Yes, good article, thank for sharing.

Nice discussion of the problems on both sides of the fence, Ray.

Ruth B.

Annette wrote: "Does one have to subscribe to the journal one is sending submissions to? Do they come in print form via snail mail? (My preference to read and make notes in the margins.)"

I wrote an article a ways back about submission vs. subscription that might give a little light to the situation, if you're interested.

Here's a link: http://bloodink.blogspot.com/2007/03/sub...

Annette wrote: "Does one have to subscribe to the journal one is sending submissions to? Do they come in print form via snail mail? (My preference to read and make notes in the margins.)"

No, you need not subscribe in order to submit. Often you are encouraged to order a sample copy before submitting, though, so if you prefer reading a print copy, you could do that. Some journals are print only & do arrive via snail mail, some are online only; you can find out which at the journal's website.

Does one have to subscribe to the journal one is sending submissions to? Do they come in print form via snail mail? (My preference to read and make notes in the margins.)

Comment about the length for responses from journals and book publishers: EVERY writer wants to be honored as an artist by publication. Therefore, ONSLAUGHT of submissions. Long and no replies don't surprise me a bit.

S. wrote: "My answer also has to be "forever." But on submissions that I'm sure haven't gone missing, or the editor is still alive, or I suffered a blackout, the answer is nearly two years. I wrote a poem abo..."

What a way to turn a negative response into a positive one. I love that you were inspired to write this poem by the rejection letter...and it's so good!

Keep writing!

Yeah, she should have accepted your poems, legible or not!

Ruth wrote: "After a wait of months, I once got my poems back from an editor with a note of profuse apologies. They'd been lost in a snowbank out by her mailbox and didn't surface until the spring thaw!

It was just WRONG of her not to accept at least one of your poems, Ruth!

After a wait of months, I once got my poems back from an editor with a note of profuse apologies. They'd been lost in a snowbank out by her mailbox and didn't surface until the spring thaw!

Must have been true, they were all wrinkled and the ink had run.

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

If you're wondering about a journal's real (as opposed to stated) average response time, you might want to check it out at www.duotrope.com. Not only can you set up a nifty tracking chart there for your submissions, but you can also look up pretty much any literary journal that has a website & see averages of response times other poets & story writers have reported. Each journal's report page has a link to its website as well.

Highly recommended!

I agree with Patty. Having a submission out at just one journal for six months because they won't take simultaneous subs is a long time, especially if the answer turns out to be 'no.' I generally won't submit to journals that won't take simultaneous subs unless their self-declared (and hopefully true) reply time is less than 2 months.

Hello, all the messages have very interesting information. The longest i had to wait is 9 months to get a rejection letter. The shortest, 24 hours from an online publication. However that doesn't stop me from trying.

This is a pet peeve for me as a poet (I've had a couple instances of never hearing back, and quite a few 6+ month wait) so as an editor I make sure I reply in 4-6 weeks. Always. I think it's especially inexcusable to tie up someone's work for months and months and NOT accept simultaneous subs.

I also love this poem!

Thanks! I have to say that if a journal doesn't answer by its stated timeframe and doesn't respond to a query, I don't bother to withdraw. I figure they're ignoring me (and probably plenty of other people). In the case of print, since I live in Germany I find it especially expensive to keep sending deadbeats polite letters....

I love the poem, too, S. Talk about spinning straw into gold!

S. wrote: "My answer also has to be "forever." But on submissions that I'm sure haven't gone missing, or the editor is still alive, or I suffered a blackout, the answer is nearly two years. I wrote a poem abo..."

I LOVE your poem, S.! Thanks so much for posting it! :-)

My answer also has to be "forever." But on submissions that I'm sure haven't gone missing, or the editor is still alive, or I suffered a blackout, the answer is nearly two years. I wrote a poem about it:

On Receiving a Rejection Note One Year and Seven Months After Submitting

This morning I woke thinking
of the old, giant tortoise
I saw as a child, its dome
lolling around the zoo lily pond
like the world's slowest lozenge.

Once a week, shortly before closing,
the zookeeper would open the low gate
for three or four visitors to come in,
touch the beast's shell,

grave, etched with runes
like some ancient script
become inscrutable.

I sent a poem as soon as I posted a comment on this topic. Let's see when it prints out!

Oh, I wanted to add something else when it comes to sending poems or stories to journals - I have a different feeling about that as contrasted with sending queries for books.

I have come to look at single submissions as comparable to job interviews or auditions. They either want you or they don't and there's no use sitting around. Book submissions on the other hand, to me, are comparable to auditioning for Broadway or a feature film - way more important and more willing to wait around.

This is of course, only my way of looking at things, from my own life experiences.

Ray is way more "understanding" than I. Four months after the deadline is alot of time to me. I would move on way before that.

I was a guest poetry editor awhile back for a journal and I read the submissions, sent out acceptance and rejection letters all in one day. I know that some journals receive way more than the 200 I was dealing with, but "years" - come on!

I also read submissions for a project for prisoners, and the whole thing was so badly organized that I wanted to take all the paper sent me and toss it out the window - not because of the prisoners, but because of the "professionals" in a widely known and respected organization who sent me the wrong ones, didn't tell me the right standards or rules, and on and on and on. I had piles of submissions all over my living room and every time I thought I picked my five "likes" and submitted them to the organizers, I was told I didn't do it right - again.

I gave up. It reminded me of some corporate jobs I had, where the boss was so out of it but blamed the subordinates for not doing their job correctly with no guidance as to what that job was.

Whew- okay - I'm done.

best,
nanette

Hi again,

I want to add something that occurred today. Seems that emails from editors can be lost or end up in spam and deleted unknowingly.

I took a chance of writing again to the publisher who I thought was ignoring me, and this person wrote back a very nice letter. Seems she/he had sent an email to me after my first request for an answer and that email suggested another press who could possibly be interested in my book. I never would have known that if I hadn't written again after a year and a half.


Of course, now I feel a little bad about saying what I said in my recent email to them. A "little" bad, because a year the first time is a long time for a query letter to be answered.


just an update~~~

best,
nanette

I agree years is too long. I think Ray has a good system. As long as you send a letter/email removing your poem or poems from consideration, you are under no further obligation. I would imagine a journal that took that long is either no longer in business or they had a major shake up on their editorial board. Unprofessional, yes, but for journals who receive thousands of poems per reading period, it could just be an honest mistake.
I have taken to submitting to journals who want online submissions only since they do seem to be much faster. I get my rejections much more quickly this way. You guys are inspiring me to make the leap a little more often anyway.Thanks.

I also pay attention to reading periods, submission guidelines, and have the greatest respect for editors. However, I think waiting years without even acknowledgement of receipt is unprofessional.

As a rule, I give a publication four months PAST the maximum stated response time in their guidelines. If they have a response time stated to be one-two months, I give six. If they give a time of eight months, I let it go for twelve. When the four months past the maximum stated time are up, I send a cordial email asking for, at least, confirmation. If I don't receive a response in two more weeks time, I rescind. I definitely take reading periods and response times to heart when I submit. You have to.

Sandra wrote: "I think this string has been up before and I'm not sure if I commented then, but I would like to speak up for journals. Do note the turn around time, which most established journals do list. Also i..."

I know that journals are swamped, and often manned by volunteers. That's why I have the patience I do. But I do appreciate an attempt at businesslike behavior. I'm 74 years old. How long can I wait for an answer?

Ruth wrote: "I do have to report that my recent acceptance by Tar River Poetry came 5 days after my electronic submission. And the poem is coming out in their Fall 09 edition.

How's that for promptness?"

That's amazing, Ruth. Among poem submissions to TRP tracked at Duotrope.com, fewer than 2% are accepted (you are in a very elite circle!). But rejections are usually sent within 4 days on average, acceptances within 7.

TRP's website says they receive 100-200 poem submissions every week! They do REQUIRE electronic submissions now, which doubtless helps with processing. I am filled with admiration for their efficiency--& I love the sample poems they post.

I think this string has been up before and I'm not sure if I commented then, but I would like to speak up for journals. Do note the turn around time, which most established journals do list. Also if you are submitting to an annual towards the beginning of their reading period, you might expect to wait quite some months. Also most editors or at least their boards are volunteers and their publications lives depend on grant money--they tend to disappear and resurface. I don't excuse totally unprofessional behavior, but I do think some empathy might be in order. Writers have been known to totally disregard submissions guidelines as well, which makes editors jobs even more difficult. I do think electronic submissions are the wave of the future.

I do have to report that my recent acceptance by Tar River Poetry came 5 days after my electronic submission. And the poem is coming out in their Fall 09 edition.

How's that for promptness?

Three years for one, but I've waited 2-1/2 on multiple occasions now. By 'waited', I mean I rescinded (via an actual notice) the work after a year and sent it elsewhere, and they got back to me around 18 months after THAT.

Beyond the three-year mark, there are numerous journals that have simply never bothered to respond (about one in five submissions ends in rescinsion, for me).

I've never once received a response of any kind from an agency or major publishing house. It's as if their mailboxes are actually just chipper-shredders.

I'm so used to it now that whenever a journal apologizes to me for taking so long (after not even a month has passed), I get confused. A month's wait seems very fast anymore.

Thanks, Ruth!
Now....hmm....I had to wait.....2 years!

Hi Ruth,

Thanks for the nod.

The publishing house still sends me emails asking me to enter contests, telling me how they have published more books, and yet, where is my rejection? Tacky to say the least.

Nanette

Ariba wrote: "whats a journal? a newspaper editor?"

Ariba, by "journals" here we mean literary magazines. Some are monthly, some quarterly, some just once or twice a year, but they all focus on publishing poetry & short stories, & sometimes essays & reviews. Some come out only in a conventional print edition, some are only online journals, others are both. They are the main places where individual poems are published nowadays.

Normally before you consider putting together a whole manuscript of your poems to be published as a book, you should try to get many of those poems published in journals. Some are very hard to get into, others are pretty easy.

Nanette, I hear you! Journal editors should do what they say they'll do & treat our submissions responsibly. They do depend on us!

I'd like to know, why we give these journals so much power. Without us, they'd be and have nothing. The other day I received an email from a journal I'd forgotten I'd even submitted to - 2 & 1/2 years later - they said they found the email just now. Oh, sure.

If I don't hear from a journal within four months now, I just write them off - who has time to sit and pine? One journal wrote to me and told me to learn to write - the poem went on to be nominated for a Pushcart. And I could go on and on.

But the worst is the well-known publishing house - independent - edgy - I won't say the name, but they are very much considered "hip", is the worst and most vile culprit. I sent them a query letter for my memoir a year and a half ago. At the year mark, I sent a note asking if they even had the query. They responded - and again, the excuses ran on for half a page about misplacement, restructuring, contests, this and that and how sorry they were. They said they would get back to me in a week or so. Here it is 6 months later. And to top it off, in the interim, I had tried to help them with something. Never again.

I sent poems to Agni bothering to make a pdf, and they never answered. I sent a WW II hero story to The Oldie, and they never answered. I sent a long poem to The New Yorker, and they did not return the poem in the stamped self addressed envelope containing the rejection slip. If they kept the poem, this might be interpreted as a compliment.

whats a journal? a newspaper editor?

I sent 3 poems to a journal in Feb. 2008. In June 2009, I received a rejection notice. However, there was a nice note enclosed, apologing for the delay & saying they hoped I would submit again. So in early August I sent 3 more poems & we will see how long it takes this time. That was my 1st. poetry submission in almost 20 years. I had given up poetry for short stories, 2 novels & later some CNF. Then when family events happened, I stopped writing altogether for almost 4 years. Actually, it was reading stuff people had sent in to Goodreads that got me started again. No big goals, just a few things here & there.

I waited 2 years and received a thanks but no cigar reply. I have been in a few situations similar to the onees described where after what feels like forever there has been no reply, and I've withdrawn my submission. I actually had that happen with a submission that was accepted somewhere else about 1 year after I submitted it to the first journal. Even though I was confident they did not want the poem, I still sent tham a formal withdrawal.

Ruth wrote: "I had one journal that never answered at all. Emails, both to the journal and to the editor personally. Snailmails ditto. I finally wrote them a formal letter of complaint and withdrew my submiss..."

Withdrawing is completely justified in such cases!

What about waiting a long time & actually finally receiving a reply? What's the longest you have waited before hearing back, whether yea or nay?

I had one journal that never answered at all. Emails, both to the journal and to the editor personally. Snailmails ditto. I finally wrote them a formal letter of complaint and withdrew my submission.

In fact, I've several times, after sometimes a year or more, and having all queries ignored, officially withdrawn my stuff.

The longest I've had to wait was forever--that is, the editors of one journal never did respond to my submission. Another journal took more than a year to say no. More recently, it took nearly 10 months for an editor to say yes.

A poet friend has been waiting for more than 10 months to hear back from two different journals. She is wanting some reassurance. How long have YOU had to wait?