Print is
still--and maybe always will be--the coveted realm of publication, so it seems
odd that print journals are more and more striving to banish hard copy (aka
snail mail) submissions. From a recent attempt to put together some mail
submissions, my cursory survey indicates that the tide seems to be going this
way.
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I’m noticing a
lot more online only submissions from
journals that used to take mail submissions, and I’m of mixed opinion about
this. Since print publication is the coin of the realm, it seems
counterintuitive to have the work processed electronically by quality print
journals (Willow Springs, Sycamore
Review, Gulf Coast, among many others). Many charge $3 for this service, through
the dominant submission site, submittable
(which had the unfortunate name submishmash
for awhile, which is how I thought they probably felt about the deluge they
were asking for with this system). After signing up and using the service for a
few journals, I didn’t realize until recently that one password would allow
access into a system that offers no indication of which journals it serves,
knowledge which could have spared me confusion and inevitable password
headaches. When using submittable,
you see a list of your submissions in a spreadsheet, the name of the journals
you have submitted to with the annotation of either “Received” or “Declined.”
Some must also see “Accepted,” of course. Many of the smaller or less profile
journals use the system, though without a $3 charge.
The $3 may
seem no more than a nominal charge considering how much an actual mail submission
costs: postage, anywhere from a dollar to two or more, envelope, return
envelope with postage, and printing paper, as well as the time involved. In a
sense, these journals are getting the money you would otherwise spend to send a
hard copy.
For all the
time investment and inefficiency of snail mail, I prefer it because, like the
lowly and costly journal in paperback form it aspires to, it puts something
substantial and tactile in hand. It won’t evaporate with one key stroke. It is,
more and more, put into a recycling bin when it fails to impress--but its
chances of being a felt presence on an editor’s desk seem more comforting to
me, maybe because it materializes something that came out of my mind.
As for the
electronic format, if the work is only published online and not in print, it
can have a brief, lowly half-life when someone hacks the journal’s website and
destroys hundreds of writers’--and editors’--work. This happened with a journal
I had work in, which I’ve never been able to confidently call published because
the website is gone. There is often this notion that work committed to the
world wide web is public forever, but
somehow, it’s never the work that you might want to be available.
I am warming
up to the electronic transition. But not much. I don’t particularly like
reading on a screen, though I have adapted to it out of necessity. At one time,
I absolutely refused to send work by e-mail or through online submission sites,
though I now accept that this is the future.
The argument
is made that online submissions are greener--which may be true--but I think
there’s something more insidious going on against the writer, which highlights the
plight of the marginally published.
As there are
presumably more writers submitting work in this form, it is also easier now to
send work. This can make rejection so much more efficient for journals. Because
there is less paper for them to wade through, it is easier to ignore. The slush
pile has become the melting polar ice cap. It’s going away and no one will miss
it until it’s too late.
Online
submission systems might tempt harried and overworked editors to skim over possibly good work. If the work is unknown, what are the chances that it will be
that good, anyway? You can almost see the logic to this assessment. Of course,
this can just as easily happen with snail mail. When you have toiled and edited
your writing to a careful finish, it can feel like nothing to submit and pay
your $3; if it’s this expedient to send, just image how much more likely the
work could get passed over merely because there’s too much work for editors to
read through. The numbers reality: there’s likely more good work out there, too. Maybe now more than ever, it is all about
luck, or almost crazed persistence on the part of the writer to land a
publication.
If journals
don’t banish snail mail, they are making it much more difficult to submit this
way, often instituting exacting guidelines to follow. I find them to be an
intentional annoyance, and sometimes lose track of them when I’m putting work
together to submit. If I miss something when I mail, such as accidentally forgetting
to address a piece “Attention: Fiction Editor,” I don’t really fret about it
that much. But often, these journals’ requirements can come to sound like the
red M & Ms of a diva pop star’s dressing room requirements: “Never address
us as ___.” “Under no circumstances, should you ever do X.” How low do you need
to bow and scrape? You will because you want them to consider your darlings. Or
maybe you’ll give up and hit send when you realize how much more work snail
mail requires.
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