by Evan J
photo by Evan J
Writers who haven’t worked or volunteered for a literary journal or magazine (colloquially “lit mag”) are at a disadvantage because they haven’t witnessed the submission and selection process first hand. This article is here to fix that. First, you’ll get a rundown of how the submission and selection process usually happens. Second, you’ll get a few tips to help liberate your work from the pile.
Depending on the lit mag, your submission is likely pushed into a pile with 50–500 other submissions. A team of readers now tackles the job of sorting the pile into no-ways and maybes, usually at a rate of 5–10% for the latter. (It’s worth noting that these readers are usually volunteers, sometimes highly skilled writers and editors, sometimes undergrad students just entering the literary field. Sometimes they are reading for only one short week-long period when the submission window closes, and sometimes they are reading all year round.) Next, these 10% of maybe submissions are read by a senior editor and further refined down to about 5%. Depending on the magazine, the final 5% are either accepted, or passed on to an editorial board of professional writers, which completes the final selection. When the dust settles, lit mags accept about 1–5% of submissions, and between three to twelve staff have judged the work.
Now that you know the process and can see how tough it is to make it through all the cuts, here are three points of advice to help your work better run the submission and selection gauntlet.
Submission guidelines are often long and boring reads, but there are two recurring requests worth underlining. First, lit mags want you to know their vibe by having read the recent issues. Second, lit mags want to be surprised, thrilled, shocked, captivated, etc. What they are saying is that they want to remember you, to have your metaphors cut them off in traffic, to hear your voice in their waffles during Sunday brunch with grandma. The trick for achieving this? Actually reading the recent issues. When you’re done that, submit something appropriately alternative. And by appropriately alternative I mean something that pushes the editors’ minds, not something they’d have to change their layouts and readership to publish. The Literary Review of Canada just doesn’t have the space to publish a long poem. Brick’s audience isn’t down for your essay punctuated with eggplant emojis.
Next, do the details right, but don’t belabour the small stuff. While there have been times when I’ve rejected a good piece because numerous punctuation and spelling errors made it too confusing to read, there have been more times when I’ve accepted a piece with small errors because the content was brilliant. While errors are indeed distracting and give the impression that you aren’t serious about your craft, many lit mags are willing to fix small mistakes if the content is worthy. So distribute your energy appropriately, get the details correct, but focus your time on the content. Good content remains paramount.
Finally, remember that lit mag editors are real people. Their preferences are personal and changing and completely out of your control. You can submit beautiful, unique, powerful, blunt, relevant writing, and the editors still might not connect with it. And it’s nobody’s fault. It might take two or three or twenty submission attempts until your work finally aligns with the editors’ minds. All you can do is improve your craft and play the numbers game by submitting again.
Note that the comments and views expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect Cloud Lake Literary’s opinions or thoughts.