I’m a writer but design websites / apps at my day job, and my specialization is in how people absorb information on the web.
One of the problems I see with so many lit mags’ submission guidelines is that they’re waaay too long. Eye tracking studies have shown that the average internet user only reads about 2-3 sentences before they start skimming (unless they’re reading something like a news article or short story) — faced with a huge block of text, our brains just sorta space out! I suspect this is a big reason why submitters are sending in things that don’t follow the guidelines.
If lit mag editors want to increase the likelihood of submitters reading their guidelines in full, I’d suggest:
- Making the instructions as short and concise as humanly possible. We’re writers so we’re good at editing down, but it’s also a great task to hand off to ChatGPT ;)
- Bullet your instructions. Try to keep it to 7 bullets max (for more on why, look up Miller’s Law)
- If you have control over this type of thing on your website, make sure your blocks of text are no more than 600px wide on desktop devices (this is the ideal line length for our eyes to scan - it’s no coincidence that this is about how wide the pages of a book are!) and make the line height 1.5x the size of the text - so if your font is size 14, your line height is 21. If your submission guidelines are only on Submittable, you’re probably good as they have all this stuff built in.
- If you only accept humor, or submissions from Canadians, or from people over age 47, put that in bold at the top *and* bottom of your guidelines (for more on why, look up the Serial Position effect).
Your response is similar to the reason online students don't follow assignment guidelines. We automatically go into skim mode when consuming information online.
I faithfully follow all submission guidelines. But, due to the fact that I spent my life studying dance & nonverbal communication instead of getting an MFA in writing, I must admit to being in the dark when trying to figure out whether what I write (subject matter, tone, voice) is in tune with what a Lit Mag wants to publish (beyond the difference between CFN, poetry & fiction, of course, which I have no trouble with). This, even when I’m reading the lit mags. I learn a great deal when I can drop in on your interviews with editors, Becky, but I’m still trying to fathom what are specific editors looking for? “Send us your weird…” doesn’t help. I keep trying & thanks to you for raising questions, Becky!
This is a frequently heard bit of advice that also doesn't compute to me at all. I suppose in the broadest terms it makes some sense--don't bother submitting something exactly the opposite of what a journal always publishes--but even that... I'd like to think that each poem would be judged everywhere on its own merits, and that any good editor would recognize a good poem, even if it showed up in a form they rarely saw--or had never seen before. But experience has pretty well disabused me of that notion.
Thank you for mentioning “send us your weird…” I often wonder if my writing doesn’t have the right weirdness quotient. Am I too weird or not weird enough? Maybe your weird isn’t my weird?
Kind of aggravating to think that in a limited call for submissions--i.e. only taking 200 then full up in 24 hours--that writers are sending work that's not suitable, locking others out of their chance. Also, I wonder if that's part of the problem: an elite journal with a small annual window may push people into sending SOMETHING just so they get their shot, even if the story might not feel exactly right for that journal.
Your point about non-rule-followers flooding a limited submission window is a good one, Leslie. When I know that a magazine will place a limit on submissions, I make sure I’ve read the guidelines and have my material ready to go the minute the sub window opens; more than once I’ve stayed up to get that submission in at 12.05 a.m.
That's a good point that I hadn't thought about regarding places with capped submissions. Wonder what % out of a 100 would just be inappropriate for the mag. 20-50%? Be curious for any editor to weigh in.
l follow guidelines for lit mags but am unbelievably exhausted and jaded and disgusted by the way editors (and agents for long-form work, novels, etc) treat writers. The power balance is way off. Editors and agents and publishing houses seem to forget that they would have no job if it weren't for writers - that they are ENTIRELY dependent on us, not the other way around. So when l follow the guidelines and get back some "form response" or nothing for great, long stretches of time, or in the case of fiction agents for novels, often nothing ever, not one word, my resentment grows at the fact we (whose labor they are dependent on) must follow every jot and tittle of their instructions, while they, far too often, don't seem to care at all about how they treat us. Not true in all cases of course but far, far too often. If they want writers to follow their guidelines, my perspective is that they should treat us - our work - what we need - with the same respect.
Yes, yes, yes! Right there with you with both the writer's hat and the editor's hat on. Like you said, the power is not fairly distributed. The writers (The People) are the ones with the real power. The editors are simply curators. The writers are doing the editors the real favor.
And poets, particularly, are wildly generous in their willingness to provide their work FOR FREE. Where else do we see that in our capitalistic society?
I sincerely care about and try to follow guidelines. I will admit that I avoid lit mags that have quirky or difficult guidelines because I don’t want to reformat a piece over and over for guidelines that aren’t standard, like double spacing prose and no names on the work. And I’m suspect of mags that don’t read blind.
I follow the guidelines, it's hard enough to get in there that you DO NOT want to self-sabotage. I also suspect that some editors look for easy ways to winnow the pile of submissions and ignoring the guidelines is giving them an easy way out, lol. Mind you, I've submitted to a mag that had 2 pages of guidelines, ridiculous! But I had a story that would fit the call nicely and I sweated through the procedure, incredibly detailed stuff about spacing, paragraph breaks, font, italics.... pfffff.... Well, they took the story, so that made me feel a bit better.... Maybe few people submitted because the guidelines were so daunting????? As an occasional guest editor, I impose few guidelines, only theme and word count. Still, I had to reject people that completely missed the subject and sent stuff that was twice the length.
I'm with you on those rigid and doctrinaire guideline gauntlets. It's one thing to take off the personal info so they can read blind, or single space the manuscript, but come on. And places that have those heavy guidelines also tend to drone on in their "mission" statements too, I find.
Here's a good one! And it happened this week. I submitted a poem to a lit mag for a theme issue. In his rejection note, the editor said my poem was widely admired by the readers and made it to their short list - - but then they decided to take the issue "in another direction."
Thanks, Becky. I am indeed mystified. I'm co-editor of a community lit mag focused Mercer County and the state of NJ. But during our last reading period, I received submissions from Texas, California, and other states. Our guidelines clearly state that the submitter must identify some connection with our region. Few did. I spent time googling the submitters to see where they live or work. I'd say about 25% of the submissions were automatically disqualified because the authors didn't read or follow the guidelines. Our guidelines are not difficult to follow. We don't specify margins, font, spacing, removing all identifiers, or file name conventions. We've decided to hold a clinic when our reading period opens in January about guidelines and cover letters.
Barbara, you have mentioned this nuisance before. The sad truth is that too many adults who think of themselves as "writers" are grossly inept at following basic instructions and lack basic reading comprehension.
They ought to go into politics instead where arrant stupidity in a candidate is applauded.
That must be frustrating Barbara. It's not something I would do. For example I came across Oxford American that only accepts writing about the southern states of the US; it's hard enough getting published so it seems senseless to submit when you'll be rejected automatically. I suppose these are people that do not read the guidelines, even in a cursory way!
Is this really a problem, though? They waste a little of your time, to be sure, but mostly they are wasting their OWN time if you just do the right thing and don't consider any work by writers without a local connection (since that is what you have specified).
Whenever I had major literary events here in NYC, I learned that poet-volunteers were utterly useless - - - but department store counter clerks from Macy's and Bloomingdale's who volunteered to help out were the best assistants ever.
A couple of us here have mentioned difficulty in figuring out what magazines are seeking in content, as opposed to format. One focus that I find particularly obscure is “hybrid” fiction. I know what the word means, but when I read how the magazines themselves define it, I find that their definitions don’t generally shed much light on what they’re looking for. Then, when I read pieces they’ve published, I really can’t see how they qualify as “hybrid.” Maybe that’s a question for an editor interview, sometime, Becky.
95% of literary magazines ask for the same submission requirements. Word document, Times New Roman, 12pt, 1 inch margins, etc., etc.. I have no problem with these; the manuscript is waiting to be uploaded to Submittable and the cover letter personalised for each submission.
It throws me, however, when a literary magazine goes against the grain and asks for contact details on the opening page justified left or right (even centred), social media handles in the cover letter, author's name in the header of the manuscript, 1.5 inch margins, no indented paragraphs, strict adherence to the Chicago style manual or even Courier. I'm happy to oblige as I wouldn't submit if I didn't respect the magazine. To do this means going back and making a copy of the Google document, adjusting it to the magazines requirements, downloading it and checking it before uploading.
Sometimes after all this I make a mistake. Just saying. Maybe it's impractical for all the literary magazines to have the same requirements when using, for example, Submittable, but it would make things easier and avoid basic errors (at least for me).
I've written articles for LitMagNews on both sides of this.
From the editor's perspective, of course, I'd prefer you follow the guidelines... at least loosely.
From the writer's perspective, I want you to save your time and not make yourself crazy worrying over Shunn's style or whatever outmoded requests lit mags want to insist you follow. Get off your high horse editors!
If you don't like the rule, don't follow the rule. With that in mind, not following the rules may result in a rejection from many lit mags.
I remember them. And as a Canadian author sending stuff to American magazines, it was extremely difficult because Canadian stamps aren't going to work on a SASE. It was so slow and very expensive. Digital submissions are soooo much easier and way more economical.
In the "Emily" books by L.M. Montgomery, aspiring Canadian author Emily Byrd Starr is always asking her Cousin Jimmy to get her American stamps, presumably for this purpose.
Yes, same here. I lived in Europe and these submissions required a trip to the post office to get an international mail voucher, pricy... needless to say, I didn't submit as much as I should have. On the other hand, I received some very nice and personal rejection letters, I still have them!
Mystified for sure, but as someone editing Eunoia Review as a labour of love that doesn't charge people to submit but also can't afford to pay anyone, I just...move on.
The only one that frustrates me somewhat is people attaching cloud links as opposed to standard email attachments, only because I sometimes can't open them because their institutions block non-institution users.
Sometimes it's a question of access. If a journal doesn't have any examples online, a writer might decide it's a better bet to pay the $3 reading fee than to shell out for a copy of the journal, especially if the submission window is closing and there isn't time to order a physical copy and have it delivered.
For format guidelines, I always do my best to follow them--but with so many persnickety variations in what journals ask for as far as author info on the first page and in running headers, occasionally things are bound to fall through the cracks.
I always assumed that when editors complained about writers not "following the guidelines", they were talking about the formatting requirements and big-picture stuff like word count limits and genre, as opposed to writers failing to grasp the subtler aspects of story construction or tone or whatever that (allegedly) define what a particular journal "likes" to publish. Because I'm totally with you: Most of these journals have 0-5 pieces per genre available to read free online (at least for the longer-form genres), and that's really not enough to grasp the vibe (especially since most journals aren't as consistent as they think they are, nor do they consistently select what they say they want). It would be absurd for editors to expect us to subscribe to their magazines and read them for years in order to qualify ourselves to submit; they'd have to believe they were the only game in town. And maybe some are exactly that ridiculous, but if so, I have no sympathy for their complaints about writers sending work that is a poor fit!
Good point, Mark. I do, and I was thinking about (dis)ability as well. Time is money, and it's easier for submitters with both of those things in abundance to sift through massive blocks of text detailing nitpicky guidelines. Also, easier for people who aren't neurodivergent (saying this as someone with ADHD who stresses over those guidelines lists and reads them umpteen times to make sure my brain didn't skip anything).
In terms of submissions that totally miss the mark in relation to, say, genres the mag seeks, I'm not sure there's a class correlation. I could see people pressed for time and energy saying fuck it, then mass submitting to a bunch of places, but I could also see people with an abundance of resources doing the same in the vein of entitlement.
Great piece! SASE’s are not entirely “long-gone,” however. I can think of at least two lit mags that still ask for them—ZYZZYVA and The Hudson Review. Conjunctions might also still require them.
The SASE option has it's place. I think some older writers are used to it and it's difficult to change. Also, I'm told it's one of the few ways (only way?) incarcerated writers can submit work. There's an accessibility component in play. Other than that, there's a level of pretension with journals that retain exclusively SASE... they tend to be "heritage" / "prestige" journals with Wizard of Oz editors who are not engaged in lit community conversations. Not that I think all editors need to be heavily active on social media... a little mystery is fine... but I'd prefer to have some idea of who I'm dealing with and what the journal publishes... some older journals make this incredibly difficult to determine... it's like they'd prefer to remain obscure.
I haven't submitted to any publication that didn't have an online submission option in over 20 years, nor would I ever do so again. I already lived in the 20th century--I have no desire to go back and do it again.
I love . . . love . . . love when lit mags and book reviewers require hard copy. Far less competition. (Thank you to everyone here who AVOIDS those!) :-)
Not for me. I'm so thrilled that the SASE for the majority of magazines isn't a requirement any more. I love how we send our work today. Hate SASES. May they RIP.
The Paterson Literary Review still accepts only postal submissions - - but will respond via email. When Abandoned Mine Lit Mag was still active, it was still using old school postal mail + SASEs.
I’m a writer but design websites / apps at my day job, and my specialization is in how people absorb information on the web.
One of the problems I see with so many lit mags’ submission guidelines is that they’re waaay too long. Eye tracking studies have shown that the average internet user only reads about 2-3 sentences before they start skimming (unless they’re reading something like a news article or short story) — faced with a huge block of text, our brains just sorta space out! I suspect this is a big reason why submitters are sending in things that don’t follow the guidelines.
If lit mag editors want to increase the likelihood of submitters reading their guidelines in full, I’d suggest:
- Making the instructions as short and concise as humanly possible. We’re writers so we’re good at editing down, but it’s also a great task to hand off to ChatGPT ;)
- Bullet your instructions. Try to keep it to 7 bullets max (for more on why, look up Miller’s Law)
- If you have control over this type of thing on your website, make sure your blocks of text are no more than 600px wide on desktop devices (this is the ideal line length for our eyes to scan - it’s no coincidence that this is about how wide the pages of a book are!) and make the line height 1.5x the size of the text - so if your font is size 14, your line height is 21. If your submission guidelines are only on Submittable, you’re probably good as they have all this stuff built in.
- If you only accept humor, or submissions from Canadians, or from people over age 47, put that in bold at the top *and* bottom of your guidelines (for more on why, look up the Serial Position effect).
Hope this is helpful!
This is a fantastic response, absolutely spot on, especially the part where lit mags should only accept submissions from Canadians.
Your response is similar to the reason online students don't follow assignment guidelines. We automatically go into skim mode when consuming information online.
Brilliant!
I faithfully follow all submission guidelines. But, due to the fact that I spent my life studying dance & nonverbal communication instead of getting an MFA in writing, I must admit to being in the dark when trying to figure out whether what I write (subject matter, tone, voice) is in tune with what a Lit Mag wants to publish (beyond the difference between CFN, poetry & fiction, of course, which I have no trouble with). This, even when I’m reading the lit mags. I learn a great deal when I can drop in on your interviews with editors, Becky, but I’m still trying to fathom what are specific editors looking for? “Send us your weird…” doesn’t help. I keep trying & thanks to you for raising questions, Becky!
This is a frequently heard bit of advice that also doesn't compute to me at all. I suppose in the broadest terms it makes some sense--don't bother submitting something exactly the opposite of what a journal always publishes--but even that... I'd like to think that each poem would be judged everywhere on its own merits, and that any good editor would recognize a good poem, even if it showed up in a form they rarely saw--or had never seen before. But experience has pretty well disabused me of that notion.
Thank you for mentioning “send us your weird…” I often wonder if my writing doesn’t have the right weirdness quotient. Am I too weird or not weird enough? Maybe your weird isn’t my weird?
Kind of aggravating to think that in a limited call for submissions--i.e. only taking 200 then full up in 24 hours--that writers are sending work that's not suitable, locking others out of their chance. Also, I wonder if that's part of the problem: an elite journal with a small annual window may push people into sending SOMETHING just so they get their shot, even if the story might not feel exactly right for that journal.
Your point about non-rule-followers flooding a limited submission window is a good one, Leslie. When I know that a magazine will place a limit on submissions, I make sure I’ve read the guidelines and have my material ready to go the minute the sub window opens; more than once I’ve stayed up to get that submission in at 12.05 a.m.
That's a good point that I hadn't thought about regarding places with capped submissions. Wonder what % out of a 100 would just be inappropriate for the mag. 20-50%? Be curious for any editor to weigh in.
This is cap and limited window abuse could get worse with writers using AI programs to assist in writing, drafting, and revising submissions.
ACK!!!! Absolutely.
Interesting insight, Leslie.
l follow guidelines for lit mags but am unbelievably exhausted and jaded and disgusted by the way editors (and agents for long-form work, novels, etc) treat writers. The power balance is way off. Editors and agents and publishing houses seem to forget that they would have no job if it weren't for writers - that they are ENTIRELY dependent on us, not the other way around. So when l follow the guidelines and get back some "form response" or nothing for great, long stretches of time, or in the case of fiction agents for novels, often nothing ever, not one word, my resentment grows at the fact we (whose labor they are dependent on) must follow every jot and tittle of their instructions, while they, far too often, don't seem to care at all about how they treat us. Not true in all cases of course but far, far too often. If they want writers to follow their guidelines, my perspective is that they should treat us - our work - what we need - with the same respect.
So true—we writers provide the food, the publishers are the grocers but without us, their stores would be empty…
Yes, yes, yes! Right there with you with both the writer's hat and the editor's hat on. Like you said, the power is not fairly distributed. The writers (The People) are the ones with the real power. The editors are simply curators. The writers are doing the editors the real favor.
And poets, particularly, are wildly generous in their willingness to provide their work FOR FREE. Where else do we see that in our capitalistic society?
>>they are ENTIRELY dependent on us, not the other way around
Which is also why I find it so offensive when they try to get US to pay for the privilege of having our work sit in their slushpile for a while.
I sincerely care about and try to follow guidelines. I will admit that I avoid lit mags that have quirky or difficult guidelines because I don’t want to reformat a piece over and over for guidelines that aren’t standard, like double spacing prose and no names on the work. And I’m suspect of mags that don’t read blind.
I agree with every point you make here. Your last point is a HUGE red flag for me.
So you don't put your name on your submissions? That's exactly what I do.
Wise.
I follow the guidelines, it's hard enough to get in there that you DO NOT want to self-sabotage. I also suspect that some editors look for easy ways to winnow the pile of submissions and ignoring the guidelines is giving them an easy way out, lol. Mind you, I've submitted to a mag that had 2 pages of guidelines, ridiculous! But I had a story that would fit the call nicely and I sweated through the procedure, incredibly detailed stuff about spacing, paragraph breaks, font, italics.... pfffff.... Well, they took the story, so that made me feel a bit better.... Maybe few people submitted because the guidelines were so daunting????? As an occasional guest editor, I impose few guidelines, only theme and word count. Still, I had to reject people that completely missed the subject and sent stuff that was twice the length.
I'm with you on those rigid and doctrinaire guideline gauntlets. It's one thing to take off the personal info so they can read blind, or single space the manuscript, but come on. And places that have those heavy guidelines also tend to drone on in their "mission" statements too, I find.
Here's a good one! And it happened this week. I submitted a poem to a lit mag for a theme issue. In his rejection note, the editor said my poem was widely admired by the readers and made it to their short list - - but then they decided to take the issue "in another direction."
They did not send me a consolation prize! Yikes.
Thanks, Becky. I am indeed mystified. I'm co-editor of a community lit mag focused Mercer County and the state of NJ. But during our last reading period, I received submissions from Texas, California, and other states. Our guidelines clearly state that the submitter must identify some connection with our region. Few did. I spent time googling the submitters to see where they live or work. I'd say about 25% of the submissions were automatically disqualified because the authors didn't read or follow the guidelines. Our guidelines are not difficult to follow. We don't specify margins, font, spacing, removing all identifiers, or file name conventions. We've decided to hold a clinic when our reading period opens in January about guidelines and cover letters.
Barbara, you have mentioned this nuisance before. The sad truth is that too many adults who think of themselves as "writers" are grossly inept at following basic instructions and lack basic reading comprehension.
They ought to go into politics instead where arrant stupidity in a candidate is applauded.
That must be frustrating Barbara. It's not something I would do. For example I came across Oxford American that only accepts writing about the southern states of the US; it's hard enough getting published so it seems senseless to submit when you'll be rejected automatically. I suppose these are people that do not read the guidelines, even in a cursory way!
Is this really a problem, though? They waste a little of your time, to be sure, but mostly they are wasting their OWN time if you just do the right thing and don't consider any work by writers without a local connection (since that is what you have specified).
And this type of (ahem) "writer" will stay clueless, not read the guidelines, and go on wasting other people's time.
So bizarre!
Whenever I had major literary events here in NYC, I learned that poet-volunteers were utterly useless - - - but department store counter clerks from Macy's and Bloomingdale's who volunteered to help out were the best assistants ever.
A couple of us here have mentioned difficulty in figuring out what magazines are seeking in content, as opposed to format. One focus that I find particularly obscure is “hybrid” fiction. I know what the word means, but when I read how the magazines themselves define it, I find that their definitions don’t generally shed much light on what they’re looking for. Then, when I read pieces they’ve published, I really can’t see how they qualify as “hybrid.” Maybe that’s a question for an editor interview, sometime, Becky.
Sometimes guidelines will be undermined by subsequent statements like “We’re open-minded” or “Surprise us”.
95% of literary magazines ask for the same submission requirements. Word document, Times New Roman, 12pt, 1 inch margins, etc., etc.. I have no problem with these; the manuscript is waiting to be uploaded to Submittable and the cover letter personalised for each submission.
It throws me, however, when a literary magazine goes against the grain and asks for contact details on the opening page justified left or right (even centred), social media handles in the cover letter, author's name in the header of the manuscript, 1.5 inch margins, no indented paragraphs, strict adherence to the Chicago style manual or even Courier. I'm happy to oblige as I wouldn't submit if I didn't respect the magazine. To do this means going back and making a copy of the Google document, adjusting it to the magazines requirements, downloading it and checking it before uploading.
Sometimes after all this I make a mistake. Just saying. Maybe it's impractical for all the literary magazines to have the same requirements when using, for example, Submittable, but it would make things easier and avoid basic errors (at least for me).
I've written articles for LitMagNews on both sides of this.
From the editor's perspective, of course, I'd prefer you follow the guidelines... at least loosely.
From the writer's perspective, I want you to save your time and not make yourself crazy worrying over Shunn's style or whatever outmoded requests lit mags want to insist you follow. Get off your high horse editors!
If you don't like the rule, don't follow the rule. With that in mind, not following the rules may result in a rejection from many lit mags.
I remember them. And as a Canadian author sending stuff to American magazines, it was extremely difficult because Canadian stamps aren't going to work on a SASE. It was so slow and very expensive. Digital submissions are soooo much easier and way more economical.
In the "Emily" books by L.M. Montgomery, aspiring Canadian author Emily Byrd Starr is always asking her Cousin Jimmy to get her American stamps, presumably for this purpose.
Didn't you have to use IRC... Internatinal Reply Coupons? I remember not sending stuff outside the US because it seemed like a hassle.
I still have a few in my stationery box!!
Yep. C'ya. ;)
Yes, same here. I lived in Europe and these submissions required a trip to the post office to get an international mail voucher, pricy... needless to say, I didn't submit as much as I should have. On the other hand, I received some very nice and personal rejection letters, I still have them!
Good point!
Mystified for sure, but as someone editing Eunoia Review as a labour of love that doesn't charge people to submit but also can't afford to pay anyone, I just...move on.
The only one that frustrates me somewhat is people attaching cloud links as opposed to standard email attachments, only because I sometimes can't open them because their institutions block non-institution users.
Sometimes it's a question of access. If a journal doesn't have any examples online, a writer might decide it's a better bet to pay the $3 reading fee than to shell out for a copy of the journal, especially if the submission window is closing and there isn't time to order a physical copy and have it delivered.
For format guidelines, I always do my best to follow them--but with so many persnickety variations in what journals ask for as far as author info on the first page and in running headers, occasionally things are bound to fall through the cracks.
I always assumed that when editors complained about writers not "following the guidelines", they were talking about the formatting requirements and big-picture stuff like word count limits and genre, as opposed to writers failing to grasp the subtler aspects of story construction or tone or whatever that (allegedly) define what a particular journal "likes" to publish. Because I'm totally with you: Most of these journals have 0-5 pieces per genre available to read free online (at least for the longer-form genres), and that's really not enough to grasp the vibe (especially since most journals aren't as consistent as they think they are, nor do they consistently select what they say they want). It would be absurd for editors to expect us to subscribe to their magazines and read them for years in order to qualify ourselves to submit; they'd have to believe they were the only game in town. And maybe some are exactly that ridiculous, but if so, I have no sympathy for their complaints about writers sending work that is a poor fit!
I'm curious if others think Class comes into play here and in what capacities?
Good point, Mark. I do, and I was thinking about (dis)ability as well. Time is money, and it's easier for submitters with both of those things in abundance to sift through massive blocks of text detailing nitpicky guidelines. Also, easier for people who aren't neurodivergent (saying this as someone with ADHD who stresses over those guidelines lists and reads them umpteen times to make sure my brain didn't skip anything).
In terms of submissions that totally miss the mark in relation to, say, genres the mag seeks, I'm not sure there's a class correlation. I could see people pressed for time and energy saying fuck it, then mass submitting to a bunch of places, but I could also see people with an abundance of resources doing the same in the vein of entitlement.
Totally agree about the privilege of time and headspace/bandwidth to submit.
Great piece! SASE’s are not entirely “long-gone,” however. I can think of at least two lit mags that still ask for them—ZYZZYVA and The Hudson Review. Conjunctions might also still require them.
The SASE option has it's place. I think some older writers are used to it and it's difficult to change. Also, I'm told it's one of the few ways (only way?) incarcerated writers can submit work. There's an accessibility component in play. Other than that, there's a level of pretension with journals that retain exclusively SASE... they tend to be "heritage" / "prestige" journals with Wizard of Oz editors who are not engaged in lit community conversations. Not that I think all editors need to be heavily active on social media... a little mystery is fine... but I'd prefer to have some idea of who I'm dealing with and what the journal publishes... some older journals make this incredibly difficult to determine... it's like they'd prefer to remain obscure.
I haven't submitted to any publication that didn't have an online submission option in over 20 years, nor would I ever do so again. I already lived in the 20th century--I have no desire to go back and do it again.
I love . . . love . . . love when lit mags and book reviewers require hard copy. Far less competition. (Thank you to everyone here who AVOIDS those!) :-)
Not for me. I'm so thrilled that the SASE for the majority of magazines isn't a requirement any more. I love how we send our work today. Hate SASES. May they RIP.
The Paterson Literary Review still accepts only postal submissions - - but will respond via email. When Abandoned Mine Lit Mag was still active, it was still using old school postal mail + SASEs.