rate between $0.08 and $0.16 per word, which is among the better deals on the market.
Despite the nonreading period in the last 7-10 days of each month and a submission cap, the editors may leave your submission as a candidate for one of the following issues, raising the expected response time to over two months.
This may be an issue, as FFO doesn't accept simultaneous submissions.
Interested in doing creative work for money, but selling your short stories to magazines doesn't sound particularly attractive? Consider these alternative options.
While a short story can have anywhere up to 20,000 words, how this translates to page numbers depends on the font, format, and spacing. With double spacing, the absolute longest a short story can get is about 80 pages, but most aren't longer than 30 pages.
Everyone who publishes fiction knows there's never much money to be gained from individual short stories. While you can sell a story for a decent amount, don't look at this payment as anything other than a morale boost.
To earn serious money, you'll need to get your first publishing deal.
When considering all the features that make a literary magazine good, The Threepenny Review comes out as a definite winner for everyone who wants to publish short fiction.
It provides the ideal balance of quick response time and high payment rates, wrapped in a highly established literary magazine with a general focus.
The other magazines on the list shouldn't be easily dismissed, though. Each has a specific strong point or particular niche where it excels and should be considered when debating where to submit your latest work.
If you found the article useful, make sure to share it with others who may be interested. And if you've got additional literary magazine recommendations, don't be shy. Tell us in the comment section!