Writing short stories may be a passion you have but if you want to get those materials recognized or you want to make money from them you will need to find a publishing company. There are plenty of scams in this area so you need to make sure you carefully evaluate any publishing company that you are considering working with. Publishers want to see what you have to offer so don’t contact them until the work is in its final copy.

This means you need to have it carefully critiqued by yourself and at least one other person. The flow of the short story needs to be extremely well because this is a short type of writing and you don’t have the time for it to be choppy or jumping around. You also need to look at the formatting of your paragraphs as well as they length of the short story. Don’t forget to give both grammar and spelling a very close look. The systems on most computers don’t catch all of the possible errors.

Think about the type of market that your short story is going to appeal to. This way you can choose the publishing companies to contact based on that information. Is it written for children? Should you be contacting a sports magazine? It is historical in nature? All of this is going to help you get into contact with a publishing company that is likely to take a very close look at the short story you have submitted.

Don’t forget to contact the online publishers as well because there is the potential for huge exposure on the internet. People often read what they want to for free there instead of having to buy the short stories or the magazines. Be on the look out though for those online publishing companies that want to charge you a fee of $50 or so to post your short story online. They are making money doing nothing for you and that all adds up to a scam. In many instances you will never see that short story online like they promised.

It is a good idea to include a nice cover letter with your short story when you submit it to publishers. Let them know what information you have about their magazine, site, or other entity so that they will understand why you want to see your short story published in their materials. You may get dozens of rejection letters before your short story ends up being published but don’t give up if you really want it.