Submission Strategies

A lot of people ask me what my strategy is for submitting manuscripts so I decided to make a little post detailing how I submit my work for publication. First I do a little market research via the internet or the writers guide. When I find a group of suitable markets (publications or contests), I write them down in a list, prioritizing them in order of:

1. How much I want to be published in that publication. I have goals for myself and some of these include certain publications that I am dying to be featured in.

2. How well my work fits their publication. This really should be my top priority but I don’t know any author that hasn’t wanted to be published in one given publication or another so sometimes this criterion falls to number 2. But I do try to refrain from submitting work that doesn’t at least resemble a Publication’s Submission Guidelines. If a Publication doesn’t like short stories, I am not going to submit a collection of Flash Fiction.

3. How much they pay. Most of the time I don’t really care if a publication pays anything. Getting your work out there should be your top priority. The chances of making any money in this business are slim and it’s far better to get yourself read. I have only hit gold once and that was just enough to pay for a little college. If you can gain enough airplay and notoriety, the money will eventually follow.

4. How convenient is their submission process? I know that snail mail submissions are possibly more lucrative than those who accept electronic submissions. But submitting electronically saves me time and money and so the submission method is always a consideration. But we will see if my laziness pays off or is detrimental to my writing career.

5. Do they accept simultaneous submissions? Sometimes I will begin with publications that accept simultaneous submissions so that I can send out multiple copies of my work at once. However in the unlikely situation that two publications would want to publish the same piece of work this might land me in a sticky situation.

Once I have done my research and I have made a list, I start with the first publication and attempt to submit my work as close to their submission policies as possible. Sometimes I put the publications who accept simultaneous submissions at the top of my list enabling me to kill more birds with one stone. Sometimes it’s better not to put all your eggs into one basket.

If I have other work that fits the guidelines of my itemized list. I will go to the second person on the list (who does not accept simultaneous submissions) and submit my work there. That way when the first publication inevitably rejects my work, I can send them another piece that might have already been rejected elsewhere.

Here is a basic overview of my submission process.

I complete a piece of Flash Fiction and I have deemed it ready for submission, I go to submit my work at Pedestal Magazine found here:

http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/

Their guidelines can be found by clicking the “submit” button.

After a reasonable amount of time they will inevitably reject me and then I will submit my work to the Vestal Review found here:

http://www.vestalreview.net/Issue29/issue29.html

And so forth and so forth until I reach the end of my list or someone publishes my work. If my work is completely rejected I post it at the writing community I joined to be found here:

http://www.editred.com/

That way I can get comments on how to improve it until I add it to the archives which I will eventually anthologize and self-publish under the name Blue Skelton (My Pseudonym). If I am confident about my more successful work, I will submit it to a real publisher under my own name. Sometimes it helps to have multiple identities in this business. Authors are a bit like superheroes after all and no one will begrudge you a second identity.

I hope that provides some insight and advice towards submissions. And I am not saying that this is the best or most proven way. It is merely a strategy that works well for me. Feel free to adapt or improvise this into your own strategy. Thanks for reading and I hope that you found the information helpful.