2023 Submission Review
How'd it go, me?
Every year since the start of the pandemmy, I’ve been trying to send out poetry to various publications at a much higher rate (than my previous 0-5 submissions a year since 2006).
And here’s the 2023 overview:
~56 Submissions
34 Rejections
11 “Soft” Rejections
10 Still Active
7 Withdrawn
6 Acceptances
Not bad! About 1 submission a week is a good rate for me. My rule for where I send submissions is I have to like SOMETHING about the publication (e.g. works by authors I like, good visual layout and design, I know someone working on it, no glaring awfulnesses, etc…).
For those interested, here are some details behind these numbers.
~56 Submissions
It’s approximate because I sent some inquiries and pitches to places outside of submittable.com (which is where the majority of my submissions go through, and which also helps me compile these numbers).
Those are also only the submissions from last year, but some of the rejections and acceptances came from submissions I made in 2022 (a year, notably, with no acceptances for me).
34 Rejections
Submittable calls them “declined” but we don’t need to sugarcoat!
11 “Soft” Rejections
Of the 34 rejections, 11 of them were “soft” - something one publisher called it when they were rejecting me that I like. This is a little hard to track, I am sure some publishers just tell everyone “we hope you consider submitting to us in the future” but it seems in general to be something they will only say if they mean it. Otherwise, the rejections usually look something like this.
The journals that were softer with me this year were: Cumberland River Review, Ponder Review, Abandon Journal, Muzzle Magazine, Palooka (chapbook), Cagibi, Salmon Creek Journal, Gulf Stream Magazine, Iron Horse Literary Review (feedback standard so maybe not a soft rejection?), Georgia Review (contest so maybe they tell everyone to submit next year to make more scrilla), and Electric Literature. It’s important that I actually write those journal’s names down because they literally asked me for more work so when I resubmit to them in the future I will add a note to the cover letter thanking them for the invitation to submit more work.
10 Still Active
I like to have about 30 active submissions at any one time because that makes me feel productive (and gives me more opportunities to feel briefly hopeful before rejection).
7 Withdrawn
This is the most I’ve ever had to withdraw because all of those submissions had poems that were accepted to be published in my chapbook from Bottlecap Press (available now!). Let’s just assume that had I not had to withdraw these submissions then they ALL would have obviously been accepted.
6 Acceptances
And those publishers are: Allium, Bottlecap (chapbook), Elysium Review, Waccamaw, Stock (forthcoming), South Carolina Review (forthcoming). I think it’s worth noting that, besides Bottlecap, I had known at least one of the editors of each of those journals. And that four of the six were published outside of submittable. I hope that my acceptances weren’t done purely because people know me but I think there is value in being “in the mix” and “getting your name out there.” How much value? Who can say!
Critical Conclusions
I think sharing this stuff would have been useful to me as a less experienced writer, which is why I’m sharing it now. Becoming more comfortable (less uncomfortable?) with rejection is one of the biggest hurdles for me (see my post about it all here). And me telling you just how rejected I am might also help ME feel less kinds of ways about it all.
I think there is maybe a ceiling I am hitting at this point in my poetic development as it relates to publication, and if it stays here, I think I am cool with that. The more important thing to me is that I enjoy writing and that I feel like I have something to share. If that goes away, then being published more or less won’t matter.
Here’s to 2024 and all the many ways we will have our souls rejected by strangers!