Q: Why do so many writers *not* follow submission guidelines?
"It's complicated."
Welcome to our weekend conversation!
I have a confession to make. Way back in yesteryear, when we were all sending our submissions by mail, I did something stupid. I did this stupid thing many, many times.
You see, in the olden days it was common practice for lit mags to request that you include a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) along with your submission. This is so lit mags could easily and freely correspond with you. Lit mags never returned your manuscript. But they would return the SASE.
That is, assuming you included the SASE. For several years and dozens of submissions, I did not include one.
It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a careless omission. It was deliberate.
My rationale was that the few times that I had work accepted, I’d received an email, a phone call, or a letter with the magazine’s own stationary. If the journals were sending me something in the SASE, I figured it would be a rejection. And if it was a rejection, why did I need to receive it?
This was stupid! I know it was!
For one thing, I should have wanted those rejections so that I could keep track of them in the spreadsheet I was keeping at the time. (Ha! That’s a joke. There was no such spreadsheet.)
But truly, I should have kept track of those rejections. I also should have wanted to hear back from the editors. Perhaps one or two wanted to write something personal to me but didn’t bother, since there was no SASE.
Also, I was completely wrong. Yesterday I asked on X whether people ever got acceptances inside their SASE’s. Turns out that many people did!
Oy! Who knew!
All this time, I was deliberately disregarding standard journal guidelines, when some of my work might very well have been accepted. It probably wasn’t, and I don’t actually think I missed out on any acceptances. Still. By completely disregarding guidelines, I yanked my hat out of the ring at the very same time that I was attempting to toss it in.
Why did I do this?
This is a question I was pondering this week as I thought about a message from a reader. Some months back, writer and editor Doug Jacquier wrote to me and requested a discussion on “the phenomenon of writers submitting totally inappropriate stories and poems to lit mags.”
He asked,
Do [these writers] simply not read the guidelines and/or samples of other work published by that lit mag?
Do they know what they are doing and simply don't care; they're just going to spam every lit mag in creation.
Do they know that lit mag is almost certainly going to reject them but just maybe they'll be so impressed they'll make an exception?
My awareness of this issue has been immensely heightened since I launched my humour litmag, Witcraft. Every page highlights that is dedicated to humour, as does the Duotrope link for submissions. So far (obviously apart from the great stories we accept and publish) we've had cage-fighting, steamy sex, incomprehensible sci fi and fantasy, murder in every form imaginable and lots of cute cats. Of course, done with wit and craft, these can be sources of humour but this seems to be a skill that eludes them.
I'd be interested if other editors experience this and how they respond, and also whether writers knowingly do this and why.
Why do so many writers not follow guidelines?
Let’s put aside those magazines who have some very specific rules—Address all editors by first name only; font must be ten points, triple-spaced, cornflower-blue, spray your cover letter with rose perfume, etc. etc.
Let’s focus on the lit mags who require the basics. These are journals that, as Doug mentions, want something very specific and are extremely clear about it. Humor for a humor magazine, fiction for a fiction-only journal. Standard font, double-spaced, etc.
We hear it over and over and over: Follow the guidelines! FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES. Follow. The. Guidelines. FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES!!!!!!!
And yet, so many writers don’t follow the guidelines.
Perhaps it’s carelessness. Perhaps it’s lack of time. Recklessness. Hurriedness. Self-importance. Delusions of grandeur. Here at Lit Mag News I’ve received poetry submissions and short story submissions. I don’t publish either of those things. I suspect such submitters are, as Doug says, spamming “every lit mag in creation.” Such submissions are rejected immediately with a note that says, “This is not what I publish.”
Many times, though, there is something else going on. Which brings me back to my own secret saga of SASE-less-ness.
When I look back at why I submitted this way, it wasn’t laziness, lack of time or an effort to save the cost of postage. It was a kind of mistrust. A mistrust in the process, and even more so, a mistrust of myself. I didn’t really believe my work would be accepted. So I made it unacceptable.
To be fair, I had reasons for feeling this way. Back in those days, many of you will remember the rather slapdash way that rejections were sent. Very often they were form letters, as they are today. But often, too, they’d be typed out on a scrap of paper. Sometimes the print would be sideways, as if the paper had been hastily fed to the printer and honestly no one cared. Or else the message was printed on one-third the size of a regular piece of paper. As if to say, Rejection of your work is not worth a full sheet of paper.
I really did feel these editors were not reading submissions. I had no idea who they even were. My own efforts, or lack of effort, I believe was a way to guard against hurt. In the face of their perceived lack of care, I was careless. I rejected myself in order to avoid being rejected by them. I wanted to write and to publish my writing. But I had little trust in the process required to get there.
I share all this in order to explore Doug’s questions a bit more deeply. Why do writers not follow guidelines? I think the answers are complicated.
I also share this because it’s quite possible that many of you are behaving similarly. Even though SASE’s are long-gone, perhaps you are engaging in other forms of self-sabotage when it comes to your work. Perhaps you, too, have a feeling of mistrust in the process, and so you undercut yourself just at the moment you want more than anything to put yourself out there.
If this is you, maybe this is a time to recognize those habits, and the beliefs underlying them. In writing this weekend’s post and reflecting on my past submission misdeeds, I realized that a lot of these sentiments have been what drove me to create Lit Mag News. Because there are wonderful magazines out there. There are places that want to read your work. The process is worth trusting, and I want writers to know that.
Is there shadiness and unfairness? Is there nepotism and VIP access through secret side doors? Are there legit scammers? Are there very well-intentioned but very unreliable outlets? Are there editors who don’t read the work submitted?
Yes, yes, and yes. But, beyond that, there are so many venues that operate in wonderfully good faith. They want to read your work. They want to publish you. It’s worth putting a little bit of trust in the process, and more so, it’s critical that you put that trust in yourself.
So, I suppose this is my long way of addressing Doug’s concerns. Why do writers not follow guidelines? It sounds ridiculous. It’s so simple. It should be the easiest part of the writing process. Just follow the guidelines! They’re right there, on the journal’s web page! It’s so obvious!
But for many writers, it’s not so easy or obvious at all. Many writers have to get out of their own way first. And that is a skill that can take a lifetime to learn.
What do you think?
Editors, are you mystified by writers who don’t follow guidelines? How do you handle such submissions?
Writers, is it unthinkable that you would ever in a million years flout submission guidelines?
Have you ever found yourself engaging in small practices of submission self-sabotage?
Remember snail mail submissions? SASE’s?!
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!
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!