Submitting Your Writing--Changes and a Tip

Change can be confusing!

I was musing about the changes in submitting our writing for publication in the 25 or so years that I have been writing. There are quite a few differences, but the process itself is far easier now than back in the early to mid-nineties. 

When I first started submitting, I wrote a cover letter on a typewriter and enclosed it with the typed manuscript with a SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope).  Then I had to go to the post office to make sure of the right amount of postage. Like today, the waiting game began. The acceptance, or rejection, arrived in the envelope I had provided in my US postal mailbox. 

In that cover letter, I provided the title and word count of my submission, why I was the person to write that story, my publications and any other information about myself that would be pertinent. 

Enter the world of the internet! Our submissions are so much easier now. We have access to the Guidelines of each publication in an instant. No more spending hours in the library with Publication Guides, poring over page after page trying to find one that fits what you hoped to submit. What a blessing! 

Submitting can still be different from various publications. Some ask the writer to send an email with an attached submission. Others forbid attachments; they instruct the writer to copy and paste the submission into an email. Some Guidelines ask for what once went into the cover letter while others don't care a bit whether you send any information about you, the writer. Your writing in that particular submission is your ticket to enter. 

In the past few years, many publications have gone to a Submittable form to be filled out by the writer. It usually includes your name, address, phone number, email address, fax address, the title of the story, word count, and a place to either upload or copy and paste your submission. There is nowhere that asks for your publication background or your expertise on the subject. That can be both a good and a bad thing. If you do not have a long history of being published, it's a good thing. If you do, and you feel like your background would be helpful in convincing an editor, then it's a bad thing.

I have come to appreciate and like the Submittable form. When I submit using an email message, I often include the information that was once used in the old cover letter. I figure it can't hurt, might help. 

The way we submit our writing has changed over the years, and no doubt, it will probably do so again in the near future. The important thing is that we go along with those changes, that we learn to use the new methods as they come along. 

One of the most important parts of submitting your writing is to read and study those Guidelines carefully. Every publication has its own set, and you'd better pay attention as each one asks for something different. Some are very limited in what they require while others (like Chicken Soup for the Soul) are very explicit. There are publications that offer no Guidelines whatsoever. I think they only hurt themselves by leaving things wide open as they are likely to receive myriad numbers of submissions that are not appropriate for their publication.