Tag Archives: submission guidelines

Tracking manuscripts just got easier: Manuscript Tracker by Mike Blaguszewski

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I haven’t had much time to myself, let alone time to think about sending out stories for publication, so this weekend I’ve been rounding up my markets and guidelines and blitzing all the places within a 1,000-mile radius from my house that accept short fiction.

Maybe further.

So far I’ve sent out at least six different pieces to seven different markets (whose identities shall remain a secret, for the time being), and have been experimenting with different ways of keeping track of my submissions. I’ve currently got an overly convoluted system happening that involves an Excel spreadsheet, a series of index cards, and a pretty great free program for Mac called Manuscript Tracker written by Mike Blaguszewski. I probably don’t need both the spreadsheet and the index cards, but since I like to have a paper trail, I’ve been collecting index cards the way 10-year-old boys collect baseball cards. (Or used to, anyway. Do people still collect baseball cards, what with the Internet and all?)

I really like Manuscript Tracker, because it allows you to view by individual pieces, “events” (i.e. submissions, rejections, acceptances), or publishers. You can keep track of all the email addresses and online forms you’ve been using to submit, the names of the editors you sent stuff to, and even word counts so you can easily see which pieces ought to go where.

Manuscript Tracker for Macintosh screenshot (via quickbrownfox.org/sw/tracker/)

Assuming you’re the type who actually reads submission guidlines, of course. (And you should, because let me tell you: as an editor of an online magazine, there is nothing more irritating than getting a 9,000 word novel excerpt when you specifically stated you only accept stories of up to 2,500 words!)

In any case, I like being able to see at a glance what I’ve got where, how long it’s been there, where I should be sending it next, etc.

If only it’d just automate the process of actually sending the work, then it’d be totally brilliant. (Shyeah, right, kid. Dream on!)

Literary journals that’ll blow your mind

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I’m currently in the process of retooling Black Heart Magazine, so that I can publish a wider variety of genres and not feel like I’m being disloyal to erotica.

Isn’t it stupid, how you start to have these ideas about Who You Are that don’t really match with What You Actually Are? Sometimes it’s because of how others perceive you, true, but sometimes it’s entirely your own fault. Perhaps spurred on by the things others believe, but ultimately up to you to correct.

It can be very hard to let go of a certain persona, particularly if it worked or was popular in the past. But I am definitely not the sex-hungry minx of Black Heart’s past anymore, if indeed I ever was.

(Was she or wasn’t she? I can see the gossip rags now. If anyone thought I was famous enough to celeb-profile, which I’m not.)

In any event, I’ve been madly storming the halls of my mind (some call this “brainstorming”), ransacking it for ideas, thoughts, conclusions on what to do next, and how to do it. So far I’ve decided this: Black Heart is now about fiction that breaks the rules.

What does it mean to break the rules? How does that translate to a mission statement? I say mission statements be damned; all you need is a nice soundbyte or elevator pitch. The fiction I publish breaks the rules, and that’s really all you need to know.

You can find our submission guidelines online. Supposing, of course, you’re rule-abiding enough to read ‘em. If not, you can send your submissions to me via the Black Heart contact form.

In other news, I’ve been madly reading up on all the other lit mags I can find online, and I think one of my new favorites is the Summerset Review. I was tracking down stalking an author whose work I enjoyed on another site, and discovered she’d published a piece at the Summerset Review. It turned out to be an essay, which was kind of interesting, since it seemed very much like her peculiar brand of fiction at first. In any event, I found it very strange and disarming and sad and funny by turns, and even wrote a letter to the editor about it, in a woefully misguided attempt to participate in their “Fifty-for-Fifty” contest (which encourages letters to the editor), only to receive a nice letter back from the editor explaining that this wasn’t the most recent issue, and there was a timeline involved, which I’d missed.

Whoops. I am an idiot. Or I was just so excited to read this piece that I totally didn’t realize it was from Summer 2009 and not Winter 2010. In either case, editor Joseph Levens kindly told me he could offer me a free copy of the actual current issue, so that I could potentially comment on that instead. So all’s well that ends well: free issue, nice editor, and some very well-written stuff at this journal, which I highly recommend (and not just because they’re sending me a free issue, although that certainly helps).

Therefore, you must now go read Aubrey Hirsch’s “Speaking from the Throat” at the Summerset Review, and while you’re at it, enjoy some of her fiction over at Litsnack, too.