Literary journals are one of the best ways to build a publication history. They give agents and publishing houses a reason to take your manuscript submission seriously. However, most literary journals publish short stories, poems, non-fiction, and flash fiction, not novel excerpts.
That is fine as many novelists also write other work. Some do not. This is why it is great to find literary journals that publish novel excerpts. This is also helpful if you are looking to promote your novel. If a reader stumbles across your novel excerpt in a literary journal, they may go ahead and buy your novel.
When choosing an excerpt to submit, do keep in mind that the editor and any future readers will not have any background information about that piece, so the excerpt you choose should be as self contained as possible.
It is important to note that many of the journals have additional guidelines regarding the novel excerpt, that you can read in their submission guidelines. Also the majority of the journals on this list are currently open to submissions, but not all of them.
An online literary journal that has published a number of great and established writers, Joyland publishes a variety of fiction, including novel excerpts. To learn more visit their submission guidelines here.
A respected online literary journal published by a respected literary publisher, The Collagist generally publishes one novel excerpt per issue. To learn more read our full review here, or visit their submission guidelines here.
A respected print journal that publishes novel excerpts. They charge $4 for electronic submissions. So we instead encourage you to submit by post.
A Canadian publication interested in publishing a wider variety of writing, including novel excerpts.
A literary journal that publishes novel excerpts as well as screenplay excerpts and a wide variety of other writing.
A literary journal that publishes short stories, novel excerpts, and a variety of non-fiction (including memoir).
A literary journal that not only publishes excerpts from unpublished novels, they accept and encourage submissions of excerpts from already published novels.
A great online literary journal focused on publishing work by emerging authors. They publish excerpts from novels that are traditionally published.
A Canadian literary journal that publishes a variety of work, including stand alone novel excerpts.
They bill themselves as a journal for readers and writers of historical fiction. They are open to novel excerpts in the genre of historical fiction. They consider work year round.
A respected journal that publishes poetry, fiction including novel excerpts, creative nonfiction and photography.
They publish a wide variety of written work, including novel excerpts online. Novel excerpts should be between 1,500 and 10,000 words.
A very respected online literary journal, Word Riot accepts novel excerpts. Submissions can be up to 6,500 words in length. Please include a brief synopsis of your novel and a general overview of its theme.
