Four Firsts: Twists in the Unsolicited Submissions Game by Kent MacCarter [18.12.2011]

An abridged version of the following first appeared in The Victorian Writer, December 2011.

Submissions. Submissions. Susmissions. Yes, those old chestnuts. They’re not talked about all that much between writers. I suspect many submissions are stealthily sent out behind the Kabuki screen of a day job or in pyjamas at 12.43am on a Wednesday morning.

I’ve done both. How about you?

In 2011, I experienced four ‘firsts’ in the endless permutations that submissions result in. Two of those were good, the other two … not so much. Equally maddening or wonderful – and, rarely, both – the net result of submitting unsolicited written pieces in to a publication is nearly impossible to predict. Turkish coffee grounds won’t help, neither will a magic eight ball. Plastic fortune telling fish curl abstractly in one’s palm …

… what does such prognostication mean!?

Not even tea leaves can predict what outcome a given submission will generate. Though I did waggle a few pouches of darjeeling over a submission once just to see if any vision blossomed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Read the first half and introduction to this piece over on Kill Your Darlings’ blog, Killings. One of those ‘firsts’ – the most ignominious – is mentioned there. I bet I’ve got you beat in the shame stakes.

One (another) first occurred after I ran across a publication with its acceptance window wide open. I had a few completed, un-submitted pieces that fit their themes, knowing the publication well. I sent them in, unsolicited. No time like the present for reverse defenestration. They were received, read and taken, all within 24 hours. Sold. It was enough to buoy the spirits enough to – you guessed it – keep submitting.

Not long after that fortuitous event, I responded to a call on a given theme for a one-off publication. What luck. I had just the item. Off it went via email, ensuring all guidelines were met. Not thirty minutes later, I received a chilly reply …

we will not be using this

And nothing more. Signed by nobody. All lower case. No punctuation. No ho-hum or even flippant ‘thanks for being interested’ rejoinder. Gad. A first that will, I hope, also be a last. It sandbags the spirits enough to stop submitting.

But how quickly fortunes change. Not long after that abrupt event, another first occurred. I received a Facebook message that I nearly deleted, thinking it spam. A word caught my eye in the title: my last name. Yes. I looked. It was from an editor of a journal in Canada. My attention held. The gist was, ‘Great to finally make contact. Yes, we would love to publish them all’.

Huh? … wha? Who is this person? But I haven’t submitted anything? Finally make contact?

… um, did that message say … all?

I played along, replying that that was terrific news and thank you very much for taking them all, wondering where this non-submission caper would end up. I didn’t quite know how to couch a ‘By the way, which pieces were those again?’ comment. I lucked out, didn’t have to. The titles were named back to me in a follow-up email from the editor. Sure enough, my stuff. How four of my pieces got onto an editor’s desk in British Columbia, I will never know. But that’s manna I can get behind.

I recall once, when I first began submitting to publications, being met with a rejection and an acceptance on the same day. For the same publication. Regarding the same piece. The rejection came via email in the morning, yet in the post that afternoon was a lovely handwritten note with the words writers fang to read:

‘We’re delighted to publish …’

With trepidation, I emailed a copy of the piece back to the editors as is commonly requested. It was printed. I was paid. I never mentioned the concurrent rejection nor did the editors.

Another oddity occurred in an email I received from an editor of a major Australian literary publication. Simply, the editor replied ‘I like this. I like this quite a bit … but I don’t like it enough to actually publish it’.

Well okay then. That’s that.

I appreciated the frankness without obfuscating about there not being enough room in the publication as if it was a self-storage unit filled with eight million brooms and 8,000,001 was just not possible. No sir, no how.

Now, I have been on the receiving end of submissions. I know what’s meant when the ‘no room’ outcome is trotted out. It’s coyness irks me a bit. But what to say? It’s as good a reason as any and a totally valid comment – especially for print, where you must limit yourself to a tiny portion of what you’re given to read. I’ve sent out unsuccessful notices with the same spiel. But it is always a shade maddening that the latest ark didn’t have room for you but did – you later read when sifting through that which your submissions weren’t accepted for – some pairs of creatures as ungainly as cephalopods. Ah, that beholder’s eye.

I once submitted a piece to a longstanding New Zealand journal and was soon thereafter greeted with the good news of acceptance. Hear the good news! And I did. And the news was good and bread was broken. But in that reply, I was also greeted with a fully edited re-write of my submission accompanied by a page of scrawled notes – incorporating no less than three colours of ink, mind you – on how their version would be stronger (am I not popping enough vitamins?) than the one I submitted. Their suggested edit contained virtually no trace of what I originally sent in. Completely unsolicited re-writes: not so nice. And yet? The journal proceeded to published the piece in its original submitted form anyway. Flummoxing, that.

I’ve found that some submissions seem to get rerouted to Jupiter. Woop Woop, maybe. To Hell. Or even Oklahoma. I have a few submissions outstanding that have racked up a few years without so much as a peep of receipt acknowledgement, let alone a take or rejection notice (and this by a publication that published the very first thing I ever sent them). Some publications work under the rider of ‘If you don’t hear from us by Guy Fawkes Day, then you’ve been unsuccessful’. Fair enough. A little lazy. But putting together a publication is a mountain range of work to climb. Sending out rejection notices to submitters is never the fun-hooray! task editors vie for. It’s a valley to slog through. These outstanding submissions of mine were sent in without any such if/then logic proviso.

I hear they have many tornados in Oklahoma. In fact, I know so.

Is there a retiree in Woop Woop whom wonders why she gets so much post every day? I hope so.

As the twenty-teens approach, online submissions are becoming the norm. About time that’s the case. I have zero love for Submishmash and similar account-based systems; one more cursed site to try and remember a username and password for. I know they’re designed to relieve admin loads off editorial teams. And to that, I acknowledge its purpose is worthy. But from the angle of a submitter, I admit to being as curmudgeonly as Will Self. I have no qualms with uploading or attaching a document independently, I just don’t want an account to do so.

I remember once seeing an ‘opportunity to fax in your submission’ in some guidelines-er-other. No excuse for that. That’s both preposterous and tacky.

To finish: the audacity of some publications – specifically those that are online-only – requiring an international reply coupon if submitting to from overseas? Oh, please. Stop mounting your high horse without a saddle.

I’d rather go to the beach and swim in jeans.

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