Submission Sunday - September 2023
putting it out there
It’s that time again, folks. Submission Sunday!
Submission Update: I submitted 10 times in August, most of which are still pending responses. So far in September, I have received 2 acceptance letters and 3 rejection letters.
Today, I submitted 2 pieces to 5 markets! High-Five anyone?
How about you? Leave a comment below if you were able to submit your writing today. We will celebrate together.
Wondering where to submit? Check out these open calls for submissions:
Room Magazine: Open call for submissions. Accepting submissions through September 30th.
Chestnut Review: Accepting submissions for their Winter Issue until September 30th.
Flash 500 Flash Fiction Competition: The current round accepts submissions until September 30th.
Story Quarterly: Open for submission for Issue 56 until December 16th.
Do you have a submission strategy?
There is so much advice out there about the ‘right’ way to submit. You might have heard these:
Submit to the Top Tier first! Who wants to receive an acceptance letter from The New Yorker the day after gleefully accepting an offer to publish in Bubba’s Backyard Lit Rag? (BTW - I don’t believe Bubba currently edits a Literary Magazine of this name, but if they do… apologies! I am sure it is fantastic, and I did not mean to imply otherwise. In fact, send me a link, and I will subscribe.)
Submit in Rounds! Submit to 5 – 10 magazines from the same “Tier”, wait four months and then select 5-10 from the following “Tier” …and so forth ad nauseam. However, this strategy does not avoid that mythical acceptance letter coming from The New Yorker or The Paris Review after you’ve accepted Bubba’s offer! Responses to the slush-pile submissions from top literary magazines seem to take longer these days - if they decide to respond at all!
More Revision. If you receive 10 non-encouraging rejections on a piece, get out your red marker and revise before sending it out again. Give up after 5-rounds of this and start day drinking. Bubba and I think this is terrible advice!
Everybody seems to be an expert.
If you like the tiered approach, here are some of the most frequently used rankings. (It is interesting to note that the ranking in these lists varies widely outside of the top 50 or so magazines.)
Over the years, I have actually tried all of the above submission strategies. I have poured over rankings, submitted via rounds, revised until my fingers bled, used a dart board, a bingo wheel, a random number generator, and sacrificial offerings to the God of Wayward Artists (don’t worry, no animals or people were harmed in the making of said sacrifices, but my BFF did remove all the matches from my house and complained about the overwhelming scent of sage.)
In the end, I’ve found a strategy that works for me:
I schedule submission time every month. That’s right, I put it on my calendar. Submission Sunday. Once a month.
When I sit down to write, I ask myself, “Do I feel like creating, revising or submitting today?” And then I do one of those things.
I Write—a Lot. I’ve called this phase rehearsing, cooking, growing, brewing… the metaphor changes with my mood. I work on multiple pieces. Sometimes, I work on things that aren’t even pieces yet – I’m not picky. When I think I have a dirty, messy, raw piece that could be called a draft, I let it rest before editing/revising (at least 2 weeks, but longer is better for me.)
Revise, Rinse, Repeat - until I think the piece is “finished”.
I want to note here that finished does not necessarily mean perfect. Everything is revisable as our perceptions, experiences, and understandings change over time. I’ve learned to hold my pieces loosely.
Once I am ready to send my piece out into the wild, I put it in the “To-Be-Submitted” pile. When I’m prepared to submit:
I do some research, which consists of scrolling through the above rankings, as well as the calendars in both Submittable and Duotrope. I browse Chill Subs and Submission Grinder. But my preferred method of finding magazines is to use Duotrope and bring up a magazine I respect, for instance, Smokelong Quarterly. At the bottom of the Duotrope listings are two sections: “Work submitted here was also submitted to…” and “Members accepted here also had work accepted by…” There will be anywhere from 5 to 15 other magazines in these lists. I then go down that rabbit hole, doing the same with subsequent magazines. I open the magazine’s website and check its look and feel. Review its Masthead. Sometimes, I browse the archive, although I will admit I don’t always have time to do this for each magazine. This process will usually generate 10 to 20 places I think would be a fit for my piece.
I submit to at least 5 places and no more than 8.
When I receive a rejection (because ya… 99.99999(to infinity)% of submissions result in a rejection), I immediately – that same day – resubmit the piece to one of the magazines on my list of 20. If I get to the end of my list and have not received an acceptance (this also happens often), I put the piece back into my resting pile so that I can re-read it at a later date and decide if I want to revise or keep sending it out as is.
On a side note – I don’t always revise these pieces; sometimes, I move the piece back to the “To-Be-Submitted” pile.
And voila! That is my whole strategy. I am certainly not an expert. And if you have a strategy that works for you, Hoozah!!! Please share it with us in the comments below.
On a final note:
If I receive an acceptance letter (it’s like a unicorn folks, so this isn’t often), I read the publication terms to ensure there isn’t anything onerous in the contract. If the contract or publication rights are acceptable to me, I immediately respond in the affirmative and withdraw my piece from other magazines as soon as the accepting magazine confirms my response. I feel like the time to hedge is before submitting. If I sent my work to Bubba’s Backyard Lit Rag and The New Yorker simultaneously, I would consider it The New Yorker’s loss if Bubba responded faster! I NEVER hang back in hopes that magazine X will accept my piece. (If you are Joyce Carole Oats, Margaret Atwood or Zadie Smith, this advice doesn’t apply as The New Yorker will be getting back to you shortly, and Bubba is out of luck.)
I CELEBRATE every single submission. I play my “Happy Dance” playlist while submitting, and then I play my “You Rock” playlist when submissions are made for the day. I do this EVERY SINGLE TIME I SUBMIT. (YES, I am CAP yelling at you!!! This step is SO important regardless of your preferred submission strategy – don’t skip this last step.)
And that’s it folks. If you didn’t have anything ready to submit today, no worries… we will submit again together on Sunday, October 22nd.
Happy Writing.