This is a database of official guidelines and websites, blog posts and other links I feel may be of use to those wishing to write for women’s magazines. Words in blue, green and turquoise should be clickable links.
Although I’ll do my best to keep this information accurate, I VERY STRONGLY advise you to refer to the official guidelines and read a couple of current issues of the magazine in question before submitting.
If you find any of my posts helpful, PLEASE do leave a comment. Comments show editors, publishers and competition organisers that the blog is read. That encourages them to share information with me and therefore allows me to make the blog more useful to everyone.
Last updated (partial update - it's a work in progress!) – 2/1/2024
Womag posts about The Daily Mirror
Official guidelines and website (I think that's non fiction only)
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
word counts - Unknown
Takes all rights - not sure, but I don't think so
paying market - probably not for fiction
how to submit - email
response time - not known
Womagwriter posts about Stand Magazine
Official guidelines and website
work considered - poetry and short stories
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
word counts - under 3,000 preferred
Takes all rights - not sure, but I don't think so
paying market - yes
how to submit - email or post from UK. email from anywhere else
response time - they aim to reply within three months
***
Womagwriter posts about WW 'best of'
Official guidelines and website – none available that I've found.
Work considered - short stories
Word counts - 750 or 1500
Takes all rights? Yes
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
special requirements – authors are invited to send a pitch first.
Womagwriter posts about Sylvia
Work considered – poetry, prose (fiction, non fiction and essays)
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes (but only during advertised submission windows)
Takes all rights? No
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
The People’s Friend & Associated specials
Womagwriter posts about The People’s Friend
Information from the fiction editor, including pay rates.
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – 1,000 – 9,000 (different counts within this range accepted, not anywhere in between)
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Womagwriter posts about Fiction Feast
Accepts unsolicited submissions? No
Takes all rights? No (not for stories published after March 2022)
Approx word count range – 700 – 3,000
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Womagwriter posts about Stylist
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – under 1,000
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Womagwriter posts about Allas
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – 1,000 – 1,500
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
My Weekly & My Weekly Annual
Accepts unsolicited submissions? No
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – varies. Regular contributors will be notified by email.
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Womagwriter posts about Ireland’s Own
Official guidelines. None found, but submissions are mentioned here.
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – 2,000 for adult stories. 800 for children’s
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Official guidelines (These are now very out of date! I requested the current ones and have posted them here.)
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? Yes (for weekly magazine)
Approx word counts – 800 or 1,800 words
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Woman
Official guidelines – None supplied online by the publishers, but I've posted the most recent ones here.
Word count – 1,800 words
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes – submissions for the Woman's Weekly magazine are also considered for Woman and Woman's Own.
Takes all rights? I believe so
Woman's Own
Official website (at least, the closest I could find!)
Official guidelines – None supplied online by the publishers, but I've posted the most recent ones here.
Word count – 1,800 words
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes – submissions for the Woman's Weekly magazine are also considered for Woman and Woman's Own.
Takes all rights? I believe so
How to submit Email
***
Yours
This market is now closed to fiction submissions and will only publish work previously purchased by BAUER.
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – 1,000 Also serials.
Paying market? Yes
Special instructions Include short synopsis
How to submit Email or post
***
That’s Life (Australia)
Accepts unsolicited submissions? No
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range –
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Woman’s World (USA)
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? I believe so
Approx word count range – 600 & 800
Paying market? Yes (high pay)
How to submit Email
***
Best
Official website Best’s Facebook page Best’s Twitter feed
Accepts unsolicited submissions? No, but they do run fairly frequent short story competitions, with the prize of paid publication. These are free to enter and open to all.
Takes all rights? Unknown for commissions. No for competition winners.
Approx word count range – 1,000
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Love Sunday
Official website None – but they do have an out of date Twitter account!
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range –
Paying market? No, but will mention your book if you ask, and IF they don’t ‘forget’.
How to submit Email
***
Spirit and Destiny
Unfortunately I've been informed that this magazine is to close after April 2023.
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? Yes
Approx word count range –
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Allers (Finland)
Official website of publishing company
Accepts unsolicited submissions? No
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range –
Paying market? Possibly, but also re-use stories bought by sister magazine Allas (as allowed for in the contract).
Hemmets
Accepts unsolicited submissions? No
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range –
Paying market? Possibly, but also re-use stories bought by sister magazine Allas (as allowed for in the contract).
Your Cat
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – max 1500 words
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
Prima
Official guidelines – None found online. They are printed in the magazine.
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes – in the form of competition entries.
Takes all rights? Yes
Approx word count range – 800
Paying market? Yes
How to submit Email
***
My Weekly Pocket Novels
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – 50,000
Paying market? Yes, but relatively low for the word count
How to submit Email
***
The People’s Friend Pocket Novels
Accepts unsolicited submissions? Yes
Takes all rights? No
Approx word count range – 37,000 - 39,000
Paying market? Yes, but relatively low for the word count.
How to submit Email
ISSN’s
Why you need them, a list of those I know of, and how to find the rest.
Glossary
Word counts – Where given, these are a rough guide only. Some magazines will accept any word could within the specified range, other will have more precise requirements. Before submitting, please check with the official guidelines if there are any, or the latest Womagwriter posts for that magazine if none are published.
Guidelines – The rules you must follow in order for your work to have any chance of success.
Unsolicited submissions – anyone my submit work, even if they’ve not been previously published and don’t feature on any editors’ list.
All rights – If you give up all your rights, the story is no longer yours. You can’t use it in any way ever again. You can’t earn from it ever again. Whoever acquires all your rights can do whatever they wish with it, including changing anything including the authors name, selling it on, making it into a film or audio book.
I VERY STRONGLY urge all writers NOT to give up all rights. Further information can be found here.
And finally, here's a link to all my books, and a quick mention of these lovely writing books ...
All writers need ideas. We need topics and themes, prompts to get started and a little encouragement to keep going. New writers may be wondering where to begin, daunted by a blank page and want help to transform thoughts into fiction. Even the most experienced have dry periods when ideas don't flow, or times when they appreciate a push to try something different.
Patsy Collins' methods are proven to work. She's employed them at workshops where she's never failed to get her attendees, from brand new and nervous to burnt out, not just writing but producing interesting scenes, snippets and stories.
Each of the daily sets of prompts in this book have been used in some way by Patsy, to create her own work. She needs a lot of ideas as she's completed six novels, co-written From Story Idea to Reader (an accessible guide to writing fiction) and produced twenty collections of themed short stories, averaging two dozen per book. Hundreds of her short stories have been published – mainly in women's magazines. She blogs, writes articles, wins competitions and is always working on something new.
Whether you're a new writer, or a more experienced one temporarily out of ideas, have hours to fill or just five free minutes, you'll find something in this book to help get you writing – every day of the year.
Get it here, or order from bookshops or libraries.
From Story Idea to Reader
An easily accessible guide to writing fiction
Are you looking to submit your work for publication, enter a competition, or do you want to self-publish? This practical guide will help you every step of the way.
Between them, Patsy Collins and Rosemary Kind have sold hundreds of short stories, written sixteen published books and produced numerous articles for Writing Magazine and similar publications. They've both judged writing competitions and run workshops, and Rosemary has read and edited thousands of short stories and published dozens of books for other writers.
With the information, help and encouragement in this book, you too could see your work in print.
Second edition released summer 2022 with updated and additional information!
Buy it now and give your writing life a boost
39 comments:
Thanks so much for all this helpful info, Patsy. I'm confused about The People's Friend's requirements as Julie Louise Phillips posted in Bring Back Fiction to Women's Magazines on April 5th: " I've just been told by People's Friend that at the moment they are only accepting subs from writers who've been published by them before."!
Absolutely brilliant labour of love, Patsy. I just hope it didn't take too long! Many thanks for this hugely helpful resource. And the icing on the cake for me was seeing the cover of my first Pocket Novel, Love and Lies, from 2019!
Thanks for this patsy but that's life in Australia are no longer accepting new fiction. They republish old stock and don't pay the writer. I also thought spirit and destiny had put a temporary halt on subs. They take all rights.
@ Fay – The fiction editor says they are still accepting them, and I think she'd know! https://www.thepeoplesfriend.co.uk/2021/03/30/fiction-eds-blog-waiting-to-hear-about-a-submission/ There is currently a problem accessing them, due to COVID restrictions, but they will eventually be read and considered.
@ Jenny – I don't know how long it took as I've spread the work over several stages – and of course it will never be actually finished as it will require frequent updates.
@ Sharon – Magazines do sometimes change their policy, or temporarily close to submissions, so it's always best to check before writing anything specifically for that market.
Really helpful - thanks, Patsy!
Thank you so much Patsy. This is is so helpful and I'm sure took you a long time and wasn't easy to do. So very much appreciated. xx
So helpful. Many thanks.
Thanks, Rosemary, Sue and New Girl. I appreciate you taking the time to say this is useful.
Thank you so much, Patsy, for this useful information.
This is great, thanks for sharing all this useful info, Patsy. Much appreciated.
If we submit via email. How do we format the story to email? Would it be the same formatting which we use to post them as I can't seem to find any email formatting guides.
@ Hazel – unless the guidelines say otherwise then yes, format in the same way as you would if posting your submission.
The People's Friend have requested no formatting for their emailed subs – that is no paragraph indents and no headers and footers.
Thanks so much, Patsy, a lot of hard work has gone into this so much appreciated.
Thanks Patsy
Thank you so much for this helpful list, Patsy. I hope it didn't take too long to pull together. Much appreciated.
Alyson
Thanks ever so much for this update, Patsy.
Thank you so much for the time and effort into putting this together, Patsy.
Apologies if I am posting in the wrong place, but please may I ask if anyone has the new e-mail address for Allas Sweden submissions?
I have searched every website for the magazine, and not been able to track down the new fiction editor. E mails to Lotta are rejected, so no one is watching her e-mail box.
I have sent a few e-mails to various addresses, but have no response.
Thanks in advance,
KB
@ KB, sorry it's taken a while to respond.
The new fiction editors are Cecilia Ericson and Margaretha Malmgren. Their emails work in the same was as Lotta's did.
Thanks for this, Patsy. Very useful.
Thank you, Patsy. This is really helpful.
Thanks so much! Very helpful!
Thanks for the updates. I didn't know that Allas were only accepting stories in Swedish now. I might as well stop sending stuff into the black hole then!! Any idea how long that has been policy for?
@ Sherri – Several months ago, I believe. Writing friends told me they'd had rejections saying they can no longer translate from English. I didn't get one, and my queries on the subject haven't been answered.
Brilliant, Patsy. I haven't submitted anywhere for a while and felt totally out of date.
That is a shame about Allas, and that they haven't replied to your queries when you've been published by them so much. Oh well.
@ Dorinda – Things can change quite quickly!
@ Sherri – I did ask in English...
Thank you Patsy.
Have shared the link to the Womag Writers and Company Facebook group.
I don't often comment. But this is my go-to website for any information and up to date news.
You do a wonderful job and we all really appreciate it
Thanks, Carol and Carol!
Your comments help me know which posts and pages are useful.
Wow! This is one almighty helpful page! I've dipped in to the odd one from time to time but this is so comprehensive - and you've updated recently! I hope you're going to get a pay rise for that! ;) Thank you - appreciated.
As Marguerite said this is so helpful to have an updated version. I'm going to get the finger out & try to submitting to some different magazine that I haven't yet tried
Thanks for taking the time and mobilising your energy to construct this helpful site!
I just read your website bio and I love how your sense of humor shines in everything you write. Thanks for figuring it out! book writing service about what we love most is a great blog.
This is a great resource. Thanks Patsy. Just one thing. Info from Andrew Shaw, Fiction Ed, Woman's Weekly. Woman and Woman's Own are no longer accepting new fiction. One isn't carrying fiction any longer and the other is recycling. I can't remember which one is doing what but that's the situation apparently.
This is so informative - thank you for sharing!
Once again, Patsy,thank you for all your hard work in compiling this info. I must keep trying with subs and this makes it so much easier. It's very much appreciated.
I have just tried the email for fiction YOU south africa and it doesn't work. Jennifer
@ Jennifer - They 'temporarily' closed to submissions a while ago. I'm not sure if they'll ever reopen.
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