In 2014 I decided it was time to start publishing, or at least trying to publish. Because until now, I wasn’t published but I could always say, if asked, “I’m not published yet, but my writing is secret. I haven’t submitted anything yet for publication.” If I had long hair, at that point I would have flipped it over my shoulder, casually.
It’s always easier not to try than to fail. Besides, every time I went to Writer’s Market to figure out where to submit my work, I was overwhelmed and would end up closing the website without making any headway.
Last Fall I went to the Indiana Faith & Writing Conference (which, by the way, was awesome,) and there was a session on “Submitting to Literary Magazines” run by Sarah Wells, Managing Editor for a literary journal called Riverteeth.
Sarah told us that there are something more than 4,900 literary journals. (It was encouraging to know that there are so many places looking for submissions.)
Then she showed us a tool that she uses—Duotrope. Duotrope helps to find journals with appetites for the type of work you want to submit, and then helps track your submissions. Using the information it gets from all of those using Duotrope, it also provides estimates for how long it will be until the publication will respond to the submission. Users do their part by entering in submissions and reporting responses they receive from publishers.
Users can search Duotrope by genre, style, length, minimum payment, submission type, and submission details like “allows simultaneous submissions.” These filters significantly narrow down the number of journals for consideration. Once the list is narrowed, it’s much easier to learn more about the journal and determine if it’s the kind of publication in which you would like your work published.
Duotrope provides links to the journals and once you submit, it’s easy to enter it into the Submissions Tracker. The Tracker shows what work was submitted, when it was submitted, and how many days remain before an expected response.
Since using Duotrope, I’ve submitted work to about 20 publications. And…received 4 rejections. I’m feeling wildly successful. My work is no longer a secret.
Susan Fuchtman 