Highest Paying Publishers

There's Clarkesworld (personally, one of my largest goals), Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fantastic stories of the Imagination, AE, Nature: Futures (for flash), Daily Science Fiction (for flash), Flash Fiction Online , the Gothic Fantasy anthologies, Shimmer, and others I can't think of at the moment. These all pay at least 6 cents a word if memory serves me correctly. Some take only short stories instead of novelettes.

Oh, and something else to chew on. Although Tor.com no longer accepts short story/novelette submissions, once or twice a year, they open up to novella submissions, and they are a highly respected, well paying market. They used to pay 25 cents a word for short stories (I'm not kidding), but I don't know their rates for novellas. A novella is anything between 17,500 and 40,000 words, roughly, but they prefer 20,000 to 40,000.

And someone has probably already told you this, but The Submission Grinder is awesome for finding markets for your specific story.

Highest payers are Tor.com (though I think they're now closed to unsolicited work), and the bug magazines (Cricket, Cicada, etc.) 25-cents/word at these markets. It's nuts. (In a good way.)

One more thing to add.

Always become familiar with the stories of a particular magazine before you submit! A great story will be perfect for some and unusable for others. For instance, Clarkesworld. I don't think they'd take any of the stories that have won WotF, because Clarkesworld has a very particular style. I think it was Matt that said they care more about atmosphere, whereas David Farland cares more about story. And if you compare those two markets, Matt's hit it right on the head. All/most of Clarkesworld's stories have a very particular way of sounding, they sort of feel the same, even with all the different plots. Just like Writers of the Future, only in a different way.

So I guess I'm saying: just know your market. And don't be discouraged if an editor rejects you best story. Because it might just come down to personal taste, not story quality. Keep throwing it out there until you find an editor that gets just excited over the story as you do.

Highest payers are Tor.com (though I think they're now closed to unsolicited work), and the bug magazines (Cricket, Cicada, etc.) 25-cents/word at these markets. It's nuts. (In a good way.)

Oooooh, yeah, the bugs, I forgot about those!

Thank ye kindly!

The Submissions Grinder has full payment details in now, as of a couple of weeks ago, so you can easily search & sort there.

Off the top of my head, though...

Terraform is a top payer, at 25c a word. 2000 word limit, near future SF only, and they don't respond in the case of rejection... but 25c a word, man. And by all accounts, if they do like your story, they are actually good to work with. It's just the rejections thing that bugs me.

Fantastic Stories of the Imagination is 15c a word for up to 3000 words, any speculative genre.

Fireside, when it's open (about one month per year), is 12.5c a word, and open to literally anything--not just spec fic, though it leans that way. I think its limit is 6k now.

Clarkesworld is 10c/word for the first 5k, 8c a word thereafter, and tough to get into.

WotF only actually pays standard pro-rates of 6c a word--the higher pay rate only kicks in because of the flat-rate prize money, which therefore depends on your placement and your word length. I did work out that I got 72c a word for Squalor & Sympathy

Anyway, when you actually do the sums, none of this actually makes that much difference in the end. It is literally quibbling over cents so as nice as an extra $20 is, I tend to submit in order of prestige rather than pay. They tend to go hand in hand, to be sure, but in general I'll submit to F&SF first as the market I most want to break into, then Clarkesworld & Asimov's, and work down from there.

Good point, submitting for prestige. Thanks also for sharing your submission strategy. I just submitted my first story to F&SF. I think I might start with them for each story too. I really want IGMS, too, mainly because Ender's Game is one of my favorite books, and it would be cool to have my name somewhere near Card's, and somehow it would feel like a tribute.

What's Clarkesworld's response time?

Looks like F&SF is about 3 days, which is awesome.

Seems like Clarkesworld has a similar submission system.

What's Clarkesworld's response time?

Looks like F&SF is about 3 days, which is awesome.

Seems like Clarkesworld has a similar submission system.

Clarkeworld also responds in about 3 days.

What's Clarkesworld's response time?

Looks like F&SF is about 3 days, which is awesome.

Seems like Clarkesworld has a similar submission system.

Clarkeworld also responds in about 3 days.

Cool!

Then I think I'm going to adopt Matt's strategy. Submit to F&SF then Clarkesworld then all the others.