20 Online Magazines For Short Story Submissions

Guest Post by Michael Walzman

Getting published is any writers’ dream, but where does one start? Although online magazines usually do not pay, they are a great way to build your portfolio and get noticed by readers, agents, editors and publishers. There are tons of websites accepting unsolicited work. This list deals with mostly fiction and non-fiction, and is numbered in order of their online ranking*. This ranking is based on the number of unique visits, links and google searches a website receives. The lower the number, the more influential and popular the website is. If you do not have anything published, submitting your story to the higher-numbered magazines might be a good way to get in the door, but certainly does not guarantee it.   

Rank: 7,379

http://www.mcsweeneys.net

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Words Max: 1,500           

Rank: 7,621

www.eastoftheweb.com

Fiction

-Most Genres

Non-Fiction 

Rank: 145,748

http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/index.htm

Flash fiction

Word Max: 750 

Rank: 178,062

http://www.everydayfiction.com/

Flash Fiction

Word Max: 1,000 

Rank: 225,058

http://www.3ammagazine.com

Fiction

-Word Max: 2,000

Non-Fiction

Poetry

Reviews

Rank: 299,092

http://necessaryfiction.com

Fiction

-Word Max: 3,000

Reviews 

Rank: 331,826

http://www.wordriot.org/

Flash

-Word Max: 1,000

Fiction

-Word Max: 6,500, over 1,000

Novel excerpt

-Word Max: 6,500 

Rank: 463,836

http://www.pankmagazine.com

Fiction

Poetry 

Rank: 476,144

http://www.themolotovcocktail.com

Flash

-Word Max: 1,000 words           

Rank: 656,297

http://sporkpress.com 

Fiction

Poetry 

Rank: 707,760

http://www.backhandstories.com

Fiction

Essay or Review 

Rank: 744,480

http://www.toasted-cheese.com

Flash Fiction

-Word Max: 500

Fiction

-Word Max: 5,000

Non-Fiction

-Word Max: 5,000

Poetry    

Rank: 868,548

http://www.spittoonmag.com

Fiction

-Word Max: 5,000

Non-Fiction

-Word Max: 5,000

Poetry 

Rank: CAN 1,526,219, US 3,864,387

http://www.feathertale.com

Humor

Fiction

-Word Max: 1,500

Poetry

-Word Max: 1,000 

Rank: 1,606,294

http://www.thievesjargon.com

Fiction

-Word Max: 5,000

Poetry 

Rank: 1,655,837

http://dogzplot.blogspot.com/               

Flash Fiction

-Word Max: 200 

Rank: 2,167,839

http://smokelong.com/

Flash Fiction

-Max: 1,000 words 

Rank: 2,397,622

http://www.publishinggenius.com/ 

Flash Fiction

-Max: 500 words 

Rank: 2,949,940

http://newportreview.org/

Fiction

-Max: 1,000-6,000 words

Flash

-Max: 1000 words

Poetry

Non-fiction

Rank: 5,351,755

http://www.juked.com

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Poetry  

Mike Walzman's work has been published in: BCN Week, We Feel Pretty, Zine Columbia and Feathertale. His debut novel The Fall To Freedom is out now. See www.thefalltofreedom.com for more information. 

*The rankings were gathered on 12/7/12 using Semrush, an analytics website. The data is only based on US statistics unless otherwise indicated and are subject to change on a daily basis.