I used to keep track of story submissions with a PlamOS database on my old workpad. When I upgraded to Treo it trashed the database, and I had the memorable experience of submitting the same story twice to the same magazine -- oops.
I thought about putting the same sort of tool online and using it there, but I figured the number of people interested in that sort of thing was probably small. It turns out I was wrong. I found an online service called Duotrope which seems to be thriving. Duotrope provides a submission tracker for users (registration is free) and also provides statistics for market response time based on the information provided by users in their trackers. The statistics are similar to the sort of thing Blackhole has done for years, but Duotrope also offers a market search engine to find just the right magazine or contest for your next SASE.
This is a great example of how the right mix of features can make something more than the sum of its parts. I found it hard to bring myself to update Blackhole because it was just an extra step after a rejection (or the rare acceptance). With Duotrope, I enter the submission when I send it out, and then use the site to track what I have out at any given moment. When I get an answer back, I update the tracker as part of the process of resubmitting to another market. That's a much better incentive for me to provide information. The information, in turn, helps me and the rest of the users to track which markets respond quickly, and which respond slowly or not at all. the list of all available markets gets the benefit of constant attention and feedback from users as well, and the results are impressive. I take Novel and Short Story Writer's Market each year, but Duotrope has already clued me in on markets I didn't know existed.
Posted by bill at October 6, 2007 11:00 PM