So I did a little experiment.

In my last blog post I wrote about whether or not inquiring after overdue submissions was worth it or whether it would incite the ire of managing editors everywhere. My mind wasn’t exactly changed after writing that piece, or after reading your comments, since we all seemed unsure and had different approaches to the issue. Even when I posted the link to that blog on Facebook, my friends all responded with different tactics. Some inquire after a certain amount of time had passed, some do not. Some stick their necks out there with the hope of hearing back, and some bide their time until they do.

I decided recently that I would give it a try and see what happened. What was the worst that could happen? I’d get rejected outright? That happens on the daily for me. What was there to lose? 

So my experiment. Statistically sound it is not, but the results were largely positive. If you remember, my hesitation to inquire about my submissions was based on my experience as a fiction editor and how my reaction to those inquiries tended to be one of exasperation. Now granted, they tended to come too early (one month after sending us your work is not long enough to inquire), but it was still a concern. I didn’t want to seem pushy or impatient or unappreciative of the probable mountains of submissions they were wading through.

The first thing I did was go to each of the journals’ websites and find out how long they asked writers to wait before inquiring. Most ask that you wait anywhere from three to six months, but even that didn’t seem like long enough to wait. So I only sent inquiries to the journals who had had my work for over two hundred days. Two exceptions: I sent one to a journal I’ve submitted to in the past because the other rejections I have received from them have always arrived happily in my inbox around the 90-day mark. The current story I have with them has been out for 177 days. I also sent one to a journal that promises a 20-day turnaround time, because my story has been with them for 85 days.

What? I’m impatient.

A quick aside: This is where submission-tracking sites like Duotrope can really come in handy. For each of the journals I submit to, I can see a list of recent responses from other Duotrope users. So I can see that other Duotrope users are getting responses from that last journal after 8-18 days, which tells me that 85 days is probably a decent amount of time to wait before inquiring.

The next step is writing the inquiry email, which was something I decided not to agonize over. Important things to include, however: your name, the date of your submission, whether it was electronic or paper, and the title of your piece. I gave my letter a “just wanting to keep my records tidy” sort of feel and hit send as quickly as possible.

Here’s the good thing that happened: pretty much every journal responded within twenty-four hours. THANK YOU FOR NOT MAKING THAT PAINFUL, JOURNAL EDITORS EVERYWHERE. Here’s the other good thing that happened: no one wrote back saying, “Fie on your crap work. We reject you and your impatience outright.” No, instead, each editor responded graciously and apologetically and patiently in their explanation of where my piece was in the process and why I hadn’t yet heard back.

What I heard back was varied, but, in general, this:

1. Sorry.
2. Your work is still with an editor, which may be a good thing.
3. We are inundated with submissions and are trying to find our way through.

A few odd ball responses to mention: no response at all, a response asking me if my submission was electronic or print and when I replied electronic they never responded again, and a response that said a decision had been reached on my submission and that I would hear from them soon. This last response was kind of the worst (HELLO AGAIN, FALSE HOPE, YOU OLD FRIEND), but I’m taking it in stride.

The other thing I’m taking from all of this is that inquiring about my work after a reasonable amount of time has passed seems like acceptable thing to do. However, I didn’t receive any responses that were game changers. No one had lost a submission. No one had rejected it or accepted it and forgotten to tell me. In the end, I’m in the same position I was in before I sent the inquiries: six pieces still float in six editors’ inboxes.

So was it worth it? Meh. Maybe. But there was something I wasn’t anticipating: the whole thing felt very proactive to me, like a follow-up letter you send to a potential employer after an interview to let them know you are still interested. Maybe it helps. Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s better than sitting on my hands and waiting. One other thing: It was nice to interact with the people behind the journals, to hear more from their side of things than the usual. It made me feel connected in a way that waiting does not. And in this drawn-out, terrible process of submitting work, sometimes that is what you need to keep going.