This is a wonderful essay that both offers a resource I had never heard of and suggests an actionable idea for literary mags, agents, and book publishers. I will do my bit by posting a link to your substack.
An excellent idea. It would take away precious time from the editors, but over the long run I would hope they would benefit from receiving more submissions of the kind they prefer.
What a great find! I wonder if more lit mags don't consider doing this not just because they don't have time, but because they fear making their editing process more transparent.
This does a particularly good job of saying things I've heard before, that is, really do follow their guidelines. I'm curious to look at the thing. Not sure the magazines have time to do this themselves, but still, a very good piece:)
Yeah lit mags could benefit from Operation Awesome! Electric Literature does some of this in their digital salons, and it's SO informative to hear editors read beginnings of stories and say whether they'd likely want to read more or decline and why. However, people have to pay $10 to watch. I'd love to see examples of this type of thing from different lit mags, and preferably for free (not saying editors have to make videos, but posted excerpts and editorial notes would be great). Also, I think there should be some sort of consequences for submiters who have zero regard for specifications such as particular genre. If people are sending their fashion articles to speculative poetry journals or whatever and it's not an honest mistake, they should be somehow warned or banned from resubmitting to that journal. Time is a precious commodity, and the less of it we can all waste, the better!
This is a wonderful essay that both offers a resource I had never heard of and suggests an actionable idea for literary mags, agents, and book publishers. I will do my bit by posting a link to your substack.
An excellent idea. It would take away precious time from the editors, but over the long run I would hope they would benefit from receiving more submissions of the kind they prefer.
What a great find! I wonder if more lit mags don't consider doing this not just because they don't have time, but because they fear making their editing process more transparent.
This does a particularly good job of saying things I've heard before, that is, really do follow their guidelines. I'm curious to look at the thing. Not sure the magazines have time to do this themselves, but still, a very good piece:)
Yeah lit mags could benefit from Operation Awesome! Electric Literature does some of this in their digital salons, and it's SO informative to hear editors read beginnings of stories and say whether they'd likely want to read more or decline and why. However, people have to pay $10 to watch. I'd love to see examples of this type of thing from different lit mags, and preferably for free (not saying editors have to make videos, but posted excerpts and editorial notes would be great). Also, I think there should be some sort of consequences for submiters who have zero regard for specifications such as particular genre. If people are sending their fashion articles to speculative poetry journals or whatever and it's not an honest mistake, they should be somehow warned or banned from resubmitting to that journal. Time is a precious commodity, and the less of it we can all waste, the better!