We've Read over 4,000 Submission Guidelines. Here's Some Feedback.
Deepest apologies for the unavoidable sass.
This week's newsletter is going to be lit industry-heavy, so for the half-dozen of you who’ve come here for business insights, I'll try to be extra funny.
My partner, who is not a writer, helps us with our social media. While researching themed calls for a post the other day, she asked, "If these magazines want people to submit to them, why do they make it so fucking hard to figure out how?"
See, submitting to some literary magazines is like showing up on a date to meet someone who says, "OK, if you want a chance with me you need to shower three times a day, eat only fish, drive a nice car, call your family regularly, wear clean socks, give back massages, love cats, hate ferrets, drink 2% milk, and be a goddamn pro at hopscotch. Also, here is a portfolio of all of my exes. I want you to be like them but not exactly like them. K? I'll let you know in three to six months if you made the cut."
And if they get back to you, it's with a prerecorded voice message that says, "Dear average human, don't take this personally, but I don't love you. I have so many people who love me, so it's hard to choose. I'm sure there is someone out there who will want you, though."
Coming across this can be disheartening. Come across it enough times and you might reasonably conclude:
I'm gonna die alone.
But for editors, this scenario is flipped and can feel like Tinder swiping at an incel convention.
No one has solved this dynamic. And, if Twitter is any indication, everyone has tried at least twice. We're not going to try. Those soap boxes are stacked way too high, and we're afraid of heights.
We plan to solve those problems through the technologies we're building rather than trying to get a whole bunch of folks to change their habits and minds.
But one problem we can help with is when a magazine desperately wants more submissions, but isn't getting them. And, in our humble opinion (after reviewing 4000+ submission guidelines), we believe this has to do with several factors that pop up at us as we have built our database.
When we decided to do this startup diary, the first thing Karina sent me was a rant about all of the things she dealt with when she started Chill Subs and was parsing through guidelines. She is working on a huge project release which is keeping her too busy to explain her thoughts here, so I'll share snippets of her rant and elaborate when necessary.
Note: We do believe that most editors are not malicious. We always assume that most magazines either don’t know or don’t have the time to make these changes. So we’re taking the good-faith approach of throwing a sass parade about it like a couple of dramatic know-it-alls.
Have a clear link to submission guidelines
It's hard to give advice on this first bit without sounding condescending—like telling someone, "Hey, if you want to make friends, go outside where there are people."
But, and we say this with all the love in the world, have an obvious link to your submission guidelines. Also, call them "submission guidelines,” “submissions,” or “submit." I understand that "what we want," "contact," and "about," can all reasonably be places where you'd have guidelines. But hear me out.
Imagine if everyone decided fuck it for STOP signs and instead, we had:
"Take a beat."
"Whoa there, Nelly."
or
"Hold your horses."
Surely, no one can argue with the editorial logic that keeping it simple and straightforward is best.
Are you open for submissions??
No notes.
Keep things updated across platforms
We can hear the protesting already. Who has the time to keep a website updated!? But we’d like to respectfully point out that if you want to start a hobby you don't have time for, we'd recommend something that doesn't involve other people's hopes, dreams, and egos.
I’d also add to this that it is infuriating to read a set of guidelines that say submissions are open only to go to the Submittable page and find “There are no open calls for submissions.”
Create a checklist, spreadsheet, or something. If a magazine can’t be bothered to have its ducks in a row, why should anyone give them their baby duck to care for?
Let writers know who you are
Sometimes people may want to run a magazine anonymously - but, honestly, almost anyone who is well-intentioned and runs a mag anonymously usually has a note explaining.
In our experience, it seems that when there is no masthead with no explanation, there are also high fees and other sketchy stuff going on.
And like, hey, don't be sketch.
Be conscious of the design
I would also add here that the way information is organized and presented is as important as the look & feel. When requirements are buried in massive walls of text, or shoe-horned into general FAQs on separate pages, it’s not only unwieldy but unpleasant. Where is the harm in a clear bullet point list? Is bolding important information so hard?
Then, of course, you have the issue of split guidelines where some are on the webpage, some are on submittable pages, and none are particularly clear.
Let’s return to the dating metaphor for a moment…
There will always be writers who come strolling in, picking their nose with their butt-scratching finger, dropping unorganized stacks of bullshit down, and demanding a magazine admire their brilliance.
We get it. As editors, we deal with a lot of nose-pickers.
But the cleaner, and clearer the website, the more well-meaning writers who care about how their work is presented will want to publish on it.
It’s that simple.
Let’s end this with some helpful tips.
If you’re an editor subscribing to this newsletter, we’d be happy to do a free look-i-loo at your guidelines and give some specific feedback.
For writers, if you’re looking for specific info, try “ctr+f” and just pop in the info you’re looking for (for example, ctr+f —> word count).
For our part, we go through all the different pages to try to pull out this information for everyone, then present it in an easily navigatable format. Soon, we’ll have a super intuitive new browse with even more filters, and in April we’ll be fully redesigning magazine listing pages to have all the information writers need to submit in an even cleaner format.
So, well, shit, I guess all of this was for naught because we’re just going to do it for you.
God dammit. Why did I even write this thing?
Can I say HILARIOUS?
Funny and true-a genius combination! As I'm both an editor (responsible for said guidelines) and writer who submits a f*ckton, I appreciate everything about this article. I might be inclined to inquire about the "free look-i-loo" but I also just read the article about being an international company in a f*cked-up world which makes me want to volunteer to help y'all out instead.