#0055 Behind the Curtain of a Lit Journal

What happens with your creative submissions?

Submit in September. Await your fate. Hope your creative endeavor makes it into the November issue or that the rejection helps you grow.

About that middle part… Have you ever wondered what happens to your submission after you send it into that lit journal?¹

Does it ever feel like your submission gets sucked into a black hole? (Source: NASA and G. Bacon [STScI] on flicker)

Sometimes I intend to tag a book in Libby (a public library app for ebooks and audiobooks) to add to one of my virtual TBR piles and then accidentally place a hold for the title instead. Because the book might not be available for 12 or 20 weeks, I forget about it. 

So was the case with Jeffrey Selingo’s Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions. My kiddo just entered high school. We are not there yet (though some parents would disagree). But when the book showed up as available, I checked it out. Getting to see behind the scenes? Learn about the mechanisms? Discover just how much had changed since I went through the college application process? Fascinating! 

Made me think you, dear readers, might enjoy a behind-the-scenes report from a managing editor in the trenches. (Too long for one post.)

Before the Call

Last year, we didn’t have enough screeners, and we were flooded with hundreds of poetry submissions. Before anyone could submit to this year’s fall issue of Inlandia: A Literary Journey, we needed to iron out these two issues. When I huddled with Cati over the summer, she and I agreed we had to recruit new screeners to add to the existing group and that we would try capping the number of submissions for the first time. 

Screeners

In August, as I emailed last year’s volunteer screeners to find out if they wanted to return, I asked members of Inlandia’s Publications Committee to help recruit fresh screeners while Cati dug into her lists for possibilities. By the final week of August, the journal had 12 screeners: 6 returning and 6 new. FYI, the 6 new screeners either already had experience screening elsewhere or had backgrounds that prepared them to screen. Plus I share updated guidelines on best practices for screening submissions each year to all screeners whether new or returning.

We make sure at least three screeners evaluate each submission. Some screeners choose to evaluate in one category; others, in two. By the time we opened the call for submissions on September 1st, there were at least four screeners for each of the submission categories: art, creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.

Caps

On the organizational side of Submittable, there’s a way to limit, or cap, the number of submissions. We’ve never implemented a cap. (Apparently, some organizations cap to avoid excess-use charges, and some charge submission fees to cover costs). 

When I looked into capping the submissions, I wanted to find a way to limit the number of poetry submissions. But there isn’t a way to apply the capping mechanism to a single category in Submittable. Since I wanted to keep the fall issue submissions to one form, instead of creating separate forms for each category, I chose to keep track of the numbers and remove the category if or when submissions reached the limit. I decided apply caps to all the categories: up to 100 poetry submissions, 50 fiction submissions, 50 creative nonfiction submissions, and 100 art submissions. (FYI, poets and artists may submit up to 5 items.)  

The Call for Submissions Window

When an organization uses Submittable, its call for submissions goes into Submittable’s searchable database, called “Discovery.” I make sure to tag Inlandia’s online journal under all four categories for artists, prose writers, and poets to find us during our open window of September 1st through September 30th.

Because the call for submissions is only searchable on Submittable while it’s open, Inlandia makes sure to share (volunteer freelance-designed) graphics on social media and via email blasts in the lead up to the window opening. The Publications Committee members share the graphics, and this year I asked screeners to share as well. 

All this promotion leads to submissions rolling in on the very first day. We also always get a rush of submissions on the final day. Because, who doesn’t procrastinate?! Inlandia continues to promote the call for submissions throughout the open window. Sometimes the nudge on, say, September 19th is enough to get a hesitant friend of 100 Rejections Club to take the chance.

For each submission, I confirm it was submitted correctly and assign it to the relevant screeners. Our guidelines specify to submit only anonymous materials (used to be called “blind”). No identifying information in the submission. That includes the file name. Our guidelines also give word-count limits for written work. And we ask that artists and poets submit each piece separately rather than as a packet. 

If a submission includes the submitter’s name? I send a message via Submittable asking them to withdraw, delete their name, and resubmit. If a fiction submission runs more than 5,000 words? Withdraw, trim down to the word-count limit, and resubmit. If a poet submits several poems in one document? Withdraw and resubmit one poem at a time.

Because our submissions are free, the only cost to resubmit is a couple minutes of the submitter’s life for the opportunity to have their creative work screened toward possible publication. Or the opportunity to embrace rejection. Because rejection shows we’re trying!

Next time: Communication etiquette, reaching caps, and more…

Got some Qs? Hit that comment button, and I’ll give you all the As.

1. According to the info accompanying the NASA photo:
”Medium-size black holes do exist, according to findings from the Hubble Space Telescope. Such intermediate-mass black holes provide an important link that sheds light [hahahaha] on the way in which black holes grow.

“Oddly, these black holes were found in the cores of glittering, ‘beehive’ swarms of stars called globular star clusters, which orbit our Milky Way and other galaxies.

“Globular star clusters contain the oldest stars in the universe. If globular clusters have black holes now, then they most likely had black holes when they originally formed.”
Learn something new every day!