A Tool to Track Multiple Submissions

Simultaneous submissions are a pain to track—this spreadsheet makes it so much easier

A quick favor before I get into today’s topic: If you enjoy these posts, please consider sharing the newsletter with a fellow poet. I’d be so grateful!

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

There’s a reason I’m a poet and not an accountant. My brain doesn’t naturally organize anything—numbers, impressions, notes, measuring spoons—in a neat, logical way. I might just as easily associate the number three with a painting or a period of history as I would place it between two and four. 

This wildly associative brain is great for generating poems—the preferred mode like “lucid dreaming,” as Matthew Zapruder says in Why Poetry—but it is not so great for the required organization it takes to be a writer who is published. 

(Full disclosure, I’m working in my living room today because a professional organizer is in my office right now, organizing stacks of books and papers and and and…)

I have a hunch this is a common need for a lot of us. After I shared my literary journal submissions strategy, The Power of Threes, my friend Janie asked:

"How do you keep track of multiple submissions—as in, what exactly does your spreadsheet or other tool look like?”

In my professional life as a writer, editor, and communications consultant, I’ve developed a deep love of spreadsheets. Here’s how I’ve finessed Professional-me’s learning into a system that keeps Poet-me out of simultaneous submission cluster-f*s.

One Spreadsheet to Rule them All

I work in Numbers (Mac) but Excel or Google Sheets would work equally as well. 

The spreadsheet has three tabs:

1. Poems submitted (by year)

2. Journals

3. Presses

The Poems Submitted Tab

Poem titles run down the far lefthand column. Groups of three are color grouped so that I can see them more easily (read The Power of Threes for the reasoning behind my batching strategy). 

Journals to which they’ve been submitted and the dates submitted go in columns to the right. Every row represents one poem. When a poem is accepted, I scroll right to identify the journals that I need to notify about the poem’s acceptance elsewhere.

When I get a response, I color code it. A cut-and-paste “no” = gray. Not these, but "please send more" = yellow. Accepted “yes” = green. No color means I am still waiting for a response.

As the year progresses and more responses come in, I will create new blank columns for the next round of submissions in the space adjacent to the poem titles. Older submissions move right, newer submissions fill in from the left. Note: Because response times vary, I will need to be more careful about scrolling right to see where poems are, as the year goes on.

Journals (and Presses)

Tracking journals and presses in the same spreadsheet helps me connect the dots. These two separate tabs include any and all that I have identified as potential matches for the kinds of poems I am writing (I’ll share more on how I collect and prioritize these in another post). Journals = for publishing individual poems. Presses = for publishing full manuscripts. Although I’m not actively submitting a manuscript, I know I will need this research in the near future.

When I come across a journal or press in social media or elsewhere, I put it on one of these tabs. Then, when I’m batch submitting (about once a month), I do more research, find deadlines, etc. and note them. I highlight in aquamarine the ones I’m planning to target in this round. Journals I’ve already submitted to are dark gray.

Once a journal or press makes it onto the spreadsheet, I also “follow” it on Submittable if they are on that platform. Most are. (Stay tuned for more on how I use Submittable in a future post.)

Also, just a thought: Don’t bury your spreadsheet too deep in your files—you’ll forget to use it.

How about you? What helps you stay on track?