Will We Ever Be Good Enough for Indie Lit?

Our attempt at trying to make everybody happy.

Mariam Chagelishvili

---

All paid subscriptions here go to fund the work we do on Chill Subs. If you want to help us out, you can upgrade to a paid subscription. And if you’re into some cool writer tools and exclusive browse filters, you can try out the premium membership on our site.

---

So, our whole thing is trying to make submitting to magazines easier for writers. But what does this even mean? What is the process we're trying to fix here?

Let's take a look.

First, write something. Good, now write it again. No, better than that. OK, here we go...

Tell me what it is. Fiction? Poetry? Nonfiction? Surrealist speculative hybrid with experimental elements exploring themes of climate change and motherhood?

Cool.

Put it into a document with 1-inch margins, size 12 font, word count in the top right, title mid-way down the page. Double-space it or GTFO.

Now, find a magazine. There are nearly 5,000. Who is reading them? Nobody knows. Somebody. Shut up, OK?

So, you can pay $5 a month to access that database over there. Or Google a bunch until you find a list made after 2019. Oh, you could go on Twitter, I mean X, I mean, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Oh look! There! Under that pile of racism and fear porn, I think I see some!

Choose five.

Okay, so that magazine takes submissions through Submittable, you'll need an account there. That one through Duosuma—another account. Email those two, but attach the document for that one, copy paste into the body for that one. And this last one, you'll need to create an account through their custom platform, pay their fee through PayPal, wait for the email, come back, attach the receipt, there you go. But wait!

That one wants a blind submission. What's that? Ah, that is an outdated term for "concealed" submission. It means no identifying information. OK, back to the drawing board. Make two documents.

Shit, that magazine wants Ariel font for some reason. OK, three documents. We've got this, hang in there.

Accounts made. Documents made. Emails saved. Let's do this thing.

Write a cover letter. Why? I don't know. Say something nice about them. But not to that magazine! They want it professional. Okay, now that magazine wants you to tell them about a story you liked in their magazine.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T READ THEIR MAGAZINE?!

OK, good. Submitted? Great, you've spent three hours, twenty dollars and…hey, hey, no tears, OK? Just wait six months for them to send you a rejection letter. Except that one, they'll be defunct in three weeks.

That was...dramatic.

But is it all that much of an exaggeration?

To prepare for building our submissions manager, I asked a friend to hop on a call who'd never written in her life. I gave her a story and asked if she'd let me record a call while she submitted it. I believe her exact words were:

"OH MY GOD. What a clusterfuck." She also mentioned, dumpster fires and asked several times, "can we please stop?"

And truly, what sane human would look at this and think, "Yes, that's worth it"? For a lot of folks, they submit so they can get readers, or up their status in the literary world. But this can get a bit tricky. Writers want editors to get them readers and money. With a lack of readers, editors expect writers to provide readership and funds. Fees happen, spats break out, finger pointing, and on and on in this cannibalistic 69-ing that helps nobody. Nobody knows how to fix it and every individual solution adds another layer of complexity for writers submitting.

After a year of working within the industry, we've heard a lot of theories about why this process is so mangled. None of them good. Our theory? Creative industries are tough, especially for indie creators. It takes more than thankless work. It takes thick skin and loads of patience. Indie lit in particular has been under-served. The bad actors and messiness would not be such a problem if there were a well-structured "most of the time" flow.

So what to do? For us, it's simple. We need to find what works "most of the time" and then put all of our resources toward designing things to function that way.

Problem, though. Whenever we pin down 'most of the time' we have at least a few editors or writers send us messages demanding we account for, "some of the time" or, more often, "the time that I do this thing." More still, send us kind, but slightly condescending warnings along the lines of, "You'll never be able to fix this industry, trust me."

But what if it's not about fixing it? Just helping. Could we, someday, wrangle this process into an 'all of the time' or, at the very least, encourage the standards that work, while discouraging those that don't. For example, "follow us on Twitter to learn about reading periods" is—how can I put this nicely—frustrating. As a database, when most magazines have clear reading periods in their guidelines, do we allow for ‘idfk someday’ as an option? Do we spend loads of time and money chasing magazines through the internet to make sure our deadlines are up to date? Or, if a standard formatted document works 99 out of 100 times, do we keep the doors open for those who say, "Y'know what, I like Garamond better." We could. It's expensive and time consuming, but possible. Where is the line?

These are what we are considering right now. We're mid-way through building a variety of tools and services but keep getting snagged when someone says, "Ah, yeah, but like, this magazine does this. So we need to account for that."

Do we? Should we? Or is most of the time good enough? After gathering loads of data, talking to several editors, and keeping an eye on our statistics, here is what we've found.

• Most of the time, a standard William-Shunn formatted doc fits the bill.

• Most of the time, a short and sweet professional cover letter, hits the mark.

• Most of the time, submission guidelines are straight forward with clear specifications.

• Most of the time, fees are either non-existent or fair enough.

• Most of the time, editors don't expect writers to be scholars of their past works, but expect writers to read something.

• Most of the time, editors respond within the time frames they've set in their guidelines.

• Most of the time, magazines have clearly defined recurring reading periods or are always open.

• Most of the time, people adapt.

Does this mean all of these are set in stone? Nope. They’re a start, though.