Are you a creative writer? Do you have the creative nerve? Do you have stories that inspire and fascinate? Do you want to speak through your story? Do you want your characters to speak a myriad of emotions? If the answer to all of these questions is a big yes, you have come to the right place as I will share with you my favorite websites for short story submissions.
If you are an avid story lover, and love writing, I have something great for you! If you have not been looking for a place to publish your creativity, I must let you know that creating your own creative space will be the best thing you do to yourself. You can bring your characters come alive and speak to an audience to portray intense emotions! However, if you have been looking for such a creative space, you have come to the right place, because this is where you will find the best places to publish short stories online to gain an audience!
It does not matter as to what genre you write, you will definitely find your perfect place for publishing your work, get honest feedback, and create a friendly network of people with similar ideas, thought, and interests as you.
Without any further ado, let’s get started with 11 websites for short story submissions!
1. Notion Press

If you want your collection of short stories to get published, Notionpress is one of the fastest growing communities with over 0.2 million registered writers and over 0.3 million community members. You get to become a published writer through NotionPress and showcase your skill to the world. Not just that, you get to take home some good profit too! Hence, it is a win-win situation for you.
You will be guided by a team of experts, making your publishing experience even smoother. You can sell your story across the globe and gain an audience who will resonate with your stories. Thus, you should definitely not miss upon Notionpress. If you wish to get published, do check out what all it has in store for you.
2. Wattpad

In the list of the best online platforms for short story submissions, Wattpad has always been on the top! Wattpad gives you a space where young readers and writers unite, form a social network, and most importantly, express.
The numbers Wattpad has made in terms of its audience is incredible! You will have a myriad of readers across all genres who will read your piece with utmost interest. Not only read, but the best part about Wattpad is that the readers also leave you an instant feedback after the read. Isn’t that amazing? You get to know so much more about your writing from a third party perspective. This is something that always helps a writer to polish his/her skills.
Another great thing about Wattpad is that your followers on the platform are notified whenever you publish something, so that they do not miss out on your amazing work, and you do not miss on a beautiful audience! You can always analyze the statistics to know how your story has been doing. Stories are ranked too. A striking feature is that you can always go back to any of your works to edit it again.
It is one of the largest communities of readers and writers passionate about ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and words. It is a global community of over 90 million readers. The tagline of Wattpad rightly says ‘Where Stories Live,’ because they rightly do, impacting millions of minds and changing the world for the better and making it a better place to live in.
Overall, Wattpad should be a great choice for you, because what is more powerful than words is the emotions between the lines.
3. Medium

Medium is another popular platform where you can publish your stories and get a significantly intelligent audience. The audience there reads with a great interest; so if your story is fascinating, you should expect a good number of readers to connect with you and join your community.
Talking about the feedback, the readers on Medium are quite witty. This makes it certain that you get the right feedback regarding your work, thus, increasing your scope of improvement in the skill.
Thus, if you are a novice creative writer, looking for good feedback to improvise upon your skill and eventually gain an audience, Medium is the place for you.
4. Commaful

In the world of stories, one of the most named publishing platforms includes Commaful. You get a fairly good audience who are avid readers. The readers can definitely help you grow as a writer in the best possible ways.
You get feedback from amazing and friendly readers, who will only want to see your growth. You can write on various genres and topics. As a novice writer, you should definitely check out Commaful to get some good advice and connect with critics and reviewers.
Commaful is mostly known for fiction writers, so if you are a creative writer and if you want to tell a story, do consider Commaful.
5. Inkitt

Inkitt is another renowned name amongst both professional and novice writers. If you want to publish your book of short stories, Inkitt should be a great choice. Inkitt looks for talented individuals who have it in them. Who knows, you can get published through the power of reader feedback on Inkitt!
Inkitt helps you create your community with people who think and have similar subjects of interest as you.
There are people who wish to scout talented writers, and you could be next! If you have been looking for such a platform with no barriers and pure endorsement of talent, this is the place for you.
6. Archive of Our Own

This is one of the best fanfiction websites with a fairly large community of readers and critics who will help you improvise on your skill. The readers are witty and active enough to leave you analyzed feedback based on your writing style, tone, grammar, and resonation.
If you are a novice writer and looking for some great advice, you must check out Archive of our Own for some great reviewers and readers. You can also create a great community and network there.
7. Fictionpress

If you are a passionate fiction writer, Fictionpress gives you a platform for short story submissions. Ranging from horror to romance, Fictionpress has a space for all genres for both readers and writers. The growing community has readers in several fundamental genres like fantasy, fiction, horror, romance, mystery, sci-fi, young adult, spiritual, and so much more.
It sometimes becomes challenging to find the right platform if you focus on a particular genre. However, this problem ends here, as Fictionpress is diverse enough to offer you ample space.
8. The Abstract Elephant

In the world of stories and storytellers, The Abstract Elephant gives you a different feel of stories altogether. It has an amazingly creative and straightforward interface to make things simpler for you and make your piece stand out.
If you are a fiction or, say, a creative writer, you get to publish your work among the best stories and gain an audience. Your stories will be backed by related snaps to keep the readers hooked. It also has a great and eye-pleasing font where the subconscious brain desires to continue reading and gets immersed in your story. Conclusively, The Abstract Elephant definitely knows its game and knows how to make readers reach to your story! So do not miss out on it!
9. Booksie

Booksie has a variety of writing pieces, including short stories, poems, novels, and more. These write-ups range from all kinds of genres, so you definitely do not have to worry about being confined to a specific genre.
Booksie has some exceedingly talented writers who are given a chance to showcase their talent to the world. It has features like contests and the feature section. The competitions help the budding writer create a name of their own. The feature section brings up your article to a greater audience if it is fascinating enough! Hence, Booksie should be checked out too.
10. Smashwords

If you want to self publish and have not found your go-to website, Smashwords is something you should definitely try. It aims to support budding writers who are looking for short story submission websites and have the creative nerve.
All genres of short stories and novels are accepted and reviewed, thus, giving you decent exposure and support by the community. There have been thousands of published works as yet, most of which are free. So, if you want your content to be published and get good exposure, Smashwords is the place for you.
11. The Young Writers Society

If you are a budding writer looking for a great network of people, The Young Writers Society has it in its name itself. You get to seek advice from readers of the kind you are targeting. If you are a novice writer, the forums help you discuss your piece with the readers so you can get first hand knowledge of the third party perspective.
The Young Writers Society helps you create a network of great people of your age, who are young and full of zeal to know and analyze new things every day. You should definitely check out the website to see what all it has to offer and if it meets your needs as a writer.
My Final Thoughts on 11 Websites for Short Story Submissions
I have mentioned some of the most popular and demanding online platforms for short story submissions. The most important thing a writer needs is to make his/her characters come alive and resonate with the readers. The next thing a writer looks for is honest feedback to help enhance his/her art. Writing can definitely be defined as an art form because writers impact minds in the most artistic ways.
If you are a novice writer learning about all sorts of technicalities of writing and learning to bring that subtle feel in your writing through the tone, the verses, the style, the structure, you should know that no art can ever be perfect. Art itself means an accumulation of the flawed ideas of human brains and beyond what already exists. I believe anything flawed is more perfect than something perfect. Flaws make things relatable. Hence, the minds coming from different cultures, backgrounds, and situations resonate with those imperfect characters you use as a medium to express human emotions, and that is what is gold.
If you have not started to publish your work yet, what are you waiting for! The world lives for stories, and your stories shall live on if you impact the world.