Duotrope Submissions Tracker: "Rinse & Repeat"

Thank you for your recent submission to Gulf Coast. We appreciate your patience while we read your work. However, we're sorry to inform you that your work was not the right fit for us at this time. Thank you again for submitting, and good luck with all your writing endeavors.

Sincerely,
The Gulf Coast Editors

My first publication by Travelers' Tales

It's just another day in the business of literary rejection. After submitting "Crisis" as my sample essay for my application to Lit Camp, I polished (and re-polished) the piece and sent it on its merry way. During the months of March and May I submitted to 10 literary journals. Since I'm pretty bad at keeping track of my submissions/rejections (needle-in-a-haystack acceptances I celebrate--yes, that's me with my first publication in 2009), I decided to try out Duotrope, "an established, award-winning writers' resource." Check out features like its publication search (you can customize searches of market listings and even compare response times and acceptance rates) and submissions tracker.

I signed up for the 7-day free trial and committed to a full-year subscription ($50, or just $5 a month, which might be the best route in retrospect). Here's what my submission tracker looks like:

In case your magnifying glass couldn't decipher the tiny text from my screen capture, it's basically a spreadsheet with columns for piece, publication, date sent, date rejected/accepted, type of response (I've got 4 of those lovely letters so far!), and how many days you've waited with bated breath. You can even filter your report by submission status, piece, market and year of submissions.

Even if you don't have any submissions to date, I encourage you to check out the Duotrope website. In their own words:

Like the shampoo bottle says, "Rinse and repeat." Keep writing, keep submitting. Learn to shake off rejections and accept constructive criticism. Celebrate your acceptances. You'll have many more to come!