How to Keep Track of Your Writing Submissions

One type of housekeeping that every writer has to do is to keep track of submissions. This task has become slightly easier since the advent of Submittable, a software that many literary magazines use to handle submissions. Submittable was founded in 2010 by a filmmaker, a musician, and a novelist who wanted to democratize the submissions process.

Once you have an account in Submittable, you can go to the SUBMISSIONS menu and view several different sub-menus, including ALL, ACTIVE, ACCEPTED, DECLINED, and WITHDRAWN. I do find it useful to check my Submittable account periodically to remind myself about what work I’ve sent out and to view results.

The problem is, not every magazine uses Submittable. Many have their own submission interface, and some still only consider hard copy submissions. Submittable alone will not enable you to keep track of the manuscripts you send to magazines or publishers.

All the writers I know have some form of personal database to keep track of their submissions. This is particularly true for poets, who have many individual titles and may submit numerous poems in various combinations to different magazines at the same time.

I find it fascinating that every writer I asked has invented his or her own system for keeping track of submissions. Writers use a variety of software, from Word to Excel to FileMaker Pro, and a range of different notation systems.

I noticed that certain fields are common denominators in all these databases: title, name of magazine or press submitted to, date submitted, and decision (accepted or rejected).

Some writers have their own codes to make the fields easily searchable. The poet Robert Thomas told me he uses a table in Word with these abbreviations in the left-hand column: “X means it’s submitted somewhere, blank means it’s not, and ! means it’s been accepted. If I sort by that first narrow column I can see at a glance what’s out and what’s not.” Interestingly, Robert includes poems in his database that he has not yet submitted, so he can consider those poems when he’s ready to send to a magazine.

Robert Thomas

The writer Jeanne Wagner uses an ingenious color-coding system in her database to indicate whether a poem has been accepted or not: “I keep track of all my submissions on Excel. It’s very simple. The first column is the name of the journal or prize, 2nd the name of the poem(s) the 3rd the date submitted, 4th the result—award amount or publication. In the space to the right, I occasionally make a note, i.e., ‘editorial comment received,’ ‘accepts pre-published,’ ‘don’t resubmit.’ I highlight the positive results in red (publication or award), the rejections in blue, and the withdrawals and non-responses in green. The accepted poems are underlined. I don’t send in a query about my submission until it is well past (at least a month) the date for response listed in the journal’s guidelines.”

Jeanne Wagner

The poet Kendall Dunkelberg has his own method: “I have a system, developed in the 1980s first on Apple’s Hypercard and migrated eventually to SuperCard, that keeps track of submissions, magazines, and grants. It runs reports and even helps me manage readings and book sales." Kendall has written a blog that explains his system in greater detail.

Kendall Dunkelberg

The poet Melissa Stein works with a different software: “I’ve been using an old Filemaker Pro version forever. I’m surprised it still functions. I usually do simultaneous submissions. I generally email magazines immediately when something is accepted.”

Melissa Stein

Each of the poets I queried had his or her own method. It turns out my own method is a lot more obsessive than the other poets I asked.

I use a Word table with all the columns that the other poets mentioned, but I also have a column labeled Previous title. I often change the title of a poem or manuscript during the period I’m submitting it, and I want to be sure that I find all the previous submissions if I have to notify an editor that a simultaneous submission has been accepted elsewhere.

I have another column called Reminder Sent. Two or three times a year I go back over my Word table and look for submissions where the magazine has not responded. I usually wait at least four months before sending a reminder to a literary magazine. The reminder I send is a very brief email just giving the names of all the poems I submitted, the date I submitted them, and a quick note saying that I hope they will let me know soon if they would like to publish any of the poems. In my Word table I enter the date when I send an email reminder to a publication I haven’t heard from, so I don’t repeat reminders.

I also have a column called Address, email, or online submission manager to keep track of how and where I actually submitted the work. If I know which editor I sent the poems to, I include her or his name in that column. I find it reassuring to attach a name to my submission—it makes me feel a more personal connection to the journal. But I also include the name so that any correspondence goes to an individual, not just to an inbox.

When I get a response from a magazine or publisher, I always make a note whenever the response invites me to submit work again, and if there was a personal note, similar to Jeanne Wagner’s database. Maybe once a year I look for those entries and resubmit to one or two of them, starting my cover letter by saying that the magazine invited me to resubmit last time.

I also have a column for the announced publication date of an accepted poem, and a column for the date when it is actually published. Sometimes works are accepted and not published when expected, or ever. I like to keep tabs on that so I can find out if and why a publication is delayed. In an extreme situation, I will resubmit the work if the magazine ceases publication. That can happen, unfortunately.

There is an online submissions tracking system that you can pay for called Duotrope®. Duotrope costs $50 a year, and in addition to providing a way to track your submissions, the website offers a search feature to find publishers, an index of listings, and a calendar of upcoming deadlines. Personally, I don’t think this is a service a writer needs to pay for, but if you can afford it, this seems like a reasonable solution as well. 

Whatever method you use, make sure that it’s easy to find previous submissions, especially if you submit work simultaneously. An important part of a writer’s housekeeping is to notify editors when work is accepted elsewhere, so that publications don’t spend time evaluating a submission that is no longer available.

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Zack’s new book of poetry, The Kama Sutra for Senior Citizens and Other Poems on Aging. Order in the USA    Order in the UK

Zack’s most recent translation: The Water Drinkers and Other Sketches of Paris in the Romantic Era by Henry Murger

Other posts of interest:

How to Get Published

Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop

How Not to Become a Literary Dropout

Putting Together a Book Manuscript

Working with a Writing Mentor

How to Deliver Your Message

Does the Muse Have a Cell Phone?

Why Write Poetry?

Poetic Forms: Introduction, the Sonnet, the Sestina, the Ghazal, the Tanka, the Villanelle

Praise and Lament

How to Be an American Writer

Writers and Collaboration

Types of Closure in Poetry

How to Get Started on Publishing Your Work: Themed Issues and Anthologies

One good starting place for writers who are new to submitting their work for publication is to begin with theme issues of magazines and themed anthologies. Publishers announce they are looking for work for a themed issue or anthology by putting out a call for submissions. Calls for submissions often appear on several websites and in magazines. 

When you  start submitting your work, set up an account with Submittable.com so you can view your submissions to magazines and presses that use that site for contributors. Submittable has a Discover tab on their website that is useful in finding publications that have upcoming deadlines and themed issues. 

Another very useful listing right now for publications in the U.S.A. is the  New Pages site, since it is updated several times a week. Other sites are also very helpful, including Poets & Writers Magazine, which has a comprehensive list of publications looking for new work, and Poetry Flash. 

Joyce Jenkins, editor of Poetry Flash

I’ve recently bookmarked another site called writingcareer.com that focuses only on publishing opportunities that pay writers. It has sections devoted to fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. 

There is also a site called Writer's Relief that has a page just on anthologies that are looking for work, although they are now charging for subscriptions to their service. I also visit a website that lists calls for submissions in the U.K. and in other countries outside the U.S., called The Poetry Kit. Another good site for international publications seeking work is 15 International Magazines Seeking English Submissions. I’ve also been consulting The Review Review, a website that also has some good calls for submissions.

Why begin your publishing career with themed issues of magazines and anthologies? For those publications, editors are keenly interested in work by writers from a particular group or region, or work written on a specific topic. They tend to be much less interested in whether you have published before, or whether you are a well-known author. The editor(s) of the magazine or anthology might also solicit work from well-published authors, but that’s all the better, since your writing, if accepted, might appear side-by-side with the writing of an author you admire.

When you submit work to a themed issue or anthology, be sure to read the guidelines extremely carefully. The editor’s phrasing will give you a sense of how loosely or strictly the publication is interpreting the theme.

As an illustration of how to make use of a call for submissions, here’s one (no longer current) from the website of Slipstream, an excellent poetry magazine: “We are currently reading for another theme issue (#32) for which we will explore ‘Cars, Bars & Stars.’ A poem could include any combination of the subjects or only one. Creative interpretations are encouraged.” Clearly the editors are leaving the theme fairly loose, as they indicate by the phrase, “Creative interpretations are encouraged.” You have some leeway here.

Here’s an example of a stricter theme I saw a couple of years ago on the website of Poetry Flash: “Windfall, A Journal of Poetry of Place is accepting poems about places in the Pacific Northwest for its spring issue. Submit up to five short poems that should not exceed fifty lines each.” This is much more specific. You don’t have to actually live in the Pacific Northwest to submit, if I’m reading this correctly, but you do have to write about its landscape and/or geography. The length requirement is also very specific, and would rule out any poem longer than a page and a half. You have to pay careful attention to those details when you are submitting, otherwise you are wasting your time and the editor’s.

Some journals, such as Slipstream, often publish theme issues, and those are ones where you might want to check their website regularly, to see what their latest theme is. You may not think of a work you’ve written as being about a specific theme, but if you look with the lens of that theme, you may discover a side to the work you never saw before.

Zack’s most recent book of poems, Irreverent Litanies
Zack’s most recent translation, Bérénice 1934–44: An Actress in Occupied Paris by Isabelle Stibbe

Other recent posts on writing topics:

How to Get Published
Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop
How Not to Become a Literary Dropout
Putting Together a Book Manuscript
Working with a Writing Mentor
How to Deliver Your Message
Does the Muse Have a Cell Phone?
Why Write Poetry? 
Poetic Forms: Introduction; The Sonnet, The Sestina, The Ghazal, The Tanka, The Villanelle
Praise and Lament
How to Be an American Writer
Writers and Collaboration
Types of Closure in Poetry