Only six more days until most literary journals start their open reading periods for poetry and fiction submissions…
So I hope you have your Poet’s Market dog-eared, Duotrope and New Pages bookmarked, and a pantsload of postage ready. To refresh on what you really need to submit: a manilla envelope large enough to not have to fold your submission (it’s a professionalism thing, which I learned from an editor at the Iowa Review, thank you Nic, for helping a yound writer out) a standa
rd business sized envelope (for your Self Addressed and Stamped Envelope. (That’s right, M. Doughty, join the 5% Nation of SASE), a brief cover letter that says the bare essentials of information for your submission (name, address, phone, email, like a 30 word bio, the titles of the piece(s) submitted, and you know, a little schmoozing goes a long ways. Now, don’t go overboard and gush and gush about a journal you’ve never read, but if you have read it before and can remember a piece from it, mention liking it. It’s just a little coutesy to the editors who have no clue if people are liking what they’ve chosen to include. Or, if you are familiar with an editor’s work, let them know what you liked. As a writer myself, I know the very few times I’ve ever heard about my work I’ve glowed about the compliment. It’s a rare thing to get an unsolicited compliment about your writing, and editors are people and writers too. Be kind to them. Great Writing- If you haven’t read much contemporary poetry, or fiction, try to read a copy of the journal you’re submitting to. Now, with the smaller journals especially, it can be hard to get ahold of one, and buying 20 different sample copies may be a little difficult, but at least, at least read a couple sample pieces on the journal’s website. Most have a couple posted to cut down on the inappropriate submissions. I’ve been guilty of submitting inappropriate work to journals, I think it’s part of the trial and error style of submissions that most novice writers go through before they learn the ropes from either an editor, a fellow writer, or another source (I highly recommend Poet’s Market for poets. It’s a tactile, and very helpful source that you can flip through while bored. It even lists a few writers who’ve been published there, so you can have something of a gauge even before you read it what they like, though most journals are ridiculously ecclectic. And finally, stamps. H
ere’s a simple guide: it is $1.17 for 3 ounces first class postage for your large manilla envelope along with a single page cover letter (for your own bennefit, don’t even come close to hitting a second page), and 6 more pieces of paper. Be it four single page pieces and one 2-pager, one six page piece, or whatever, 7 total pieces of paper. If it’s one more piece of paper you have to add an additional $.17 stamp. If you have 15 pieces, again, add another $.17 stamp, and so forth. Get these stamps from the post office, or wait in line to weight each envelop and mail them like that if you’re unsure about the postage. And never send it certified… journals don’t sign for submissions. It’s just not how they do it. Trust in the USPS, at least a little. And finally, you need some understanding of the journal publishing world. You don’t need experience, but knowledge that most journals can only (and I mean they only have the page space possible, regardless of quality) accept under 10% of the work submitted to them. So there will be a lot of rejection. Even famous writers… David Kirby’s poem “At the Grave of Harold Goldstein” was rejected on 17 separate occasions before it was finally accepted at Parnassus, and then it went on to be selected for that year’s Best American Poetry. So don’t let some rejection bother you. Maybe it had been an especially competitive month, or year even. Journals will get spikes in good submissions some years, and the bar for acceptance will be significantly higher. Sometimes you’ll have an editor in a bad mood, or if you’re lucky, a good mood. Editors are people too, and they are flawed, and subjective. Realize that, and be cool about it. I’ve probably got at least 300 rejections in my files. Maybe more. It happens. But it makes those acceptances all the sweeter. Have at it guys. Get organizing and figure out who you want to send which pieces. Huzzah!