The day arrived. After dreaming about it for years, I was officially starting my new job as a freelance writer. I sat down at my desk with a large cup of coffee and evaluated the situation. I had a small stack of essays that I had written during the previous months while I was winding down my former career. I also had a list of potential markets. What I didn’t have was an understanding about submission etiquette. Should I pitch an idea to one publication and await a response? Or should I send it to two publications at the same time? “Four,” said one of my writing instructors who taught a class I was enrolled in at UCLA. My other instructor, who was teaching a course through mediaBistro.com, suggested submitting pieces to one market at a time.
Hmmm. If nothing else, the conflicting advice made one thing clear: the rules surrounding simultaneous submissions are confusing. The two schools of thought each have compelling arguments supporting their approach. Those who favor simultaneous submissions note that if writing is your livelihood, your work, your source of income, then the practice is vital. “Unless a market specifically requests sole submissions, don’t wait around for the first place to respond or you’ll spend most of your life waiting to collect rejections,” Amy Friedman, a writer and editor, says. In many cases, especially with personal essays, writers have already put in hard work in advance. If you wait for responses, you’ll only have the chance to submit to three or four places a year. “Multiply that over time and you see the problem,” she says. “Your work sits idle.”
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| “[Submitting simultaneously is] sort of like asking two people out on a date for the same night. It’s not real classy.” |
Bill O’Sullivan, senior managing editor of Washingtonian agrees. He teaches classes at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and tells his students it is fine to submit one paragraph pitches or full blown essays simultaneously, as long as the publications don’t have a specific policy against it. “But if you’re sending a pitch, you don’t want it to appear you’re submitting it to a million places, so be sure to personalize the letter and peg each query to suit the publications,” he says. As an editor, O’Sullivan suspects he receives simultaneous submissions on a regular basis. “And I don’t mind.” Recently, he accepted a pitch by a writer who had, in fact, already placed it elsewhere. “My response was, ‘Congratulations.'” If a double acceptance does occur, writers can always reply by saying, “I just sold that piece, but I have more ideas for you to consider.” O’Sullivan and Friedman both believe that the chances of two editors both saying yes are small enough that it’s a risk worth taking.
The opposing school of thought rationalizes that the most respectful approach is to submit a pitch, follow up, and move on if it’s not accepted. “It’s sort of like asking two people out on a date for the same night,” Lori Gottlieb, a Los Angeles-based freelance writer, says. “It’s not real classy.” Paula Derrow, articles director at Self magazine, thinks the problem with simultaneous submissions is that it results in pitches that are too generic. “The most successful pitches are tailored to a specific department at a specific magazine,” she says. If it’s an idea that a writer thinks fits a lot of publications, it’s probably not much of an idea.
Under the single submission approach, wait two weeks to follow up. If a writer is desperate and in a hurry to place work, then he or she can inquire after one, Derrow says, noting that she may not open a cold pitch immediately, but she tends to open follow up emails right away. If there’s no response, the writer should pitch elsewhere. “The editor has been given fair warning,” Derrow says.
When deciding whether a writer should pitch one idea to a single market or many, the best guidelines may simply come down to whichever approach the writer feels most comfortable pursuing. “I usually send submissions to between two and five publications at once because it can take months for publications to respond,” says Jane Ciabattari, a fiction writer and blogger for National Book Critics Circle. She did have a double acceptance on one occasion and was able to work out a situation where the second magazine agreed to run a reprint at a different rate.
Submitting to only one magazine at a time can help writers leverage editors into making a decision. “I’ve always followed the one-at-a-time philosophy, but I certainly use it to my advantage if I haven’t heard back, saying that I’m calling to follow up because if you’re not interested, I’d like to pitch it elsewhere,” Melanie Kaplan, a Washington D.C.-based freelance writer, says. She will query a couple places, however, “if the idea is versatile and the publications are not competing.” For example, she wrote an article about dog day care centers for one publication with a business angle and for another with a lifestyle angle.
I have tried both approaches, evaluating each situation on a case-by-case basis. If I am cold pitching editors, especially in a new area I haven’t covered before, I lean toward submitting simultaneously. Once I’ve established the lines of communication with an editor, I don’t send a simultaneous submission to them. So far my plan has worked out fine. Thinking back to my first day and remembering how confused I was about navigating the tricky rules of simultaneous submissions, I can only conclude one thing: both of my instructors were right.
Jenny Rough is a freelance writer. She blogs about yoga and mindful eating.
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