My Guide to Using Duotrope

You’re lost. You have a short story that you worked hard on, that your friends say is fantastic—but you don’t know the first thing about getting it published. Where do you go? What do you do? Who do you talk to? Google searches don’t yield much; you find some websites that publish stories—but they seem sketchy. Blog posts and articles give you some ideas, and you submit your work to a few places online. But finding those websites takes time, which you feel is being wasted, especially once the rejections roll-in like an unwelcome storm. You’re discouraged. You want to give up. If only there was a website that made finding publishers easier. There is! It’s called Duotrope.

What is Duotrope, and how does it work?

Duotrope is a website that allows you to search for publishers scattered across the internet. It works using a series of search filters that help the site determine a list of publishers that work best for your specific piece.

Once the search has commenced, you are taken to an alphabetized results page that shows you the most likely publishers interested in what you have to offer. Click on a publisher, and Duotrope takes you to an overview page that shows acceptance statistics, word count requirements the publisher is looking for, what stories they like to feature, etc. From there, you can make a choice on whether or not you want to submit to them.

Where do you start?

You start by selecting “Search for Publishers” under the “Search” tab in the top, lefthand corner of the Duotrope homepage. Once selected, the site will take you to a portal that provides filters that combine to create a highly customized search.

Once on the “Search for Publishers Page,” your next step will consist of adjusting a series of filters that fit the story you want to send out. While there are more than twenty search filters to use, only a few are completely necessary: Genre, Style, and Length. But before you do any of that, you’re going to select what type of writing you are submitting. On the right side of the search page towards the top, an over-arching filter allows you to choose Poetry, Visual Arts, Non-Fiction, and Fiction.

Selecting a publisher

Once you have your search filters all figured out, you’re good to go! Click the “Search” button at the bottom of the page, and Duotrope will optimize an ideal list of publishers in alphabetical order tailored to what you want to submit. But what publishers do you click-on? The short answer is to read my blog post on who to submit to. However, when you click on a publisher, Duotrope will take you to a nifty page with their statistics, submission requirements, etc.

Submitting

Submitting is the part of the process that Duotrope doesn’t help with. You can think of the website as the Google of finding publishers for creative work—once you find the website, the rest is up to you.

Under the publisher listing graphic (usually the cover art from the publisher’s most recent issue), a link says “Go to publication website.” This is the shortcut that will take you to, well, the publication’s website. Click on it!

Clicking on this link will turn your current Duotrope Page into the homepage of said publisher’s website. You are now at the mercy of their site and its user interface. Most good publications will have a link called “Submissions” or “Submit.” This is where you will find their specific guidelines on how to get them your creative work for consideration in future issues. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to find these submissions pages with publishers. What do I do when I encounter that? Move-on with my day and find somebody else to give my work to. Suppose they aren’t good at making it easy for authors to submit. In that case, chances are they aren’t good at showcasing creative work—which is the whole reason you are trying to get published in the first place!

Practice!

Sure, Duotrope has the user interface of a site made in 2003, but that’s alright! For five U.S. dollars a month, you save a considerable amount of precious time in exchange for expediting the future of your writing career. With time, the site’s quirks and strange search filters will become second-nature for navigation and use. You will come to find that it’s not about what the website looks like, but what it does. Because all it really needs to do is help you find that precious link to the next publisher you will submit to in that never-ending list. And it does do that rather well.

But in the meantime, my blog is here to help you out until you get to that point. Good luck! Stay strong! And happy submitting.