Birth

I turn 27 today.

It may be weird or seemingly narcissistic or nonsensical or egotistical, but I find all I keep saying to myself is, "I have 3 years to get my first book into the world." Yes, my goal, like many of the folks under 30 who have a first manuscript floating around, is the age of 30.

But considering the state of the world, I'm lucky to have lived this long thus far. And now that I'm hopefully onto the second manuscript, or at least the seeds of it, there are many other things I should probably be worrying about or at the very least concerned with at this point in my life.

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Speaking of first books, I received Sean Nevin's Oblivio Gate in the mail today.

He's doing a first book interview in the future, and I'm very glad he agreed. He won the 2007 Crab Orchard First Book Award, for which I was also a finalist the first time I ever sent out my "book."

Learning of Sean Nevin as the winner, I immediately started Googling his name and checking out his work, and from what I could find, I was pretty blown away. And I'm flattered and flabbergasted my book, as it was then, was thought to be good enough to be in his company.

Not only that, but there's a reason (probably many, actually) why my book wasn't picked. It wasn't ready. It had a different title. Many different poems. I think the idea and structure's guts and circuits haven't changed much, but it was in a very early and rough stage.

Maybe I'll be saying the same thing in a year or two, but I don't think so. I hope not at least.

Without entering the contest, I'm not sure I would've known about his book. I think it will be getting its due in the future. I've started reading through it already, and it's making me want to sit down and write: always a sign that I need to trust that instinct. And not all first books bring that kind of magic through first reads.

Anyway, be sure to check it out.

SIU Press not only does beautiful books, but they're consistent with quality also. I think they'll be an important press as long as people are still reading contemporary poetry.

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Regarding this post a week ago, it looks like the faux pas has been fixed.

There's no reason to mention the journal, since it was of course an honest mistake, but the interesting thing is the next day I received an email from the Web Editor of another journal, who saw my post and contact the aforementioned journal about their security issues.

It looks like the problem has been fixed, thankfully, as I said. I was more worried about another email address getting out there and spammed more than anything else.

I did, however, take it upon myself to put the link in and grab all the other submissions that I could get that got through to Google. Many of the poets have books out and / or have been published in pretty prominent journals. It's funny how you never know who's sending work, and you never know what you're up against, since so many journals publish from the transom or slush pile and take around 2%-5% of the work submitted that isn't solicited.

Online Submissions Manager Faux Pas?

I recently found a downloadable file from a Submissions Manager of a journal I recently sent to -- via Google.

Yes, I Google my name every once in a while like everyone else does. Usually I'm able to find out what journals have been released via updated websites so I can gauge when I'll get contributor copies.

The said manuscript was withdrawn a few days ago, but I still feel a bit weird that it's technically public now I suppose, in older manuscript format.

And I was able to download the file. From the Internet. By clicking on that link.

Not a big deal really, but shouldn't Google not be reading these if they're from a Submissions Manager?

I imagine if I was looking for poets' work and that came up, I'd be curious enough to certainly click on it.

Did someone screw up?

Pretty weird, no?

Another Post About Submissions and Journals

When I was looking through my poems I was working on the other day, I thought to myself, "I think these are good enough to gather into a batch to get out into the world." Clearly I could be wrong, and I could get all rejections back, and if that happens, I'm fine with it. I would be anyway, but it makes it easier to be fine with it when so many journals now are utilizing the online submissions manager.

Print journals. Magazines. Online Journals. Everyone.

It makes it so much easier on the folks submitting. Of the aforementioned batch, every submission was to a place -- some print, some online -- that either accepted email submissions or uses the online submissions manager. I didn't have to go to the post office. I didn't have to spend any money.

Think about it. If you send a batch of poems out to ten journals that accept simultaneous submissions -- as I do, and have yet to really hit places that don't accept simultaneous submissions because I don't trust their response time (meaning it's a lot easier to accept a form rejection when you know it's at more than just one place) and want to follow their rules -- it can add up.

SASE stamp costs: $4.20
Business-sized or 8 1/2 x 11 mailer (benefit of the doubt at $.75 cents to mail): $7.50

Basically it's going to be at least $10, or around $1 per submission with the SASE, which isn't a lot, but over time it can add up, not to mention all the ink and paper costs, which, again, add up.

Journals are making it easy on us. Easy to know when the rejection comes, since I think it probably hits the in box right when they reject it. Easy to upload. Everything about it's easy.

There are some things that need to be tweaked, yes, like being able to withdraw one poem in house, rather than the whole submission, which has happened to me before. You can always email each place and let them know if something's taken, but again, it would be easier for them so upon looking at the submission again you could see what's available and what's not. And Fence actually has you upload one poem at a time, which doesn't take too much extra time and does make it easier to click any poems that have been accepted elsewhere.

Gary had a post about this (about halfway down), and I think literally, if you had a batch of five poems, it was November 1st (a good bet that almost all the journals are taking submissions, but not a guarantee), and you wanted to send to 50 places -- online and print -- that accept email submissions or use the online submissions manager, you could. I'm not making a list, as you should start to make your own if you submit yourself (though Gary has a good one started), but it's just so nice to know these things. And it seems every month a journal that I really like and really want to get into starts up the submissions manager or now accepts emailed submissions.

Clearly I get very excited about the little things. But that's cool with me.