I hate to admit it, but I’m slow in adapting to new technology. It seems our family was the last one in the world to get a personal computer, and only recently did my wife and I become smart phone users. Researching markets for my short stories was the same. Until a few years ago, I relied mostly on traditional research tools, books and writer magazines.
There’s nothing wrong with using this tried-and-true method, but over the years I started having trouble keeping up-to-date on the markets I was sending my stories to. For example, one particular journal changed from accepting story submissions throughout the year to only a few months in the fall. Sending a story to a journal when it is closed is not only a total waste of a submission, they are nearly always discarded unread, it also makes a writer look foolish. Given the limited time I have to write let alone keep informed of the ever changing literary market, there had to be a better way.
Alas, a few years ago I found one. It’s a website that’s not only a wonderful data base for short story markets, but also helpful in managing the submission process. It’s called Duotrope.
Duotrope has a lot of features, and it seems I’ve only scratched the surface in what it can do. Its market research features were the main reason I started using their website, and I think you would be hard pressed to find anything better. After entering a few parameters in their search box, it takes only seconds to sort through their data base and develop a list of literary journals that match your writing genre.
Once you have a list, the website makes it easy to fine tune your search. Each market has its own page filled with a wealth of information. There is a handy link to each journal’s website making it easy to review their taste in stories and find submission guidelines. That’s helpful in itself, no need to search the web, but perhaps the real gold mine is the wealth of submittal information writers are always hungry for. You’ll find submission times, word count and genre information. There is a plethora of statistics like acceptance and rejection rates and response times within the past 30 days. Some of journals have a link to editor interviews designed to give authors a personal insight into the type of stories, poetry or essays an editor publishes.
Duotrope also has a tracking feature that allows writers to easily track submissions. By simply pulling up your personalized submission page, it’s easy to review all the markets you’ve sent stories to and when to expect a response.
Yes, Duotrope comes with a cost (the basic program is free, but it lacks most of the valuable features I’ve listed). However, given the amount of time Duotrope has saved me in researching and submitting stories, the fee is worth it. Without Duotrope, I’m not sure I would have found a market to place my short story The Christmas Zephyr.
If you write literary short stories, poetry, essays or are searching for a literary agent (a feature I haven’t used yet), take a minute and check it out. Here’s a link to Duotrope’s website: https://duotrope.com/
Interesting, David. I continue to track mine both on my own WORD document and a paper copy.
The site you mentioned seems a lot like what Querytracker is for agent search. Duotrope may be the same sort of thing for writers who submit their own short stories themselves.
I haven’t used Querytracker for quite awhile. The Duotrope tracking feature is nice, but its ability to effectively search through all the different markets is what mainly attracted me to the program. Very user friendly too!!
Congratulations David!
I still keep records on the old index card. And a fairly recent smartphone user–I have my daughter’s old one 🙂
Thanks Vijaya, My wife, Sheila, and I only recently switch to smart phone technology too.