How to keep a submission tracker and find literary magazines

Know what you sent, where and when, without a trip through your inbox. Set up a submission tracker that fits how you work, and find the next magazine for each piece.

Find literary magazines to submit to

Find places to send in the magazines you already read and on Missa’s magazines reading now page, where each one links to its own guidelines. When you’re choosing between similar magazines, compare their journal profiles and magazine rankings. The rankings score six measures, including pay and reply time.

Response times help you plan when to follow up. They don’t promise a decision date, and no percentage can tell you how an editor will read your next story.

Keep a note of where you found each call. When a deadline or fee looks wrong later, that note tells you which page to check.

Check a literary magazine before you submit

Read the magazine’s guidelines first, then a recent issue. Find the fee, the reading period and who can submit on the magazine’s own site, and trust that page over any list, ours included. Read the guidelines again on the day you send, and make sure none of those details have changed.

Most guidelines pages also say how long a reply takes. AGNI’s guidelines and The Kenyon Review’s both give a reading period and a response time.

Read at least one recent issue. Notice the length and form of what it publishes, and whether your piece would sit well beside it.

Choose a submission tracker: spreadsheet or Missa

You don’t need special software to track your submissions. A spreadsheet or Missa’s Tracker can hold what you sent, where and when, and any tracker works if you keep it current.

Here’s how a spreadsheet and Missa’s Tracker compare:

Missa doesn’t publish acceptance rates. Our acceptance-rate guide explains why those numbers need care wherever you find them.

Test any tracker with a few real records before you move your whole history: one rejection, one piece still out, and one accepted somewhere else. Try imports, exports, status changes and reminders on them. Then give it a week of real submissions. If you still dig through your inbox to see what’s out, try something else.

Set up a submission spreadsheet

Use a spreadsheet if you mostly want a dependable record and you’re happy to keep the dates, statuses and reminders yourself. Start small, and give each submission its own row. Don’t overwrite the last destination when a piece comes back, and if several versions share a title, give each one an ID.

Keep your records consistent. Use the same title for a piece every time you log it, and note the version. Log every decision, including the dull ones, and keep work still out apart from work that never got a reply.

The weak spot is upkeep. Review your sheet once a week and log acceptances the day they arrive. A spreadsheet can’t email you, so set your own calendar reminders.

Don’t mark a quiet magazine as a rejection. Keep the piece pending until the guidelines or an actual decision say otherwise.

What Missa’s submission tracker keeps for you

Missa’s Tracker keeps what you sent, where and when, and who still owes you a reply. You usually don’t apply through Missa. You apply on the organizer’s own page, then mark the call as sent in your Tracker.

Save a call, and Missa reminds you a week before it closes and the day before. You can add reminders two weeks and three days out.

A piece you’ve sent stays in your Tracker as sent until you log a reply. Set a check-in, and Missa asks whether you’ve heard back when the wait runs long.

Your Tracker also keeps work you sent by email or through an organizer’s own form, as long as you log it. Keep the organizer’s receipt or confirmation email with the record, because it’s your proof of what you sent and when. Test it with one email submission and one sent through an organizer’s form, and make sure you can find both again in a few seconds.

What you log is your own record. Missa doesn’t tell the magazine, and magazines don’t update your Tracker. When a decision arrives, you change the status yourself.

Don’t count on a tracker to withdraw your work from other magazines. Logging an acceptance doesn’t tell the other editors, so follow each magazine’s withdrawal rules, then update your Tracker.

Move your submission history out of a spreadsheet

Back up your spreadsheet, clean a copy, and test any importer with a handful of rows before you bring the rest. Yes, even the color-coded one.

Bring your old records as a CSV through Missa’s importer. You map your columns, review each row and confirm before we add anything.

The move itself works the same in any tracker:

1. 1
   Keep the original file untouched and work in a copy.
2. 2
   Make your status labels consistent and your dates unambiguous.
3. 3
   Map the columns. Missa’s importer maps title, organization and status, plus optional deadline, submitted date, response date, work, genre, fee, notes and source URL. Use “title” for the call or submission and “work” for the poem, story or artwork, if your sheet keeps them apart.
4. 4
   Import the hard cases first: a multi-poem packet, a partial withdrawal, a magazine that has closed, and two records with similar names. If a detail has no column of its own, put it in notes and keep it in your backup.
5. 5
   Review the rows before you confirm. Missa’s importer has a review step for this.
6. 6
   Compare the record totals, and check each row landed on the right organization. Then open a pending piece, an acceptance and an old rejection.
7. 7
   Set reminders only once you’ve checked that deadlines and time zones came through correctly. Keep the old system until you’ve fixed any mismatches.

Bring your history to Missa if you also apply for residencies, grants and prizes. For calls beyond magazines, see where to find open calls.