Submit Your Writing
But be prepared to wait a LONG time.
This is an actual note posted on the submission portal for a well-respected literary journal:
“Submissions response times vary, though we aim to respond to most submissions within five to eight months.”
FIVE TO EIGHT MONTHS?
As an artist of any type — musician, painter, and certainly writers — are continually working to find homes for their work. And yes, if you are a writer and have submitted your material nearly anywhere, there is a response time to deal with. Rarely does any entity give you a thumbs-up or thumbs-down in a matter or days. There are a lot of reasons for this. The number of submissions, the size if the publication’s staff, or simply the fact that the editors want to take considerable care. All legitimate.
Still. Eight months?
Is it that I am impatient? I’m sure that plays a role in why this seemingly ridiculous length of time wears on me. Does it have to be this way?
It seems that some of the long response times come out of the days when writers submitted by snail mail with typed pages wrapped in an envelope and dropped in a mailbox. Now, of course, most all submissions are digital, delivered instantaneously. Yes, the process of reading and deciding takes some time. But again, eight months?
Some publications have begun to charge for expedited decisions. It’s usually just a few dollars and helps to fund these journals which traditionally struggle to stay afloat. I like this idea. When I’ve done this, however, it is not always so “expedited.” One publication still hasn’t responded and I submitted last September!
Should I ask for my money back?
I seems to me in this modern age that editors might be inclined to work to find more efficient ways to decide on a writer’s submission. Does maybe a month seem unreasonable? I don’t think so. Yes, I know, there are editors who will argue that the shear volume of submission does not allow this. And they wish to be fair and equitable to every writer. That’s a wonderful goal. But what happens then is that a writer submits a work to various publications and sometimes accepts the one that replies the quickest, simply because he’s impatient or worries the others will so no. And maybe that journal is not the gold-star publication the work either deserves or has the potential for. This all creates a strange and unworkable dynamic for a writer.
Think about it. If you put an item up for sale, let’s say on Facebook Marketplace, and someone showed interest with a message to you but then took several days to respond again to seal the deal, wouldn’t you be a bit perturbed? Make up your mind, you’d say. There are others waiting, interested.
I would hope to see just a bit more of that urgency in the liteaary world. We all could use a bit more adeptness in the process.
Meantime, that eight-month response now stands at six. I’m still waiting.
David W. Berner is the author of several book so fiction and memoir. He writes reguarly essays at The Abundance at Substack.
