Results of the March Buttontapper Challenge
This month I challenged myself to submit a piece of short fiction to at least one outlet every day. Some days I submitted to more than one outlet, but even on days that I’ve felt low, I’m happy to report that I haven’t missed a single day!
Here is the full list of publications that I’ve sent stories to this month:
- Barely South Review
- Little Patuxent Review
- Cheat River Review
- MOJO
- ROOM
- The Spectacle
- Jet Fuel Review
- Southword
- Book XI: A Journal of Literary Philosophy
- American Chordata
- Hot Metal Bridge
- Gordon Square Review
- Levee
- Lumina Fiction Contest
- The Fifth Plinth
- Gasher
- Salt Hill Journal
- Panoplyzine
- Atlas & Alice
- Saint Katherine Review
- Meow Meow Pow Pow
- Mutiny!
- SmokeLong Quarterly (4)
- Flash Fiction Magazine
- Threepenny Review (8)
- Minola Review
- The Penn Review
- The People’s Preservatory
- Delmarva Review
- The Canopy Review
- Barnhouse
- Minnesota Review
- The William & Mary Review
- Bridge Eight
- Journal of Compressed Creative Arts (5)
- The Tangerine
- The Moth
- The Dublin Review
- Crannóg
- Banshee
- Matador Review
- Planet
- Cream City Review
- Puerto del Sol
- Bad Nudes
- Translunar Travelers Lounge
- Ghost Proposal
- Hot Flash Fiction
- Anastamos
- Blue Moon
- Whiskey Island
- Okay Donkey
- Quarter After Eight
- Bending Genres
- Pithead Chapel
- Alban Lake Publishing (Drabble contest)
- The Finger
- Oxford Magazine
- Gutter
- Canthius
- Raconteur
- Harpur Palate
- Adelaide
- Lunch Ticket
- A Public Space
- Connotation Press
- Prime Number Magazine (Press 53)
- Otis Nebula
- Gold Man Review
- Oyster River Pages
- The Hunger
- Brilliant Flash Fiction
- Storm Cellar
- The Sun
- The MacGuffin
- Ninth Letter (Web edition)
- Winter Tangerine
- Obra/Artifact
- Piece Magazine
- Third Point Press
- Tin House Online
- Apeiron Review
- Notre Dame Review
Submission Stats
As of 3 PM today, I’ve received 35 rejections this month, from 20 different publications, and I’ve withdrawn 1 submission.
I have also racked up one acceptance! It was from a new publication called Dirty Girls Magazine, which I highly encourage you to check out. (They are a paying market, and offer $10 upon acceptance.)
I’m still waiting on payment from an erotica outlet that accepted a piece from me back in January. This is a little frustrating because I have asked about their publication schedule several times, and so far they haven’t given me any clue as to when I might expect my piece to be published. This is also frustrating because they only pay upon publication, and since I don’t have any idea when that might be I’ve been waiting until I find out how long it takes for them to publish and pay for a story before I send them any more. (They are also a new market, and only publish to an app – which requires a subscription to read the stories, and they don’t give subscriptions to their authors as part of their payment – which is another issue.)
The total number of submissions I’ve sent out so far this year is 150!
I am still waiting to hear back about submissions I sent in January, so my longest wait time (as of 3/31) is 87 days and counting.
I actually sent out 12 submissions on January 3rd, and only half of those journals have responded, so there are 6 still in my queue at the 87 day mark.
The longest it has taken me to receive a response so far this year has been 87 days.
The shortest time it has taken to receive a response is just 1 day. I’m still torn on whether or not receiving a rejection note this quickly is really a good thing, but at least you know where you stand, right?
I have had 11 different stories rejected by the same journal so far this year, with 8 of those rejections occurring in the month of March alone. I don’t know if I will ever get an acceptance from this particular journal, but I’m going to keep trying.
This brings up an interesting question: Is there such a thing as submitting TOO MUCH? Specifically, to the same publication? I always figure that if they’re sick of seeing my name in their inbox, they will let me know – in no uncertain terms – that I need to lay off the submissions for a while. (Indeed, one of the journals I sent a few pieces to did this in a subtle way, removing the “feel free to submit again” lines from their form rejection letter.) If they don’t mention something like “if rejected, please wait X many days/weeks/months before trying again,” I usually assume I am free to submit as much work as I like (following the typical guidelines that indicate “only submit one piece at a time, and wait until you hear back from us before submitting another”) until their submissions window closes. But is there some kind of unwritten rule about this kind of thing?
I guess this is just one of the many mysteries of submitting short stories for publication. Especially flash fiction, which can be read and rejected in a few minutes.
Tracking Submissions
I have a few different ways that I’ve been tracking my submissions. This may sound like overkill, but I like to keep my own records because I noticed there’s at least one journal I submit to that doesn’t use Submittable, and doesn’t include the name of the story you submitted anywhere in their form rejection letters, which makes it really hard to keep track of what you sent them!
So, here’s my method:
- Submit story.
- Add the name of the story you submitted, the name of the market, and the date you sent it to your Google Sheet.
- Add your submission to the Submission Grinder (if the market is listed there; some aren’t), to keep track of various stats.
- Add your submission to your paper log (I’m keeping a binder full of items related to my writing work, and have a section dedicated to submissions) so you can flip through and see what you sent to whom and when.
- Wait until you hear back from these outlets, and record your acceptance or rejection on each tracker.
Like I said, it’s probably overkill, but there’s a method to my madness. I was going to just record everything in my paper log, because it feels like an accomplishment logging everything by hand, but it’s so much easier to view everything in a Google Sheet in case I want to sort by submissions instead of markets or dates sent. I was going to rely on the Submission Grinder, because it’s free and they offer stats for how long your submissions have been out as compared to other writers tracking their pieces within the system, but they don’t list all the markets I’ve submitted to, so some pieces would still be going untracked. So this mix of three different systems seems to get the job done.
In Conclusion…
That was my month-long experiment in sending out short fiction to various literary journals, with a goal of one submission per day. While I do plan to keep on submitting pieces throughout the rest of the year, I’m not sure whether I will stick to the same pace of “a submission per day.” Instead, I might experiment with designating certain days of the week as my “submission days,” so I can batch tasks together, which seems a bit more efficient, especially when it comes to finding and researching new markets. Although it’s great that submissions have gone digital (no more trips to the post office, nor paying for stamps!), writers do still have to do their homework: going through individual markets’ submission guidelines, studying some of their previously published pieces in order to decide which of their own stories might be a good match, formatting pieces to the stated guidelines, and adding in any additional info that market requests before finally hitting “send.”
If you’re sending out pieces for publication, too, play along with the hashtag #SubmitYourWork on Twitter or Instagram!
