STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, Part 7 by Max Jason Peterson

Delbert R. Gardner.
Photo by Adele Gardner

This series is dedicated to my loving father and mentor, Delbert R. Gardner, a beautifully lyrical and insightful poet and writer, who taught me how to submit my work when I was fourteen and gave me a postage allowance to do so at a time when we could ill afford it.

So far in this series, I’ve focused on using spreadsheets to track submissions as well as accomplishments. But I started using statistics to motivate me long before I switched to the spreadsheet format. If you find that spreadsheets are daunting, too much work, or just a greater level of detail than you need, this installment will share how I tracked my basic statistics in a word processing document.

While previous installments in this series do focus on spreadsheets, I hope that some of the advice about sticking with it and motivating oneself by the number of works sent out, rather than focusing on individual rejections, will still be helpful. 

STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, Part 6 by Max Jason Peterson

So much of getting traditionally published requires patience and stamina—and hard work. It can get very tiring, especially when making a sale takes so much work shopping a piece around. Part of the reason I wanted to share these strategies in the first place is to give you hope. Rather than get discouraged by the number of submissions that haven’t netted a sale, or doubting the value of your piece (or worse, your writing abilities), you can use your statistics to keep your eye on the big picture. My hope is that, in addition to helping you get past the sting of rejection to get your piece right back out there quickly, you’ll come to see each rejection as a stepping stone to the next acceptance. After all, if it takes me an average of forty submissions to sell a short story, receiving rejection number thirty-nine can be pretty exciting. Beyond that, statistics kept over time can also help you narrow in on categories in which you’re especially successful—so that you can build on that success. Take a look at what types of material (short stories or poems? Mystery or mainstream?) are yielding sales with the fewest number of submissions. That might be an area to concentrate on as you create new works and figure out where to send them. So, in this installment, we’re going to look just a little bit more into yearly statistics.

STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, Part 5 by Max Jason Peterson (aka Adele Gardner)

 Happy Father's Day, Delbo G.!

Delbert R. Gardner and Adele Gardner

Growing up, I had the time of my life sharing the writing path with my father, Delbert R. Gardner, a talented writer of poetry, fiction, humor, and essays, who during my lifetime worked variously as a professor of English literature who taught creative writing, and as a writer/editor for TRADOC who felt a special mission to improve training materials for the Army thanks to his experiences in World War II. I’m writing this on the eve of Father’s Day, so I just wanted to share how much it always went to me that Dad was my writing mentor, always encouraging me, providing feedback when I wanted it that was always on a level I could benefit from while growing up, just sharing the joy of the writing life together, and also showing me all the ropes with submissions. I started submitting my stories at fourteen and had my first poems published at sixteen thanks to Dad’s guidance. We were also writing pals—sharing writing sessions; offering one another encouragement; sending out manuscripts through the post every month; celebrating one another’s acceptances and tips about editors who might like each other’s work. (And now I’m his literary executor; and it’s in that capacity that I first began using statistics to track our submissions.) Since he helped me so much, and since I got such a lucky break having such a father (in terms of being a writer, naturally; but also, he was just simply an extraordinary Dad, so loving and wise, playing with us, sharing jokes, helping us with our homework and with life—our best friend) I feel strongly about passing on some of the things I learned thanks to Dad—things he taught me, and things I went on to find out as a direct result of his influence.

STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY PART 4, by Max Jason Peterson

Please note that for this post, I kept the pictures at their "original" size to be sure you can see them, since they're nitpicky Excel details.

For those who are fans of this series, I'm getting into the nitty gritty details now. If you follow along, you'll soon be creating your own spreadsheets and getting fired up by your submission statistics. For instance, today I'm celebrating having made 100 submissions of [redacted novel title]. 

For those who want to catch up or review where we are:

Part1

Part2

Part3

Please think about what level of detail would work for you. You can be minimalist or go all out.

STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, PART 3 by Max Jason Peterson

In previous posts, I explained the “why” behind my statistical method. Now I’ll provide the “how.” The following is the nitty-gritty of what my submission spreadsheet looks like (I use Microsoft Excel). But for those who don’t like spreadsheets, take heart! I will also explain how to do this using a word processing document, and even using notecards. (Both are tools I’ve enjoyed.) Further, even if you don’t intend to use a spreadsheet, I’d recommend skimming the setup details but still reading the paragraphs in between, where I explain how various measurements help me in my submissions quest. Bear in mind, as long as you understand the reason for collecting the statistics, you can find a way to do it using almost any tool, provided you get in the habit of consistently noting when things went out and came back, and when things were accepted and written.

STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, PART 2 by Adele Gardner (writing mysteries as Max Jason Peterson)

Rocco writes a story.

In Part 1, I outlined the reasons why we need to keep trying rather than getting discouraged by rejections. In essence, each rejection brings you one step closer to the goal of getting published. Your mission is to find that one editor who loves your piece. Feel free to tinker with your work as you go along, but don’t feel obliged to rewrite or scrap it based on the comments of someone who is not offering to buy it (if the editor is seriously interested & wants some rewrites in order to accept it, that’s another story).

STRENGTHEN YOUR SUBMISSIONS STRATEGY, PART 1 by Adele Gardner (writing mysteries as Max Jason Peterson)

No matter how you steel yourself, rejection after rejection takes a toll. It’s easy to lose confidence and feel your work isn’t good enough—when what’s really needed is to keep trying until you reach that one editor (or agent) who loves your work. Rather than feeling rejected, take heart by using statistics to bolster your stamina. As the author of over 475 published short stories, poems, art, & articles, and as literary executor for my father, I’ll share the system that inspires me to keep submitting, even to the tough markets—and helps me think about new strategies to build on strengths that might otherwise go unnoticed.