Submission Process

Hello all. Still'm editing Magic In Dogtown. While doing so, I'm working on sending some of my short stories to some literary magazines and markets.

If no one has informed you that writing is a job, well, I'm telling you now. It is. It even comes with its own interview process of sorts. You know how when applying to jobs, you submit a cover letter, resume, and wait to hear back from the prospective employer or Human Resources department? Submitting written stories is kind of similar.

For literary journals, you have to shop around and do your research like any other job. A good resource is Writer's Market. It's a kind of yellow-pages like listing of different agents, markets, literary magazines, and journals. Read through it, find some items of interest, and then read the journals or information on agents that interest you. When it's time, you, erm, "apply" for the job, and by that I mean submit your work.

Submission can be as easy as an online entry form, or can involve going through a routine of cover letters, query letters, and partial manuscripts even before the entire manuscript is considered. And, even after all of that, you can still get rejected. In fact, it's a pretty good idea to count on getting rejected. It's a part of the life.

I've heard that keeping a spreadsheet of your submissions is good practice, and I completely agree. Whether it be a spreadsheet you keep in Google Docs, or an Excel spreadsheet you save on your personal computer... a record of what you sent to which agencies or magazines is essential. Personally, I highlight all entries that I'm waiting to hear back from in yellow; all rejected entries in red; and all accepted entries in green. (Like a traffic light: yellow for wait, red for no, and green for go).

Problem is, like regular employment, experience matters. In cover letters and query letters, it makes a big difference if you can list past publishing credits.

But what if you're unpublished, like me and most of Earth's population? How does one get published when it helps to already be published? Therein lies the conundrum.

At this point, I don't really know what to tell you, since I'm currently fighting the same battle. Just... don't give up. The fight to get there is half the fun... I think.