Well, I am going to type this as I think of it, so will it be a how to guide? a gripe? a chronicle? We shall see.
I’m in the process of submitting poems this morning. I have a stack of poems that came in from rejections over the last week and I have the new poems that I revised from April ready to go out. I’m also in a time crunch today, with lots to do, so it is more like how many quality packets can I get out until I need to leave and head over to the Open Mike? Again, we shall see.
- When submitting. Try your best to be familiar with the journal you are submitting to. This used to be more difficult, but now just about all journals have a sample of their work on their website. Try to read a few poems before you send! There is nothing that irks me more then when I am working with a submitted to Shape of a Box who hasn’t even watched one of our videos. Really? Some of them are like a minute and a half?
- Follow their guidelines! I was just getting ready to send one and realized I needed to have my name and address on each page. I hate wasting paper but I had to go back and fix that. Why? Well for one out of respect for the publication who is taking the time to read your work and 2 because, well, you do want it to be read don’t you? It would be really easy to toss out your submission because you didn’t comply. So much material gets sent to each publication!
- Take your time. I find myself trying to go fast doing this but it helps to just take your time, make sure you did everything correctly and that you recorded where you sent your work in some form and what draft of the work you sent. I print a draft and attach it to any old drafts that I have printed and keep each submission bundle stored in a box. A lovely red cardboard box I got at Ikea
- If you are sending out poems that have been rejected before, take the time before you resend them to re-read them, preferably out-loud. Since rejections can take up to 6 months (or more) to come back, you have managed to have some distance from the work and you might -re-vision- it.
- If you can avoid it, don’t simultaneously submit individual poems. Why? For many reasons. For one-it can be difficult to track where all you sent them to ( I accidentally simul subbed and it was confusing enough!) For two-do you really want to have to withdraw poems for consideration from say Poetry when they were accepted at say Two Foot Review (made up of course?) Not that anything is wrong with Two Foot Review, but ya know what I mean
Ok so I think that is enough of tips for today. I have a few more poems that I want to try and get out the door, but I’m running out of time if I want to still get out and get a walk in before the Open Mike tonight at Jackson’s Jave, oh and dinner before that etc etc.
But hopefully I’ll think of some more things to discuss with sending your work out.
But the biggest: IF YOU DON’T READ LIT MAGS (ONLINE OR IN PRINT) THEN YOU AREN’T READY TO SEND YOUR WORK OUT!!!
All excellent advice that might go a long way to explain why my list of publishing credits is so short. Perhaps I should change my covering letter? “The last issue of your journal was a bit boring, would you like to one of my poems in it to liven it up a bit?” Or drop a comment in their blog, “Your journal is cool, I’ll leave a link under my name here, feel free to copy and paste anything you want out of my blog and drop it in your journal.”
I fully agree about NOT simultaneously submitting. It’s just too difficult to keep track of those who won’t allow it and poems sent to more than one magazine. I know it saves time to do it, but for me it’s not worth the aggravation (to say nothing of the possibility, however small, that two magazines will want the same poem and you will make someone so mad they’ll never read your work again). Like you, I’ve done this by accident before and that was bad enough.
Your suggestions contain no surprises, just good advice.
Have fun tonight.
Paul. I have two words for you
Cheeky monkey 
Helen – it is funny that there are no real new things to say about submitting but the same things have to be said because people still just don’t listen?
It’s good for a beginner like me to hear multiple points of view. I just heard a rant from another veteran who stressed TO simultaneously submit. And the world goes ’round and ’round…
Now I call that perfectly sound advice!
Thanks Mindy
J2 – I would say to consider simul submit if you can keep track of it and if you only have a few things that you are sending out because you don’t want to constantly waiting on stuff. This applies more to poetry, as well, where you are sending packets versus short stories which you send individually.
I would say too, if you are gonna simul submit then do it to magazines of all the same tier. So if you are sending to Poetry and say The Paris Review at the same time ok, but to send to Poetry and The Two Foot Review wouldn’t you hate to pull your work from Poetry because Two Foot accepted it first? (Not that Two Foot is bad, or that it even exists) but if someone pulled from me because they got into Poetry I would TOTALLY understand
I’m learning that submitting is almost a full-time job in itself. Your wisdom is much appreciated, as is Paul’s comment above!
It is sort of like a full time job.
I usually spend about 4 hours a week doing it.
When I was still working full time I generally did it on a Saturday afternoon. I know, I have such an exciting life!
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