Writing tools

Submissions tracker

One of the things I hear a lot is people saying they have forgotten about a submission they made, or can’t remember if they have submitted to a publication before or not. Along my writing journey I have put together this tracker to help me manage this. It’s really straight forward with plenty of drop downs and added formulas so you don’t have a lot to add in. I found this approach really useful and I would love for people to try it out and give me feedback. If there are extra things you would like to record or you would like more options in a drop down list I can add these in and upload again.

What is included

  1. Date of submission
  2. Genre of the piece i.e. fiction, poem etc
  3. Name of the piece
  4. Was this published previously (because some zines don’t like that)
  5. Where (so you don’t resubmit the same thing)
  6. Publication you are submitting to (name of the prestigious magazine)
  7. Via (as in submittable, email , oleada or post)
  8. Expected response date i.e. if they have a response time of 3 months you can put this date in and you will know when to think about chasing it up
  9. Current position – this one is key – it is a drop down that tells you if the piece is pending response, withdrawn, rejection or ACCEPTANCE YAY!)
  10. Comments or feedback received- to remind you how great you are!
  11. Publication date – for all your acceptances so you can promote when they are coming out!
  12. Resubmit to this journal – a little reminder in case of any red flags from your last experience
  13. Available to send out – don’t need to add anything here – it automatically tells you if a piece is available to send out again or not using the other info you have added – easy peasy!
  14. SIM SUB – just a reminder in case you are submitting to more than one publication at the same time – again just to keep track

And here is the link below

Submissions tracker

When you open the file it’s probably best to save a copy so you can start editing and adding your submissions yourself. Add what you need so you can focus on writing and not spreadsheets (urgh). I’ve tried to make it a bit more fun but if anything doesn’t make sense I will edit. I will add more tools and options as time goes on.

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