Thanks, Mark, for finally outing the anally retentive, would-be Paris Review editors who discard work that doesn't follow their font preferences, layout style, cover letter formatting and the list goes on. (I have no empirical evidence for this but my impression is that non-paying litmags run by MFA graduates are the worst culprits.) Your job as an editor is to find worthy writing and give it an audience. This sort of obsession with rules is what closes the doors on so many writers who have not had the benefit of a tertiary education and/or have English as a second language. Perhaps LitMag News could put together a list of publishers who are interested more in art than they are in saving a micro-second of their time. For instance, my formatting guidelines consist entirely of 'Use a readable font. Times New Roman 12 double spaced is a guideline.'
Hi Becky! This is the essay I've been waiting for for my whole writing life! Thank you! This is a topic that's been on my mind a long time. I am instantly turned on/off by the tone of guidelines. I simply do not submit to any journal that has overly complicated, snarky, snobby, mean-spirited guidelines. I am always in a state of disbelief when they want to be addressed by their first names. In the past I've found myself deep in a website, searching for the first name of the editor, based on their snobby guidelines. At one point I stopped myself and just said, "No, I'm just not doing this ever again," and I haven't. Anyway, thanks for bringing this up. Sometimes, I look at guidelines and I just think, "You've got to be kidding me," and I just move on. On the flip side, I will submit to a journal solely based on their friendly, modest, inclusive tone.
I have mixed feelings here, as a poet and an editor. Some of your points about having respect for contributors are well-taken. I couldn’t even request contributions for my previous publications because paying less than $0.10/word for commercial/journalistic writing is unethical. I love that I have talented writers willing to submit for my current venture, but publishing someone’s work for free (or in my case, for a pittance) comes with responsibilities. Writers should never give away full rights to their work, especially not just for the “privilege” of being a published, but unappreciated writer. No lit mag needs more than first serial rights, along with non-exclusive archival and digital, so that they can publish. If they can’t pay, they should show appreciation for contributors and their work.
On the other hand, while I agree with the curation approach when it comes to work previously published to social media accounts or blogs with small followings, it’s right for the author to remove it from their accounts or blogs, at least for the life of the issue in which they’ve assigned rights. That’s what first serial rights request and they’re a reasonable publishing standard. Also, some writers have so-called personal blogs with more viewers than most lit mags. And most lit mags also now have websites that are penalized by search engines for reprinting already-indexed material. They don’t care how small of a response the writer got. Sharing your work before publication is what writing groups are for. So, I guess it depends.
I also agree with you on responding to submissions, as long as they’re properly submitted. I do think some submission guidelines over-complicate things, but I also think that many writers employ the firehose approach to submissions. It may be effective for writers, but it shows that they don’t respect the individual editors that they are asking to publish their work. If the guidelines explicitly state that emailed (or Sir/Madam/To Whom It May Concern) submissions will be disregarded, pointing out that you didn’t know because you never bothered to read to the end of the publication’s guidelines isn’t a great defense. It’s a bit foolish, since you actually proved their point. It should be a learning experience, not a gripe.
I’ve never been so strict and I don’t solicit poetry, but is it really unreasonable to expect writers to show that they’ve read your guidelines if they’re asking for you to publish their work? I was sympathetic about your TPR debacle until you kindly admitted to not taking the time to read their guidelines that explicitly stated that what happened to you would happen. That’s why we use guidelines. Editors shouldn’t be jerks, but writers should act professionally if they want to be professionals. Reading and following directions is something most people learn early.
Well done, Mark, but that thing about simsubs? I received a submission for TheNewVerse.News today. I will post it on the site tomorrow. This is not atypical for us. Were I to allow simsubs, there’s no way I could have the confidence to work so quickly. We guarantee to respond to submitters within fourteen days and almost always get back to poets in less than a week. That’s not, I think, a disservice even though we don’t allow simsubs.
As far as being rejected because of not using the editor's name, I've not wanted to assume that the editor on the masthead is the one reading the cover letter. I have no idea of the staffing situation at a journal. Also, editors who use the "Sir/Madam" construction as a reason not to read a submission are going to be automatically rejecting older writers and possibly nonnative speakers. Of course, that's no longer an appropriate salutation, but do you really want to reject the Grandma Moses of fiction because she's following rules she was taught her whole life?
Having secret rules is a lot easier than actually reading someone's work. This does give me more journals to add to my ever-growing "do not submit" list though.
Well said and well written, Mark, although I don't consider "decline" easier to swallow (much less more polite) than "rejection". As for researching every lit mag's editor-in-chief so I can address them in my cover letter--wow, how egotistical is that? And why require a cover letter at all? Most lit mags don't want to know whose poetry they're reading beforehand. And if, as you wrote, the cover letter is to determine if the submitter read the guidelines, I say--omg, are we still in high school? Thank you for giving us a thought provoking essay--I only hope editors find it makes them think twice, too.
Thanks for this, Mark. Currently, I’ve been waiting almost double a magazine’s postulated response time for a decision on my submission. They have a twitter/X account. What I don’t understand is why they can’t just post a single tweet to explain that they’re swamped, if that’s the problem. Silence in the face of delay is especially egregious when editors are writers themselves. If they don’t know from experience what it’s like to face silence…well…they’re supposed to have imaginations!
Speaking as a relatively new magazine: a very large proportion of authors don't actually follow the guidelines anyway. (It doesn't matter, though, because we won't reject a piece for being in something other than our preferred format.)
As to Shunn's Standard Manuscript format, it's pretty much the gold standard for genre editors (of speculative and horror publications) - - and so I've learned to use it.
However, I really wonder what is the old-fashioned need for all that information?
Years ago, an editor needed your full mailing address because that's how you'd be paid (via a check sent in the mail). In 2023, the only zine who mailed a check to my house was Leading Edge (Brigham Young Univ.); everyone else sent my payment digitally.
And raise your hand if you really need my telephone number in the upper left corner.
Holding tight to Shunn style when you, as an editor, will not avail yourself of the information, makes me wonder about the reason.
But maybe those picky submission guidelines could be more transparent: why you require my full mailing address even though you neither send me a copy of your printed journal nor an actual check; why I must send a .doc vs a .docx; why Garamond 11 pt is essential to your well-being instead of TNR 12 pt; and why you required an audio file - - since you did not use it after all.
We, The Editors, are willing (more or less) to give your submission a cursory glance.
First, though, you have to bake us a cake.
It must be a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting. We love strawberry!
Please sprinkle the cake with white chocolate jazzies. We love those little guys! Don't you?
Send the cake via FedEx, UPS or DHL. The postal service would certainly crush our cake and we don't want a crushed cake. We require a cake that will be ready to eat upon arrival.
You are responsible, of course, for paying the full cost of making the cake and assuring that it reaches us intact.
I think you covered everything, Mark! I've gone through some hoops with very very complicated guidelines, but I'll forgive the editors, they accepted the story, lol! One thing I would add. It has to do with the pace of online publishing. I wish more online journals would accept reprints. I mean what are the odds that a story published online (for free, to boot), four years ago, would be known/remembered by the readers? Most online stories vanish in the haze after two weeks, and that's generous. Why be snooty about giving the tales another run in the sunlight, providing first publication is mentioned, of course.
Beautiful! There are mags I don't bother with because the guidelines are labyrinthine. And, life is too short to have work tied up for a year. Both writers and editors would be well-served by treating one another as human beings.
Thank you for this well thought out article. I have been working with editors, both paid and volunteer for three decades now, and your words give me a lot to think about.
Good piece and I enjoyed it. I would add that if your journal charges a reading fee that you put that at the top of your guidelines rather than burying it at the end or on the Submittable page. It'll save everyone time. And I'm finding that, unlike the old days of snail mail submissions, virtually everyone accepts sim subs.
Thanks, Mark, for finally outing the anally retentive, would-be Paris Review editors who discard work that doesn't follow their font preferences, layout style, cover letter formatting and the list goes on. (I have no empirical evidence for this but my impression is that non-paying litmags run by MFA graduates are the worst culprits.) Your job as an editor is to find worthy writing and give it an audience. This sort of obsession with rules is what closes the doors on so many writers who have not had the benefit of a tertiary education and/or have English as a second language. Perhaps LitMag News could put together a list of publishers who are interested more in art than they are in saving a micro-second of their time. For instance, my formatting guidelines consist entirely of 'Use a readable font. Times New Roman 12 double spaced is a guideline.'
Hi Becky! This is the essay I've been waiting for for my whole writing life! Thank you! This is a topic that's been on my mind a long time. I am instantly turned on/off by the tone of guidelines. I simply do not submit to any journal that has overly complicated, snarky, snobby, mean-spirited guidelines. I am always in a state of disbelief when they want to be addressed by their first names. In the past I've found myself deep in a website, searching for the first name of the editor, based on their snobby guidelines. At one point I stopped myself and just said, "No, I'm just not doing this ever again," and I haven't. Anyway, thanks for bringing this up. Sometimes, I look at guidelines and I just think, "You've got to be kidding me," and I just move on. On the flip side, I will submit to a journal solely based on their friendly, modest, inclusive tone.
Thanks again for the work you do!
Maggie
I have mixed feelings here, as a poet and an editor. Some of your points about having respect for contributors are well-taken. I couldn’t even request contributions for my previous publications because paying less than $0.10/word for commercial/journalistic writing is unethical. I love that I have talented writers willing to submit for my current venture, but publishing someone’s work for free (or in my case, for a pittance) comes with responsibilities. Writers should never give away full rights to their work, especially not just for the “privilege” of being a published, but unappreciated writer. No lit mag needs more than first serial rights, along with non-exclusive archival and digital, so that they can publish. If they can’t pay, they should show appreciation for contributors and their work.
On the other hand, while I agree with the curation approach when it comes to work previously published to social media accounts or blogs with small followings, it’s right for the author to remove it from their accounts or blogs, at least for the life of the issue in which they’ve assigned rights. That’s what first serial rights request and they’re a reasonable publishing standard. Also, some writers have so-called personal blogs with more viewers than most lit mags. And most lit mags also now have websites that are penalized by search engines for reprinting already-indexed material. They don’t care how small of a response the writer got. Sharing your work before publication is what writing groups are for. So, I guess it depends.
I also agree with you on responding to submissions, as long as they’re properly submitted. I do think some submission guidelines over-complicate things, but I also think that many writers employ the firehose approach to submissions. It may be effective for writers, but it shows that they don’t respect the individual editors that they are asking to publish their work. If the guidelines explicitly state that emailed (or Sir/Madam/To Whom It May Concern) submissions will be disregarded, pointing out that you didn’t know because you never bothered to read to the end of the publication’s guidelines isn’t a great defense. It’s a bit foolish, since you actually proved their point. It should be a learning experience, not a gripe.
I’ve never been so strict and I don’t solicit poetry, but is it really unreasonable to expect writers to show that they’ve read your guidelines if they’re asking for you to publish their work? I was sympathetic about your TPR debacle until you kindly admitted to not taking the time to read their guidelines that explicitly stated that what happened to you would happen. That’s why we use guidelines. Editors shouldn’t be jerks, but writers should act professionally if they want to be professionals. Reading and following directions is something most people learn early.
Well done, Mark, but that thing about simsubs? I received a submission for TheNewVerse.News today. I will post it on the site tomorrow. This is not atypical for us. Were I to allow simsubs, there’s no way I could have the confidence to work so quickly. We guarantee to respond to submitters within fourteen days and almost always get back to poets in less than a week. That’s not, I think, a disservice even though we don’t allow simsubs.
And I loathe the expression "We're passing on your submission." What, my poetry is a gallstone?
As far as being rejected because of not using the editor's name, I've not wanted to assume that the editor on the masthead is the one reading the cover letter. I have no idea of the staffing situation at a journal. Also, editors who use the "Sir/Madam" construction as a reason not to read a submission are going to be automatically rejecting older writers and possibly nonnative speakers. Of course, that's no longer an appropriate salutation, but do you really want to reject the Grandma Moses of fiction because she's following rules she was taught her whole life?
Having secret rules is a lot easier than actually reading someone's work. This does give me more journals to add to my ever-growing "do not submit" list though.
Well said and well written, Mark, although I don't consider "decline" easier to swallow (much less more polite) than "rejection". As for researching every lit mag's editor-in-chief so I can address them in my cover letter--wow, how egotistical is that? And why require a cover letter at all? Most lit mags don't want to know whose poetry they're reading beforehand. And if, as you wrote, the cover letter is to determine if the submitter read the guidelines, I say--omg, are we still in high school? Thank you for giving us a thought provoking essay--I only hope editors find it makes them think twice, too.
Thanks for this, Mark. Currently, I’ve been waiting almost double a magazine’s postulated response time for a decision on my submission. They have a twitter/X account. What I don’t understand is why they can’t just post a single tweet to explain that they’re swamped, if that’s the problem. Silence in the face of delay is especially egregious when editors are writers themselves. If they don’t know from experience what it’s like to face silence…well…they’re supposed to have imaginations!
Speaking as a relatively new magazine: a very large proportion of authors don't actually follow the guidelines anyway. (It doesn't matter, though, because we won't reject a piece for being in something other than our preferred format.)
Having said that, we'd love to receive comments / complaints / compliments / critiques of our guidelines! You can find them here: https://hkwcmagazine.substack.com/p/submissions
P.S. We are open for submissions from now until January 31 :)
As to Shunn's Standard Manuscript format, it's pretty much the gold standard for genre editors (of speculative and horror publications) - - and so I've learned to use it.
However, I really wonder what is the old-fashioned need for all that information?
Years ago, an editor needed your full mailing address because that's how you'd be paid (via a check sent in the mail). In 2023, the only zine who mailed a check to my house was Leading Edge (Brigham Young Univ.); everyone else sent my payment digitally.
And raise your hand if you really need my telephone number in the upper left corner.
Holding tight to Shunn style when you, as an editor, will not avail yourself of the information, makes me wonder about the reason.
But maybe those picky submission guidelines could be more transparent: why you require my full mailing address even though you neither send me a copy of your printed journal nor an actual check; why I must send a .doc vs a .docx; why Garamond 11 pt is essential to your well-being instead of TNR 12 pt; and why you required an audio file - - since you did not use it after all.
Thanks for listening. :-)
"Dear writer,
We, The Editors, are willing (more or less) to give your submission a cursory glance.
First, though, you have to bake us a cake.
It must be a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting. We love strawberry!
Please sprinkle the cake with white chocolate jazzies. We love those little guys! Don't you?
Send the cake via FedEx, UPS or DHL. The postal service would certainly crush our cake and we don't want a crushed cake. We require a cake that will be ready to eat upon arrival.
You are responsible, of course, for paying the full cost of making the cake and assuring that it reaches us intact.
We can hardly wait!
Yours in literature,
The Editors"
I think you covered everything, Mark! I've gone through some hoops with very very complicated guidelines, but I'll forgive the editors, they accepted the story, lol! One thing I would add. It has to do with the pace of online publishing. I wish more online journals would accept reprints. I mean what are the odds that a story published online (for free, to boot), four years ago, would be known/remembered by the readers? Most online stories vanish in the haze after two weeks, and that's generous. Why be snooty about giving the tales another run in the sunlight, providing first publication is mentioned, of course.
I wish all lit mags would read this and follow. Excellent. Thank you.
Beautiful! There are mags I don't bother with because the guidelines are labyrinthine. And, life is too short to have work tied up for a year. Both writers and editors would be well-served by treating one another as human beings.
Thank you for this well thought out article. I have been working with editors, both paid and volunteer for three decades now, and your words give me a lot to think about.
Good piece and I enjoyed it. I would add that if your journal charges a reading fee that you put that at the top of your guidelines rather than burying it at the end or on the Submittable page. It'll save everyone time. And I'm finding that, unlike the old days of snail mail submissions, virtually everyone accepts sim subs.