My Submission Process

Today, I received a nice rejection on some poems I submitted to Thieves Jargon. I also sent out a group of poems to Burnside Review. Since I went through the…

Today, I received a nice rejection on some poems I submitted to Thieves Jargon. I also sent out a group of poems to Burnside Review. Since I went through the process of marking a submission and rejection on the same day, I got to thinking about how I submit poems, including how I keep everything organized. It's extremely lo-tech.

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This is how I organize my poems: I copy them by hand into those black & white marble composition notebooks. I number each page to help with referencing where each poem is.

I reserve around 10 pages of room at the end of each notebook to make submission notes for the entire book. Basically, I make four columns: Date of submission; where the submission went (for instance, Burnside Review today); which poems (I include poem titles and page number in the composition notebook); and the result (whether poems were accepted or rejected and the date of response).

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When I make a submission of poems, I mark the columns with the appropriate information in the back. But to ensure that I don't accidentally send the same poem out to several publications, I also create columns beside each poem that I cross-reference with the information in the back: Name of publication; date of submission; date of acceptance; and date of rejection.

If a poem has no response or has been accepted, then I know not to submit it elsewhere. If a poem's current status is rejected, then I know it's available to submit. If it's been rejected several times, I know there's a possibility it should be revised or abandoned.

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So, that's how I do it. Submitting multiple poems to multiple publications can be confusing. However, with this system, I've had no problems keeping on top of where my poems are.

Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.