Send to journals you respect.  If you are serious about writing poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews, or conducting interviews, you likely would be reading or at least following several literary journals.  If not, stop reading now.

*  Read, read, read the journals, online or in print, to see if the editors share your aesthetic values.  Local and regional journals are good places, always: I-70 Review, New Letters, 105 Meadowlark Reader, and others. 

*  I also look for journals where writers whom I respect are getting published.  What magazines published B.H. Fairchild, Maryfrances Wagner, Kooser or Komunyakaa?  Follow them.  My former students often know good journals I had not heard of.  I have sent work to those.  That’s nice, because my former students and friends then see my work when (and if) it comes out. 

* I investigate journals new to me and always look to see what other writers the journal has published, even if I had not known those writers. I read their work online and their bio notes to assess the journal.

*  Poets & Writers offers a good database of information about magazines and presses, with lots of information for where to send work.  https://www.pw.org/literary_magazines 

—Robert Stewart

If you are primarily a poet, short story writer, or essayist, for example, you will not need and likely could not secure, or, for that matter, benefit from the services of a literary agent.  That is especially true for submitting work to magazines.  If you have a novel or book-length nonfiction work, you might find an agent if you already have a wide following on social media and the book has commercial promise. 

            If so, check online with Publishers Marketplace, Poets & Writers guide, https://www.pw.org/literary_agents or any other of many good websites on the topic.

            One tip:  A first-time author I know went to a writers conference in New York, where she participated in something called “Speed dating with agents,” where she was asked to pitch her book to several agents in five-minutes intervals each, and two or three agents asked for follow-up meetings. 

            One more tip:  I have known several literary agents and offer two points:

* An agent in New York liked my own book of essays very much, and wrote glowing letters to me; but he would not represent me because the book simply had no commercial value.  So it goes in the real world. 

* Two other literary agents said often in lectures that they wanted query letters from the writers about their books.  This was useful because, they said, “If you can’t write a letter, you can’t write a book.” 

—Robert Stewart

No.  Legally, you establish ownership of your work (i.e. secure copyright) the moment you fix it into tangible form—e.g., in a doc. file, onto paper, a recording, and so on. 

No publication or registration is required. However, there are sometimes good reasons to register copyright with the Library of Congress, especially if your work might have commercial value, or if you are just concerned that someone will steal your stuff.  You can register the work with the Library of Congress easily enough.  See my favorite document on the subject of all things copyright: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf.

One case:  I know of one notorious case of a prominent poet whose poems were copied whole and republished by a fellow using a pseudonym, which did result in emotional trauma for the authentic poet, all of this documented in a book later.  The case was notorious, however, because of its extreme rarity; the fact that the work was copyrighted in book form did nothing to stop the plagiarism.

One tip:  Writers who put a copyright notice at the top of their unpublished manuscripts, when submitting work to a magazine or press, tip off the editor that he or she is dealing with a true amateur.  Don’t do it.  It isn’t useful and you will look like someone who doesn’t know the business.

- Robert Stewart