jordan

in an amateur magazine. 

This is good if you’re a college student. I used to be involved (kinda?) in my own school’s literary magazine. I got a story published in it. I’m about to submit something new to another college magazine. So how do you go about writing in your free time as a college student? And how do you submit something? And what are your rights?

Finding free time. You probably don’t have any. Let’s be real. No college student committed to succeeding has a lot of time to spare. Especially for something like writing. So here’s my advice: keep some ideas and half-stories tucked away at all times. Chances are you already do this. Use your school breaks to crank out as much writing and research and planning as possible. It doesn’t have to be good it just has to be something. You can bother with editing later.

Finding a magazine. You probably have a magazine on your campus. If not, a quick google search will show you your options. Some colleges accept submissions from students from other school. There’s other non-college magazines you can submit to, though they sometimes have more guidelines. I’ve seen some magazines that charge you to submit something then pull the “Sorry, we can’t afford to pay our artists” line. I personally stay away from those. If it costs you to get an amateur piece published, it’s not worth it. 

Your rights as a writer. It’s especially important to look at the costs if you don’t even get to keep the rights to your story. Often, you will have to sell some rights. Here is a good breakdown of it all. Sometimes, you agree that the piece can be used in advertisement for the magazine. Usually, you are assuring the magazine that your piece has never been published before and will never be published again.