Most rejections from literary magazines have nothing to do with the quality of the writing. They come from a missed guideline, a piece sent outside a reading window, or a cover letter that leaves the editor guessing. Almost all of that is fixable with twenty minutes of admin. Here is what to check before you press send, and what to do once the replies start arriving.
Guidelines change. A magazine that welcomed 5,000-word stories last year may have tightened the limit to 3,000, or moved to a themed issue. Read the page as it stands today, not the version you saved to your bookmarks two years ago. If the guidelines are long, read them twice; the details that matter are usually buried halfway down.
If a magazine says it is closed, it means closed. Sending anyway does not show initiative; it usually means your work is deleted unread.
You cannot aim at an editor you have never read. Buy a copy, borrow one from the library, or read what the magazine publishes online. Then ask the only question that matters: does my work sit beside this? Not "is my work good" — that is a separate problem — but "is it a fit". A strong literary short story sent to a magazine that publishes speculative flash is a certain no, however good the story is.
Cover letters are not the place to explain your themes. The editor is going to read the piece itself. Keep it under a page, polite and plain.
Leave out the plot summary, the apology for taking up their time, the claim that your mother loved it, and any clever formatting. "Dear Editor" is perfectly acceptable when no name is given; if a name is given, spell it correctly.
A simultaneous submission is the same piece sent to more than one magazine at once. A multiple submission is several pieces sent to the same magazine in one go. Magazines treat these very differently, so check each set of guidelines.
Many allow simultaneous submissions on one condition: tell them immediately if the piece is accepted elsewhere, and withdraw it. Do that the same day. Editors remember writers who withdraw promptly, and they remember the ones who do not. Some magazines forbid simultaneous submissions outright; respect that, or you risk being removed from their list. It is also rarely wise to send two versions of the same poem to one magazine in the same batch.
Follow standard manuscript format unless told otherwise: readable font, double-spaced prose, page numbers, your name and contact address in the header, title at the top. Poems can be single-spaced as they appear on the page. Save in the format requested, name the file something obvious — surname_title.docx — and put the word count on the first page.
Before sending, check for consistency. If the magazine is British and your piece is set in Britain, make sure the spelling matches. Remove tracked changes and comments. Read the whole thing aloud once; you will hear the sentences that need work.
Keep a simple record, whether that is a spreadsheet or a notebook. Log the magazine, the piece, the date sent, the stated response time, the status and any notes.
This is not obsessive tidiness. It stops you sending the same story to the same magazine twice. It tells you when a polite enquiry is reasonable — usually only after the stated response time has passed, and only once. It also shows you at a glance which pieces are circulating and which have come home and need another draft. Put a fortnightly reminder in your diary to update it.
Most replies are form rejections. They are not a verdict on your ability. The most competitive magazines receive far more work than they can publish, and a rejection often means the issue was full or the piece did not suit the editor's taste that month. Send it out again the same week.
If you get a personal note, treat it as an invitation to submit again, not as an opening for a long email asking why the piece was turned down. If you are offered publication, read the terms before you agree. Check what rights you are granting, for how long, whether you are paid, and whether the piece will stay online. If anything looks unusual or very broad, ask a writers' organisation or a solicitor with publishing experience before signing.
Then close the file and start the next piece. The writers who place work are rarely the ones with the most talent; they are the ones who keep sending it out, patiently, in the right format, to the right places.
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