Where to Publish Short Stories Online: Free and Paid Options

Short fiction has three publishing paths online — paying literary magazines, prestige journals that don't pay, and self-distribution. Each one solves a different problem. A magazine that pays $400 is the wrong home for a piece that doesn't fit its taste. A magazine that pays nothing can be the right home if its credit will follow you for the next decade. A self-published collection can outperform either, but only if you have an audience to sell it to.

This guide names the problems and the venues that solve each, with what they actually pay and what they actually want.

Paying literary magazines

Professional rate is roughly 6¢ per word and up, by SFWA convention. A 4,000-word short story at professional rates pays $240 to $400. The strongest paying markets pay considerably more.

Speculative fiction has the most reliable paying short-fiction ecosystem online.

• Clarkesworld — 10¢ per word up to 2,500 words, 8¢ per word after that. Hard sci-fi and literary speculative; reads quickly, responds professionally.
• Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, The Dark, Beneath Ceaseless Skies — all in the 8–10¢ per word range. Each has a register; read three issues before submitting.
• Reactor — formerly Tor.com, rebranded January 2024. Pays well for the work it commissions, but does not accept unsolicited fiction submissions. Worth knowing because writers still send to the old Tor.com address.

Literary fiction

• The Paris Review — pays $1,500 and up. Reading windows are brief, usually in spring and fall. Acceptance rate is under 1%. The work it takes is unmistakable when you read it.
• Granta — pays $400 for online publication; reads roughly quarterly. Welcomes UK and US writers.
• The New Yorker — does not take unsolicited fiction submissions. Reads agented work seriously.
• Story, ZYZZYVA, Conjunctions, n+1, Subtropics — pay variably, often in the $50–$500 range. Strong literary credits.

Token-paying journals. Many smaller magazines pay $5 to $50. The credit, more than the money, is the asset.

The pay calculus matters less than the fit calculus. A $300 acceptance from a magazine whose taste you share teaches you something about your own work. A $50 acceptance from a magazine you don't read teaches you nothing.

No-pay journals worth the credit

A small number of literary magazines pay nothing and are still worth submitting to:

• Tin House — closed in print but still publishes online. Strong reputation.
• Guernica, Joyland, Electric Literature, The Rumpus — all carry weight on a query letter or grant application.
• University-affiliated journals — *Ploughshares*, *The Missouri Review*, *Kenyon Review*, *Iowa Review*. Some pay; all confer credit.

The case for no-pay journals: they signal taste to agents and editors who read submission credits. The case against: they signal nothing to readers, who don't. Submit if you are building a manuscript-going-out-on-submission record. Skip if you are building an audience.

How to find the rest

There are roughly five hundred fiction-publishing literary magazines active in English. Three resources keep track:

• Submission Grinder — community-built, free, fast, and accurate on response times. Start here.
• Duotrope — broader, prettier interface, $5/month.
• Submittable — not a database; it's the platform that runs most submissions. Make an account; you'll use it constantly.

Erika Krouse's ranked list of 500 fiction litmags is the unsung classic — a working writer's spreadsheet, not a directory.

Most journals read for three to nine months and respond by email. Simultaneous submissions are nearly always allowed; check guidelines and withdraw promptly when accepted elsewhere.

Self-distribution

Self-publishing a short story rarely makes money on its own. Self-publishing a collection of seven to ten short stories sometimes does. The path that works:

1. Place the strongest stories in paying journals first — for credit and reading windows. 2. Wait for rights to revert — typically six to twelve months after publication. 3. Bundle into a collection. Themed collections sell better than miscellany. Price $2.99–$4.99. 4. Sell through KDP, Smashwords, or Draft2Digital. KDP gives you 70% on $2.99–$9.99 ebooks. Smashwords and Draft2Digital distribute more widely but yield fewer sales per platform.

Direct sales through Gumroad or Payhip preserve 90% or more of the price but require an audience already willing to pay. Most writers don't have that yet.

Reading platforms

A separate question: where do short stories get read, not just published?

• bibli — short fiction in scenes. Five to ten minutes per piece. Hand-picked, written by humans, standalone or the first scene of a serial.
• Substack — the strongest single platform for fiction newsletters, especially serialized work. Free or paid subscriptions.
• Medium — Partner Program pays per read, but the algorithm favors non-fiction. Possible to make money; hard to make a lot.
• Wattpad — large readership, but the audience is novel-focused. Standalone short fiction tends to underperform.
• Royal Road — strong for genre fiction with serial structure, especially progression fantasy and LitRPG. Less of a fit for literary work.

The smallest plan that works

If you have one short story and want to publish it, the lowest-pain path:

1. Pick three paying markets whose taste you share. Read recent issues. Submit. 2. Set a 60-day reminder. If nothing has come back, send to three more. 3. Keep a list. Spreadsheet, Submission Grinder dashboard, anything. Track where the story has been; track when rights will revert. 4. Don't queue the story to publish on a platform until its journal-submission cycle is finished. Most journals consider previously-published work disqualified.

The story has time. The first journal that says yes is rarely the best one.

Frequently asked questions

What pay rate counts as professional? Six cents per word, per SFWA's threshold. Eight to ten cents per word is the working norm at the top tier of online speculative fiction markets. Literary fiction is more variable; *The Paris Review* pays $1,500 and up, most pay $50–$400.

Should I submit only to paying markets? No. A handful of no-pay journals — *Tin House*, *Guernica*, *Electric Literature*, the major university journals — carry credit that paid markets can't match. The question is what you're optimizing for.

Do simultaneous submissions hurt my chances? At nearly every journal, no. Most expect them. Read guidelines and withdraw quickly when something is accepted elsewhere; that's the etiquette.

Is Tor.com still a market for short fiction? Tor.com rebranded to Reactor in January 2024. Reactor does not accept unsolicited fiction submissions; pieces are commissioned. Submitting blind is no longer the path.

How long should I wait before self-publishing a story? Until the journal-submission cycle has finished. Most paying markets require first publication rights, with rights reverting after six to twelve months. Check the contract; respect the embargo.