I’ve been a regular story contributor to “Chicken Soup for the Soul” since my first submission, and success, in February, 2010. It was nothing short of a miracle that the very first time I submitted to the book series my anecdote about teaching was accepted.
And nothing motivates me to write like seeing my name in print, especially when it appears on the Payee line of a check!
Yeah, yeah, a lot of people will tell you that you must write “for yourself” and not worry about publication, but those people are usually the same ones who have never experienced the rush of being paid for the way they put words on paper.
“Chicken Soup for the Soul” publishes eight or ten different themed books a year. They solicit stories from virtually everyone, via their website, and electronic submissions are the only way they now accept a writer’s work. My, how times have changed!
So I regularly peruse their “Upcoming Titles” list, and when I have a story that fits their need, I write it up, fill in the online form with my name, address, and title of story, then copy and paste the text of my story in the appropriate box.
It sounds so simple! Yet the underlying work that goes into actually writing a story that will be selected from among several thousand to be one of the 101 stories in each volume is massive.
Fortunately, my innate style of writing has proven to be the kind of writing the nice people at Chicken Soup are looking for, and to date, I’ve had 21 acceptances in 3 ½ years! And considering the heavy, world-wide competition, that’s a miracle, indeed!
And as it turns out, “Miracles Happen” is the title of a Chicken Soup book I just submitted to last week… We’ll see if that submission produces Miracle #22 in a couple more months!
Stay tuned!
