INCREASE YOUR CHANCES FOR 

MAGAZINE PUBLICATION

by David B. Axelrod

Want to know how to increase your chances of getting your poems published?  Even if art is something you create for yourself, when you want to get published, you still will need to study your market. Try to match what you do to the tastes of a particular editor or audience.

It is best, of course, if you can read a copy of the magazine before you send your poems. It is also true that your local library or store will have few of the thousands of journals and alternative press magazines that are actually looking for good poems, stories, even art work and photography. If you get a copy of the Small Press Review, www.dustbooks.com  you can find a list of magazines that offer free samples. You'll also find announcements of new magazines and markets calling for specific themes. The International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses, www.dustbooks.com lists thousands of outlets!

Here's a trade secret we have tried and succeeded with: when  you read the poems in a magazine, pay particular attention to the title and the opening line of each poem. If the editor like the opening, that will definitely help  you get published. But if you really want to get published, be sure that the last line of your poem ends the way poems end in the magazine you are reading. We have had four times greater success placing poems using these "tricks" to match our poems to the magazines to which we've sent our poems!