1. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    How many magazines/journals should I submit to a day?

    Discussion in 'Traditional Publishing' started by Alex R. Encomienda, Nov 8, 2016.

    In order to increase my chances of getting my poetry pieces published.

    I've been submitting between 2-5 a day which I know is not quite much. I've only been able to seek through poets&writers. Are there any other sites where I can find journals that don't charge a reading fee?
     
  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Off-topicish: Am I right in thinking that a reading fee sounds scammish, or is it a normal thing for respectable magazines?

    (It occurs to me that it could serve nicely to thin out submitters to those who are serious, and then the fee could be donated to charity or something. But I rather doubt that's the deal.)
     
  3. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    It's not normal for most fiction and should be avoided. Maybe there are exceptions among literary fiction, I don't know. But as a general rule you should not charge a reading fee. Some market listing services like Ralan might even refuse to list your publication if you do.
     
  4. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    In the world of literary journals it is becoming more and more common. I submit a lot. I hate paying the reading fees, but there are certain places I want to send and publish my work. Some of them, actually quite a lot of them, do charge. People can say to avoid reading fees, but some of my favorite journals charge reading fees. It's usually only $2 or $3. Sure, it can add up, but it also can slow you down in a good way and really make you think about what you are submitting and where it is going.
     
  5. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    For literary journals (which is where the OP is submitting) it's more normal than it should be. Not all of them charge, but an increasing number of them do. A lot of places will state in their submission guidelines that it's not a reading fee and say something about offsetting the cost of operations. I still see it as a reading fee no matter how they want to spin it. Some places only charge if you submit online so I do make regular trips to the post office.
     
  6. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    Yes I never submit to those god awful journals. How much do you think I should send a day if I wanted to have a good chance. I know 50-100 is quite ridiculous.. Anything more plausible?
     
  7. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    That's quite a lot to be sending out a day. It also makes me wonder how much research you're putting into these places. Are you reading these magazines and journals? Do you find they publish works similar to the way you write? These things are important if you want to increase your chances of getting published.

    Honestly, there's probably less than 100 markets on my radar. I've read journals and then decided against submitting to them because it wouldn't be a good fit or the work they published lacked the quality I expect from a good journal. I think you should care where you publish just as much as how quickly you can publish.

    I'm big into submitting myself, but I don't submit every day. Your time might be better spent reading and writing than seeing how many pieces you can submit in a day and doing that every day. Some places limit how many times you can submit in a reading period or in a year. You don't want to burn through all your options, do you? Are you doing simultaneous submissions or do you just have a lot of work you feel in polished and ready for submission? My advice would be to slow it down.

    I use duotrope. I see it as an investment in my writing, and it has been extremely helpful. Well worth the $5 a month. As for reading fees, they totally suck. I wish no place had them. Duotrope lets you know if a place charges a reading fee, but you can't search by that. You can search by how much they pay and other things. I think more calculated decisions about where you are submitting will help you greatly.
     
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  8. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    I do not read the material they represent but I do read the submission guidelines. I just want to increase my chances. If I submit 5-7 I'll have a bigger chance of succeeding than if I submitted 2-3.
     
  9. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    This is a joke, right? If you're not reading these publications than I would say you have just about zero chance of publishing anywhere good. And nobody is submitting to five to seven publications a day. That's not going to help bad poetry get published. Or maybe it will on some crappy website, but you didn't care because you were just sending your stuff out aimlessly and didn't bother to check the quality of any place you were submitting. If you don't care about reading the poetry these places publish, why are you bothering to try and publish with them? But I'm still guessing this is all a big joke.
     
  10. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    No it's not a joke, man. I know I should read the work from their journals. I did read the types of poetry these magazines published and had a pretty good understanding of what NOT to send them to make things short. I will definitely read some of the work on these magazines now that I am in bed with more peace and energy than I had earlier today.
     
  11. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    How many journals are on your "to submit" list? How many different pieces are you sending out at one time?

    I don't think there's a real "should" number - it's more like a balance of how much time you have and how many journals you're interested in.

    I know some people who have a number of submissions they want out at any given time - say, five per piece, or fifty total (divided between ten pieces) or whatever. And so on the first day a piece is ready to be submitted they'd send it to five places, and then they wouldn't send any more submissions on that piece until they got a rejection, at which point they'd send out one more to keep the balance at five (or whatever other number they might decide on).

    I think the key will be balance - if you spend so much time on submissions that you run out of time to write, or send so many submissions that the rejections overwhelm your will to write, or whatever, then you're not getting any closer to publication because you're hurting your writing itself. Don't let that happen.
     
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  12. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    Well I have the same (2-5) poems out at different literary magazines because those are the only ones that are polished and beta read. I have prose poems, rhyme and meter poems and other fixed forms submitted. I would think at least 2-3 submissions a day would be nice. I don't like waiting so I would rather keep going without 'remembering' any certain magazine I submitted to.
     
  13. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    I have a few nice (and rather peculiar) poems up for critique on here. I would love for you to critique one of them in the poetry section!
     
  14. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    Thank you!
     
  15. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    I am submitting queries for my novel, and my target is two per day. I usually don't hit that target because of the research, and sometimes life interferes. If you have one chance in a thousand of having a submission selected on any one try, then if you submit to fifty potential targets, your probability goes up to 5% (1-.999^50) that at least one will hit on it. I disagree that you should read all the journals, but you should know they publish your kind of work. So volume matters, and keep up the good work.
     
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