SUBMISSIONS - insert facepalm icon here -
inc. Where to submit, The Process, Submission Trackers, Feeees, & Sim Subs
Are you on track with sending out submissions? What’s your process? I think I find this one of the hardest aspects of being a writer, and my capacity for doing it goes wildly up and down.
This year I’m mostly failing to get subs out, and those I am sending are mostly to comps that flash up in my calendar at the end of the month. This is not very efficient, nor giving me very good chances of getting my work out there, but there’s so many things to fit into all the days.
Submissions are time consuming, not especially enjoyable, and often come with multiple stages and fairly complex instructions… which makes them a bit of a nightmare if, like me, you’re the kind of neurodivergent that makes following instructions, hitting deadlines, and completing tasks pretty difficult.
That being said, it’s gotta be done, and there are much worse things!
And, I’ve just sent a bunch out, which feels kinda good cos the only thing worse than doing submissions is knowing you haven’t done any for ages and your work’s just sitting around not going anywhere.
But it’s been a long process friends, and I’ve split them over several days. Saturday was reading through poems and checking I’m happy they’re ready, then making two lists: one of poems and one of places to send them. I also nominally suggested which poems I might send where but of course I changed this when it actually came to sending the subs (not sure if these were actually good changes, but it’s too late now!). Then the actual subs were split over Sunday and Monday, plus one on Friday night after work. I split them up cos it takes me a long time, I struggle to decide what to send where, and to stay on task, and I have to do a lot of checking to make sure I’ve included/omitted all the things on the instructions; trying to send too many in one day is overwhelming and ends up not happening.
Got any submissions hacks? I’d love to hear if you do! Please drop them in the comments.
Where to submit?
Not just competitions! Though a few comps here and there are good. In an ideal world I’d split pretty evenly between comps and journals.
How do you find these? I like The National Poetry Library Competitions page, which lists upcoming comps, who they’re for, when they close, and how much they charge.
And recently I’ve also been using this list of UK Poetry Competitions on Nice Weather For which lists comps by closing date and includes what to send, max line count, and entry fees.
What about lit mags and journals? Honestly most of these come from Instagram. I follow a lot of journals and mags so I see a lot of the submission call outs on my feed. Not suggesting this is the best way to do it though particularly as, despite screenshotting them to come back to, I miss most of the deadlines anyway.
Chill Subs is a good resource. I’ve only used it occasionally, and I haven’t created an account and used it as a tracker which I know is a feature they advertise, but I have found it useful when looking for journals with open subs. And they’ve got a lot of filters which helps narrow the thousands of listings into much more manageable results.
Also friends, some of my poet friends and some regulars from The Space Poetic will send round submission opportunities they’ve come across. I actually love it when friends share sub call outs and really want to nurture this more.
The Process
It’s time consuming, right, and a bit of a headache. Even with doing all my writing in a 12 point standard font and basic formatting (excluding concrete poems obvs) I still have to read back through and double check all the formatting specs cos they’re slightly different across a lot of places.
Then if it’s a comp you have to make sure your name isn’t on it… some want page numbers in a particular place… some are specific about what they want in the file name… some want you to include a line count in the top right or the top left… some specify spacing…
Some want a separate entry form attached along with your submission, while my favourite (joking, obviously) want you to fill out their online form, make payment through a separate portal, and then email your poems along with transaction/receipt numbers and other specified information in the body of the email. Trying to get all these separate points correct as a neurodivergent is - to put it mildly - absolutely fucking brain-melty.
What do you think of Submittable? Personally, I love it. One single portal to put all your deets, the poems, and payment??? Yes please!
Submissions Trackers
I have two submissions trackers, the first (below) is a simple word doc to record what I sent on what date, where to, when I should hear back, and whether I was successful. In the page below from earlier this year you can see a published outcome is highlighted in green; if I get feedback that I got into a top percentage, or if I made it onto a short or long list, was a runner up, or was highly commended, then these get highlighted in orange.
The second tracker (below) is a bit different. This one’s designed to help me keep track of which poem is where, without having to scroll through the tracker above. It also helps me easily find out whether I’ve submitted to a particular place before. As with the tracker above, poems highlighted in green have been published, and those in orange have been long or shortlisted, highly commended, or reached a top percentage. What I’m missing from this one is dates, but I think there’s only so much info I can cope with on one sheet, and if I want to look up the date I can always cross reference with the tracker above. Not pictured here is another page which lists all my poems and where they are in terms of early draft/further edits/ready to submit, but I’m bad at updating this page so it’s not actually very helpful.
Someone with better organisation and tech skills than me could probably combine these two trackers into one doc that does all the things, and kudos if this is you. But this system works well enough for me.
Feeees
Ok, I get that fees can cover admin costs, paying contributors, prize money etc, and that’s a good thing - I support that! But when it’s £20 or £25 per poem? Or even Bridport at £13 per poem, with no discount for a second poem… (ok I entered this but had to cap myself at a single poem otherwise it gets too expensive too quickly).
Considering poets are generally known for being kinda broke who is out there paying this? I mean, obviously some people are. But if you’re writing regularly and actually trying to get your work out there then you need to be sending it to a lot of places, and big fees generally gotta be avoided otherwise you’re bleeding money, and bleeding money = more time at the day-job = less writing time… ‘insert facepalm here’.
Lit mags/journals charging a small fee? Yeah, I’m up for that. Totally happy to pay somewhere around £5 along with my bundle of poems to support your mag. Yes.
Sim Subs?
What’s your take on sim subs?
Whenever I come across somewhere stating they don’t accept this I get a little groan on the go - particularly if it’s a comp. Yeah, it’s a bit more admin for the organisers if you’re emailing to withdraw a poem, and that could be really annoying if it’s one the judges particularly liked, but on the other end the likelihood of my poem getting past the longlist or into a popular journal is low, and with some places taking several months to get back to you - that’s a long time to keep a poem out of circulation.
That being said, I’m careful not to submit each poem to too many places, and there are poems I’ll only send to one place at a time - particularly if they’re places I’d really like to get work into.
The end
Very finally: I submitted to the Yeovil Literary Prize and they made me paste my poems into boxes so all the formatting was lost! This. Blows. My. Mind. I ended up having to send different poems to the ones I was planning because they had specific layouts and spacing that wouldn’t be preserved. In the guidance they say “This is to enable fairer judging on content alone” but isn’t form and formatting an integral part of poetry? And won’t this weaken poems that are designed to work in tandem with their presentation? What’s your thoughts on this?
Ok, I hope this has been interesting, and maybe a little informative. Would love to hear some perspectives and experiences on some of the things I’ve raised, or other aspects I’ve missed - drop your thoughts in the comments!
Otherwise - happy subbing friends x
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The submission process is indeed one of the hardest disciplines of writing to keep steady.
Funny, I was just thinking the other day about writing a post about submissions...The highs, the (frequent) lows, my good intentions, motivations and my (mostly frustrating) process. I share some similar feelings and experiences as you. And, yes, I hate the "type in this box" or "type into an email" submissions and anywhere that refuses to consider PDFs but says they are open to all forms of poetry. Grrrr...!