For you short story writers out there, you know the pain of trying to find the right markets to submit your stories to, how hard it is to keep track of each submission, how hard it is to figure out when to expect a response. Sure, there’s Duotrope, which is great, if you want to pay for it, but I’m willing to bet that most of you short story writers are like me and don’t have the spare cash to pay for a service like this, or if you do, you’d rather not. Well, there’s a solution, and it’s called The Grinder.


The (Submission) Grinder is run by the folks at Diabolical Plots, an online speculative fiction magazine that publishes mostly non-fiction and news related to SciFi/Fantasy, along with some fiction. Because of this, you’ll probably find that most of the markets listed on The Grinder are spec-fic markets. Have no fear, though. There are plenty of the other kinds of magazines and small presses listed, and if you know of a market that they don’t list, you can send them a quick message about it and they usually get it listed within a few days. The database uses user generated data to make graphs that show you how long the market is taking to respond, and you can search markets by genre, length, pay scale, and more. You can log submissions and report acceptances and rejections and dead letters, and you can keep track of all the stories you’ve sent out, which ones are still being considered and which ones you’ve heard back from. It’s really a lifesaving tool for short story writers, and best of all, IT’S FREE.
Cheapskate that I am, I’ve never used Duotrope, so I can’t really compare the two websites to tell you which is better aside from price, but The Grinder does exactly what I need, and it’s free, so there’s really no reason for me to tangle with Duotrope.
A big thank you to Diabolical Plots for giving us poor writers this free service! I’m glad you guys are continuing to improve it, and I hope you never charge us for it!