The Wait
There’s a lot of waiting involved in writing. At least in the business of writing. You finish polishing your baby up, send it out into the world, and wait. Often for a long time. Then, generally, your baby gets drop-kicked back to you- or at least into the gutter in front of your house. So you clean it off and send it out again.
Each market tends to have an average response time. Knowing what it is can be a factor in deciding which market you want to submit to first. It can also help you obsess over whether they are taking a longer look at your manuscript because they like it. More likely it fell behind someone’s desk. Always remember to look at the market’s own guidelines for response times. If you haven’t heard from them in awhile, you can query about your submission only after they say it’s okay.
Here are three resources that can help give you some idea of how long a particular market might take to get back to you.
And what do we do while waiting? Write more. And more, and more, and more…
Standard caveat- keep these sites free, show them some love in the tip jar. And help them out by sending them your stats on submissions.