How many people can read your stories at once?
Our favorite writing market guru, Erika Dreifus, just stirred up a discussion about simultaneous submissions to creative writing journals and magazines. The process varies among different publications, but the debate has always raged among writers--is it fair to send your piece to many different magazines at the same time?
There are great arguments both ways. What if your piece is accepted by six different publications? Or, in the more realistic scenario, what if six different publications reject you and you lose one year of your life waiting for an answer? For my non-fiction work, I never send multiple submissions of my pitches nor my stories. Still, Dreifus makes an admirable case for why we should chill out and submit everywhere we want.
"But the trouble is that if every journal asked for three months' exclusivity just to consider a piece, stories that might need to be seen by 20 (or more--it happens, and it has happened to me more than once) journals before finding a home would be in circulation for five years before receiving an acceptance."
I say submit everywhere on the fiction work. In 2006, I submitted several stories. This was my first submission in over 10 years. Six months later, the rejections finally rolled in. That's too long to wait. Blast them out and deal with the fallout (if you are so lucky)... I do agree on the non-fiction side though.
Posted by: Jamie | March 27, 2007 7:19 PM | Permalink to Comment