Paying Markets for Storytellers

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Hitting the Big Time

 As a writer, what are your goals? Maybe you are aiming to achieve publication a target number of times in a year. Maybe there is a certain publication or market that you're trying to crack. Maybe you are simply focused on producing a steady amount of content, week by week.

Whatever you are planning for, having your writing read by hundreds of thousands of people would surely a welcome development for you, or any other writer. So let's look at some of the biggest American literary magazines, the ones with the largest circulation.

The New Yorker, first published in February 1925, has a circulation of over a million per issue and is one of the most esteemed literary publications in the world. The list of writers to have appeared on its pages is long and glittering, and includes names such as Roald Dahl, Annie Proulx, J. D. Salinger, John Updike, Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Carver and many, many more. Don't think that you won't be able to add your own name to this list. The New Yorker accepts unsolicited submissions of fiction sent to fiction@newyorker.com

The Atlantic is another prestigious American literary magazine, with a large circulation; 425 000 copies per issue. The Atlantic began its life in 1857 and since then has printed many well known American writers, including Mark Twain, Charles Chesnutt and Emily Dickinson. They accept unsolicited fiction submissions, but only by post. View their website for guidelines. Unfortunately the Atlantic, since 2005, has scaled back the amount of fiction they publish. It is now confined to one issue per year.

Lastly, we have The Boston Review. With a circulation of around 10 000, it hasn't got the magnitude of the aforementioned publications, but I list it here due to its same shared focus of politics and literature. If you submit to The Boston Review, ensure that your work is under 4000 words.

Thankfully, they have an online submission system.