ADVICE
TO NOVICE WRITERS.
(NB: This advice is primarily for poets, but short story writers would do well to pay heed, just substitute the word ‘poetry’ for ‘short story’ and you’ll get the picture)
If you are just at the start of your writing career and you are just champing at the bit, dying to see your name in lights, here’s some practical advice to help you on your way. Do consider this advice carefully. In the long run, it will save you a fortune in stamps, and it may also save you some embarrassment. I speak as a writer and artist who has wasted many stamps and made many embarrassing mistakes along the way. I also speak as an editor who has often been exasperated (and indeed infuriated) by those who know nothing about submission etiquette. I’ll explain this in due course, and will even endeavour to enlighten you as to why this etiquette exists.
Before we approach the hows and whys of submission etiquette, ask yourself this, are you ready for your work to be published? Do you feel your work is mature? Have you developed a voice of your own? Ten years down the line, will you regret having published before your work was sufficiently developed? These points are well worth considering. It may well be worthwhile to test the waters by getting involved in a writers’ circle or getting down to an ‘open mic’ session at your local pub (and if you don’t know of any in your locality, try an internet search on google and you’re bound to find something, just put in the name of the nearest town and key words like ‘writers circle’ or ‘creative writing’ and you’re bound to find something).
You may think that the ultimate litmus test of the quality of your work is whether it gets accepted or rejected by the literature magazines out there, but I feel duty bound to disabuse you of that notion. Good quality work will often get rejected, purely because of the stylistic biases of the editor; and even works of innovative genius will frequently be returned with a polite ‘thank you, but NO’. Even worse than that is that mediocre and even downright dreadful work can and often does get published, and not just by the vanity presses. You see, the thing is, anyone who has the inclination can set up a magazine. The outlay is relatively low, as new business ventures go. The only thing you need at your disposal is time: lots of it! You don’t even need business acumen to run a poetry magazine, because lets face it, the only poetry magazines that don’t make a loss are those that are funded by arts councils or universities. So, in a nutshell, any idiot can start up a poetry magazine, and many do! So beware of trying to get published too hastily, for you may well succeed.
Okay, let’s say you’ve read a few of your poems at an open mic session and not been booed off the stage, and maybe even you’ve done some creative writing workshops and you are convinced your stuff is ready for publication, what now?
First, you need to research your market. You need to find out which magazines would be suitable vehicles for your work. It may seem obvious to say it, but there are plenty of people who waste stamps and pay no heed to this simple bit of advice. Relentless, they post their rhyming love poems to experimental poetry magazines, their horror poems to church magazines and their ranting, streams of consciousness to formalist, academic journals; wasting their time and money, and wasting magazine editors’ time too. The only people that benefit from this are the directors of the soon to be privatised mail service.
The best way to conduct your market research is to start buying poetry magazines. This will be beneficial not just to you, but to the magazines too. For even though there are hundreds of millions of budding poets out there, most poetry magazines have dismal circulation figures, rarely even into four figures. So an extra subscriber is always welcomed. Of course, no-one but the idle rich could afford to subscribe to every magazine they intend to submit to, that goes without saying, but taking out a couple of subscriptions won’t kill you... won’t even cost as much as night on the skite. So get your priorities right! Without these magazines about, your precious poems will remain unpublished and unloved. Seriously though, every week I hear about another magazine that has gone to the wall because of poor subscription take up. Support the magazines you expect to publish you!
Aside from buying poetry magazines, you can conduct your research over the internet. Most magazines now have some sort of web presence, so check out their web sites. You’ll usually find submission guidelines and information about editorial tastes; and many magazines post sample poems on their website. This is your best way of assessing the suitability of your work for their magazine. It is a time consuming process, especially if you have only got a dial up connection, but it will save you a fortune in stamps and considerably reduce the amount of rejection slips you accumulate. You can also do further research in poetry libraries. There’s one in London, in the South Bank Centre, and another in Edinburgh, off the Canongate. There may be others in the UK that I don’t know about, but most cities have reference libraries that stock a range of more established poetry magazines like The Poetry Review, Chapman, Outposts, Orbis and Ambit. (Apologies to readers from outside the UK, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find the information you require through an internet search engine).
Okay, lets assume you’ve done your research and you’ve chosen the magazines you wish to submit to. Now you have to think about presentation. Seriously, you do. There’s no point in sending scrawled, hand written work with crossings out and coffee cup stains. Straight up, the editor isn’t even going to bother reading them. After all, if you can’t be bothered making an effort, why should he or she? Editors have to trawl through thousands upon thousands of submissions every year, so why not increase your chances of success and make it easy for them to read your work? There are a few simple rules to follow, and they make perfect sense.
As you’ll have gathered from the above, each time you submit material to a magazine it’s going to set you back at least 50 pence in stamps and stationary, if not more. It’s an expensive business, and not generally a profitable one, as most magazines only pay in contributors’ copies. You may want to look for ways of economising, and with the advent of the Internet, you might be tempted to email your submissions instead. All I can say to this is, ‘yield not to temptation’. Unsolicited email submissions are the bane of most editors’ lives, and are second only to non-inclusion of SAEs in the list of contributors’ sins. Most print magazines will NOT accept email submissions. There are many good reasons for this: the potential transmission of computer destroying viruses being not least of them. That said, some print magazines will accept email submissions, and I have noted those I know of in their listing, but there are usually conditions attached. For easy searching I have used yellow highlighter to show print magazines that accept electronic submissions. Whilst most print magazines do not accept electronic submissions, most internet magazines or e-zines do. So, if you are really skint this would be the obvious avenue to go down.
It’s an expensive business trying to get your work published. Every time you submit some work it’s like putting a bet on a horse in what will feel like a rigged race, and even if you do win, your prize will most likely be just a complimentary copy of the magazine your piece is published in. If your work is well-constructed and in keeping with the zeitgeist, you may be able to place it in one of the few magazines that actually pays, but even then, don’t expect to be handsomely rewarded for your efforts. Most payments are dismal, if you think of the hours put in and the expenses incurred. In truth, if you want to earn money you’d be better to get a job as a pot washer in a third world country, because they get paid more per hour than most writers. If you’re a poet, God help you. Even the most famous poets in the world have to have day jobs. If you’re a novelist, at least you can live in hope of being the next Irvine Welsh, but before you let your dreams build you up too high, here’s a sobering statistic: only one in a hundred completed manuscripts ever get published; and only one in a hundred published authors actually earn a reasonable living from royalties. Statistically speaking, you’d still better keep the day job! But before you even start to dream about poetry collections and novels, you’ve still got to get over the hurdle of rejection. Rejection is going to stalk you like a demon. As soon as you send that first batch of poems out you are going to be walking in that demon’s shadow. You better get used to it, because pretty soon you’re going to have enough rejection slips to wallpaper a room, and at 50 pence a rejection, that’s pretty expensive wallpaper.
If all this has put you off, well and good, because you don’t have the stomach for it. Go and get another hobby! Seriously, I’m not kidding. If you want to be a writer you are going to need a hide of iron.
That said, you don’t need to take every rejection personally, and with a little experience, you will learn to calm the inner voices that tell you you’re a failure just because Joe Bloggs at X, Y or Z magazine has rejected your poems. Editors are NOT the ultimate arbiters of what is and isn’t good work. Editors are frequently blinded by their own biases and tastes. It is not uncommon for poems to be rejected by numerous magazines and then accepted by another. I’ve had poems rejected by a succession of scrotty little xeroxed rags, only to be finally accepted by a serious literary heavyweight. There is no real logic to this. It is purely a process of trial and error. So, persevere in the face of all adversity.
Perseverance is a necessary virtue in this game. So is patience. You are going to wait a long, long time to see your work in print. First, you need to wait to find out whether your work has been accepted or rejected. Then, if it has been accepted, you are going to have to wait some more before you see it published. It is not uncommon to wait three months before you hear of a decision, and in some cases, it can be as long as a year, depending on the publication schedule of the magazine in question. As a rule of thumb, you should wait three months before getting in touch with the editor to query the status of your submission. As for how long you are going to wait to see your accepted submission published, well, usually at least a year, but quite often you will have to wait even longer. My personal record for the gap between acceptance and publication is thirteen years, and this dubious honour goes to Global Tapestry Journal who accepted my poem ‘Sartre’s Eyes’ in 1987 and published it in 2000. I must admit, I had given up on the possibility of seeing my poem published in Global Tapestry Journal. I assumed the magazine had folded. This does happen a lot. You’ll get your poem accepted, and the magazine will fold before your poem gets published. This is called Sod’s Law. Some believe that Sod’s Law is a universal truth, which even Einstein couldn’t negate; others (of a sunnier disposition) believe it’s a myth. Believe me, in the world of poetry publishing, Sod’s Law prevails. Get used to it!
Another instance of Sod’s Law is the first time you break the holy commandment of ‘thou shalt not simultaneously submit’ you’ll get the same poem accepted by two magazines. So, what will you do then? Hmmm....
Just don’t do it - even if you have to wait a hundred years to see your poem in print - don’t simultaneously submit.
Believe me, you don’t want to piss poetry editors off. Editors may be eccentric, cantankerous and even unreasonable, but they are the ones with the power. If you don’t play the game by the rules its your loss, not theirs. It’s what’s called a ‘buyers market’.
If you want to substantially reduce your chances of getting published, here’s what to do. The next time you receive a rejection slip, write to the editor in question and let them know that their decision is wrong, that your poem is a work of genius and the editor is a fool. If you want to absolutely guarantee that this editor will never publish you, be as abusive as possible, perhaps even threaten physical violence. That should do the trick.
Seriously though, don’t do it. No matter how angry or frustrated these rejection slips get you, bite your tongue, count to ten, go and make yourself a nice cup of tea. Don’t noise up editors. It isn’t polite and it won’t do you any good. Common sense, you might think, but there isn’t an editor in the game that hasn’t received abusive responses to their polite rejection slips.
Editors are mostly nice, well-meaning people. They work their knuckles to the bone and earn nothing for all their efforts, many of them even subsidise their magazines from their own pockets, and they get sweet FA in the way of thanks for all their hard work. Why do they do it? Well, the answer is LOVE, which is a good enough reason to do anything. So please, respect the editor!
Before I sign off, a word of warning, beware of Vanity Publishing. There are unscrupulous people out there who will happily fleece you as you set off on your quest for literary fame and fortune. They will use every device possible to reel you in and part you from your money. Do NOT be fooled by their flatteries.
If you have not heard of Vanity Publishing before, check out this very informative website: http://www.vanitypublishing.info/ where you will get the lowdown on this devious practice.
I hope you find this advice useful. Follow it, and I guarantee you, you will save yourself a lot of time and a heap of cash.
Good luck on the long, slow, winding path to literary success.
All the best
Dee Rimbaud
Now, here are a few points of view from some magazine editors, which you might want to consider....
Some writers put enough sellotape around their envelope to protect a Mona Lisa - and I'm not smiling by the time I get inside! Their work is likely to be torn or dog-eared before I see it. If you live in Ireland, please specify north or south, it affects postage and I would sooner pick up a dictionary than an Atlas. IRCs hear hear! If you absolutely must have a reply from abroad, enclosing your email address could save you a lot of money. I'm not picking up the phone to the States if there's insufficient IRCs. Having spent time reading a poetry collection and writing a review suited to my readers, the poet sent a very snotty, personal and ill-informed reply. Needless to say, I won't bother to review the poet in future. Poets often write on postcards, with enough words to fill an A4 sheet. Needless to say, the postman obligingly stamps over half the scribble, which saves me the job of reading it! Poets frequently pity the Post Office so much, they stick 3 or 4 stamps on an envelope, when a simple pair of kitchen scales would help them to estimate under 60 grams. If they must send so many stamps - thank you, but don't stick them on the envelope. Some poets obviously steam off stamps before sending their work and reusing the stamp - sadly the postman's eyesight is better than theirs; they can see the franking marks and will charge over £1 for loss of earnings!
Wendy Webb
Email: tipsforwriters@yahoo.co.uk
I've just had a browse through your tips for writers and it looks pretty comprehensive to me. I'd second all the thoughts about clearly set out on decent paper and spelled properly! (Do you mention email? I get a lot of stuff submitted that way which is fine by me particularly if I'm going to use it cos I can just paste it in, as long as it's in the body of the email or on an attachment I can open!) Being a mag. about oral storytelling I don't get too many unsuitable submissions because I've learned to describe it as such and most people do find out what we're all about before sending stuff but there is a trickle of people - mainly from USA for some reason! who insist on sending their very formulaic detective stories or sometimes really sloppy love poems which have no relevance at all. I always reply and explain that they are not what we are about but a couple of them have continued to send inappropriate stuff so I just bin it.
Pete Castle
Facts & Fiction storytelling magazine, UK.
Website: www.factsandfiction.co.uk
I don’t think
my anecdotes are particularly funny, but we get all the usual mistakes –
submissions that virtually need origami experts to get them into tiny
envelopes, no return postage, 20 poems when we ask for six, Epic poems when we
only publish up to 40 lines… We get vast amounts of doggerel from people who’ve
never read poetry – perhaps that’s something worth adding – if people don’t
read poetry how can they expect to write something that others will want to
read? One of the classics that jumps to mind is a poem that began ‘don’t be a
rebel/ sit on a pebble’ and got worse from there L I recently had something from someone who said
he didn’t have an address to give me – very sad, but hard to engage with. We do
accept electronic submissions – it’s quick and easy and much cheaper for
people, but we don’t accept attachments – none the less we get streams of them.
Jan Fortune-Wood
Website: www.coffeehousepoetry.co.uk
I've had a quick read of Tips and it makes sense to me. I
very much agree that poets should buy/subscribe to the magazines that they
like, and I'd emphasise the idea of the poet building a kind of mutual-respect
relationship with an editor over the years and, hopefully, with the other
contributors to magazines they are published in - that for many editors it's
not about getting published in a way, but about building an artistic community
around the magazine (which will often have
associated readings and pamphlets or books - again these are something that
should be participated in, in good faith, by a poet who really
admires/enjoys the work published there). IRCs. I have yet to be sent a
single submission by an American who has enclosed enough IRCs to cover return
postage: my advice to American poets is, if in doubt, add a further IRC to
cover.
Richard Price
Painted Spoken magazine, UK
Website: www.hydrohotel.net
Submissions that annoy me: Whole MS received from unknown persons, often 500 pages, with no return postage. Poems submitted which are of completely the wrong genre for the magazine e.g., I specifically state I do not wish to receive poems about cute cuddly kittens, and then receive poems about cute cuddly kittens. Poems that have been rejected by numerous publishers and are sent to me as multi creased, hardly legible, tea or beer stained chip wrappers. Poems where no effort has been made to check spelling or punctuation and the dreaded 'i' is used instead of 'I.' These hit my bin faster than a speeding bullet. No return postage = no return. E-mail submissions should consist of no more than 6 poems, and not as file attachments; file attachments will not be read through fear of computer virus proliferation. I also have a 'blind spot' for over blown statements; recently received an accompanying letter which said the poet had been described as "equivalent to Byron, but you judge . . ." I did, he wasn't. Don't bombard: if you've had two or three submissions rejected by the same publisher there is little point in sending further poems to this point of contact, (it would appear your genre of poems are unsuitable for the magazine in question, but may be eminently suitable for another magazine). Do your research. Swear words, sensational tactics, fancy fonts and 'arty' borders - forget it.
David Pike
Pulsar Poetry magazine, UK
Submissions that irritate: Letters and envelopes decorated
with New Age stars and glitter; letters that state the sender has umpty-tumpty
years experience as a professional writer and then includes a typescript that
has been typed on an old Remington (with half the letters missing) and covered
in Tippex; typescripts that fill the entire page with no margin and no double
spacing. Surprise packages: The
typescript that looked like it had been soaked in half a pound of lard and the
collection of pubic hair!
Suzanne Ruthven
The New Writer, UK.
Your tips for novice writers are excellent - our lives would be easier if people read these before submitting. Top 5 submission blunders from Mslexia:
1. Constant fretting, leading to incessant phonecalls. Harsh
but true.
2. Making changes to submissions after submitting and judging. Let it go.
3. Clip art. Say no more.
4. Plastic folders. Save the planet.
5. Tiny return envelopes. Plant a tree.
MsLexia, UK
I've just read your tips for writers - excellent. Now it looks as if I'll have to start all over again! My method of acquiring publication was to enter the office of the editor with a petrol can and threaten to pour the fluid over my head and ignite it unless he published my effusion on whatever it was that was on my mind. Although I did not manage to secure publication, I did acquire a rather scorched-looking, mottled scalp which was better than nothing, I suppose.
Paul Newman
Abraxas magazine, UK
Website: http://abrax7.stormloader.com
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