What happens when you submit?

TYPE! is attracting submissions from talented writers worldwide, most of whom never hear from us again. But why is that? And what else should they know about submitting to a literary magazine?

Here, TYPE! co-founder George Hamilton shines a light on the murky world of submissions reviewing.

George, tell us about the submissions you get for TYPE!...

We receive a minimum of 400+ submissions a year; normally about one or two a day, albeit there are some days when we receive as many as 20. To put that in context, we typically publish three issues a year, of which we might use five to eight submissions for each issue. The vast majority who submit find us via the BBC Writers webpage, although we get a lot from London Playwrights and social media too. Most of the submissions come from the UK but we also get plenty from North America and Ireland, and some from Australasia, Central Europe, India, and occasionally the Caribbean. Submissions are evenly split between men and women, and we have a mix of writers who regularly submit work, and those who submit only once.

Any common themes?

Worryingly we get an awful lot about women being hurt, killed or objectified by men. There have been a fair few about the end of the world. We regularly get bits about ‘guilt’ and / or the impact of crimes or historic trauma. Pieces about being depressed and relationships are also common. Then we get lots of comedy, and horror, and comedy-horror. So far we’ve had a brilliant mix of subject matter, and a good split between poetry, short fiction, mini screen, stage and audio plays, plus of course our #RuleOfSix six-word stories.

And the submission standard…

When we first opened submissions we were surprised at the high quality. I’d say 80%+ of submissions we receive are from serious writers that are more advanced than the ‘creative writing’ stage; I’m talking writers that have written a few things, edited their work, and have something to say. A quick estimate would be about 2 or 3% of writers who submit have got something and the potential to be very good writers. And then there’s the 1% that write something so strong you just can’t ignore it. They are the ones we strive to find and publish in TYPE!.

Assuming these ratios are replicated across literary magazines, submission opportunities are a very, very competitive arena, even for talented writers.

What is your process for reviewing submissions?

Every submission lands in my work email inbox. Every day I drag these submissions into a separate email folder so I have a bunch of them in one place to review later. How long they sit there depends on our (myself and co-founder Sarah’s) workloads and other commitments; we run TYPE! at a loss around running our own busy communications agency. It can and often does take a few months for us to review submissions, and we tend to read these in a bulk, as many as 50 at a time. Once each submission gets a first read it goes into either an ‘already read’ inbox or a ‘potentially use’ inbox. Then when we’re preparing issues, we’ll return to the ‘potentially use’ ones, where they’ll be read again by myself, Sarah and normally one or two other members of the TYPE! community; we’ll then collectively decide what we want to publish and start contacting the authors.  

How and when do you review submissions?

The first thing I’d like to emphasise is EVERY SUBMISSION GETS READ, unless it is obviously way, way, too long in word count to ever fit into our magazine. You may submit and think your brilliantly-devised original work has been (unjustly) ignored. It hasn’t, and it will or has been read by at least one person. We try to review the submissions when we have the clear headspace to do them justice, normally a Friday when we’ve taken time off from our day jobs. This process can take months.

Another thing to mention is the logistics of each issue. Because of the small format of TYPE! we have a small amount of real estate to work with. Often work won’t fit alongside other work in the same issue due to word count, similarity of style or similar subject matter. For example, we have one play that’s being held for four issues time because it won’t fit into the template with the other bits we’re using for issues 9, 10 and 11. So just because you didn’t hear from us doesn’t necessarily mean we didn’t like your work or that it hasn’t come close to being chosen.

Why don’t you respond to everyone who submits?

It’s just not feasible given we run TYPE! around our full-time business. When we first started I tried to respond to every submission, it took me more than half an hour per submission to create an email with valuable feedback, and I didn’t get much response or thanks. Even now a very small minority of writers seem to have the impression they are ‘owed’ replies, thanks and feedback, and that TYPE! and other literary magazines are run purely for their (cost-free) benefit and to celebrate their genius. These are the writers who don’t bother to read our submissions page conditions, and then complain ‘they (TYPE!) don’t ever get back to people’.

However, I think most people understand this is a loss-making labour of love and we do our best. I might set up an auto-reply function at some point, but in honesty this would be to try and get more people to sign up to our free weekly newsletter. We might also test providing feedback on a ‘pay what you can’ basis in the future.

What do you look for in submissions?

Above all, originality. Great writing is a must, but we like to think we push the envelope in terms of form, ideas, and genre too. We want writers doing unique things, in a unique voice, and within the tight constraints of our bookmark format. Weird Key in issue 5 and Doors Are Hell, I Know in issue 6 are great examples; they might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they are ‘new’ (and we love them). Occasionally we’ll receive something with the polish of Foragers or the assuredness of All The Soft Things and it’ll be a no-brainer to get them out there. And then there are stories like When The Bubble Bursts which we just know everyone will love.

We can usually tell if something has ‘got it’ within the first sentence… great, original writing that demands attention. I was talking to a couple of poets about identifying writers that are ‘The Real Thing’ recently. I’d say we’ve published half a dozen of these ‘Real Thing’ writers so far, and we’re looking forward to championing them further.

Any high points?

I think I’m as proud of publishing Our Bed, At Night as I am of doing anything in my professional career. It feels amazing to be sharing important writing by important writers, and letting those writers know that they do have the skills and that their work is valued. We also love seeing the reactions of people when they see TYPE! and read the quality of work for the first time. Best of all, we’ve met so many great writers through TYPE! that are not only an inspiration to us and others but are fast becoming friends.

Do you ever commission work?

We occasionally see work out there that we’d like to publish, or an author or poet will submit something we like and we’ll look at what else they’ve done and ask if we can use something else of theirs. There are a few people on Twitter whose work we enjoy and we may ask for permission to publish this in the future. There are also two or three writers who have submitted a couple of strong pieces but have narrowly missed out being chosen for TYPE!. I like to think we’ll include some of their work in the future, but I don’t know when, or what.

What should people who submit to TYPE! do?

Before submission: READ BACK ISSUES to see if what they want to send is suitable. You’d be amazed how many people email me the most basic questions that they could easily have answered by showing the initiative (and politeness) to read our submissions page and back issues first. 

Once they send work to us, they should send the same work out to other literary magazines – we won’t stop it appearing elsewhere, and even if we want to publish their work it may be months before they hear from us. If they are worried about losing formatting in a play or visual poem, they should email me a PDF of the work instead of using the online form. And if their work doesn’t receive a response, that’s not a reason to stop submitting more work to us. There are several writers who have submitted to us that are completely unaware that we rate them and are still considering using their work. Keep submitting, as you never know…

What is the dream for TYPE!?

We have three of them:

• Every bookshop in the world prints their own copies of TYPE! and gives them out to customers, thus ensuring a colossal audience for the incredible work we publish.

• A literary agent picks up TYPE!, looks at one of the pieces, decides to learn more about the author/poet and ends up representing them.

• We build a high-powered literary community which meets over drinks, discusses literature and the world, then helps and drives each other to higher-quality work that shapes the collective consciousness.

If you can help us achieve these aims, email me.

++ Got a question about submissions? Contact us via social media. Or if you’re ready to go, submit something now.

+++ Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash.