soliciting and submitting writing

this is a blog post about my experiences in soliciting/being solicited for things within/related to the writing world, how that's changed over time, and in what ways i screwed up or let myself be unreliable, etc.

i'm breaking this up into four loose sections: soliciting writing (as an editor), doing interviews, blurbs, and submitting writing. in many ways this is an incomplete essay. i've enjoyed writing relatively transparently about this related to 'networking' in writing.

SOLICITING WRITING

i have been solicited 2-3 times, i think, for a piece of writing. one time was by jason gong, who worked with alan good on the first malarkey zine called beer money. at the time, i had been friendly with jason because we liked each other's stories in soft cartel and philosophical idiot. i wrote a story based on the theme and sent it, then i think sent a slightly edited version 24 hours later. when the zine came out, jason said very kind things about me/the story on twitter and in an introduction to the zine. i think the goal with the zine was to make money for the authors, but i refused payment. my copy is hand-stitched by jason. i haven't really spoken with jason since, and as far as i can tell he may have stopped publishing writing online entirely. [update] i just DM'd him. he's doing well, and is getting back into writing, which is good.

cavin semi-scolicited me/i offered to send him something for the launch of back patio press. it was a short, single paragraph about stealing a car that i had rewritten a few times and had rejected from some other places.

jennifer griedus solicited me for the xray books idea, and she has supplied very good and reasonable edits for bobby digiorno will fucking die, which was something i had around the target word count. rereading it after the edits, i still feel good about it, as a story.

i had been 'soft' solicited by mike andrelzcyk for his Hey Buddy zine. unsure if this counts, since i was involved, kind of, in its inception. same here applies for screaming into a horse's mouth, giacomo's solicitation-only poetry magazine.

i enjoy seeing (new) magazines and presses follow and then unfollow me over time. i used to feel confused about these kinds of 'interactions', misreading them as interest in me/my writing and thus some step toward solicitation, but i have since come to understand that, for them, it's mostly a numbers game, an attempt to get more followers and thus build credibility; many of these magazines unfollowed me after a 0-7 days of me not following them back. i try not to follow anyone i don't care about, although for 'networking' reasons i follow some people that i have simply muted, and i feel conflicted about this, and curious about how many people have muted me for similar reasons.

i have solicited other writers for writing several times with mixed results:

in 2018 i was interested in starting a lit mag online for flash fiction that adhered to a strict word count, and solicited maybe 4-5 people, but i received only one piece, i think, and it was from cavin. i never did anything with the site because of this, and have since moved past the idea of starting/running this kind of website entirely.

sometime in 2019 i worked with giacomo to build a website that would host digital collaborative chapbooks, where 2 authors would write small, complementary collections. we solicited 6 people (three sets) aside from ourselves but only got content from one set of two people. i think cavin had asked 1-2 people to collaborate but they also declined. the website exists and only has the one collaboration on it, a haiku/haibun ebook by michael o'brien and mike andrezlcyk. i think it'd be good to try this again.

in 2019 i anonymously started/ran Small Poems 🍓, a twitter-only thing that published screenshots of small poems from open-submission emails. i started it with my own poem and solicited work, then saw a moderate amount of submissions per week for a few months. i tried to curate a flippant/positive persona as the editor and rejected very few poems. there was relatively wide interest across the various vague 'scenes' within indie lit on twitter. i mostly got bored with it and stopped responding to emails/publishing poems. i briefly retweeted old tweets and then stopped using the account entirely after a few shitposts.

in 2019 i started Spaghetti Memories, which is solicitation-only, although i have received 1-2 DMs about whether i accept submissions and 2 combination 'are you open for subs' queries + unsolicited full spaghetti memory submissions. of all the people i have solicited, 3 people more or less declined politely, and everyone else agreed and send something. i think it's a good website. i like the premise still and the variety of content. i publish very infrequently.

also in 2019 i traded manuscripts with no glykon, after having a pleasant/interesting email exchange after having a piece rejected for reality hands. i really enjoyed numbskull, and i asked to publish it with back patio press, after asking various leading questions about publishing, expectations, etc. In 2020 i asked dan eastman to send me what he'd been working on, or he asked for advice about what to do with his kind of short manuscript of poetry, and i really liked it and similarly asked some leading questions and asked to publish it with back patio, and encouraged him to write some more poems for it, then we could edit it down together, or something. i generally feel self-conscious about asking to publish someone's book because i feel like a bad publisher, short on energy/motivation, with relatively few connections or experience in adequately promoting books. while i like doing back patio stuff, it can be difficult, and we are not a very well-connected or established press, and in general i assume people can 'do better' than publish with us, although the more i learn about other publishers, maybe we're fine. cavin solicited, in this way, i think, the rest of the back patio (and soft cartel) print catalog.

in 2020 i made two zines about the covid-19 pandemic (The Quaranzine and The Quaranzine 2) and solicited several people, as well as relied on open submissions, for content. of everyone i solicited, i think only 2-3 people declined. of the open submission pieces, i accepted maybe 15-20%, with or without edits. i felt confused by some of the open submissions pieces. it felt like some people just look for any chance at submitting writing without knowing who the editors are or what their tastes/goals are. this experience made me strongly desire to possibly never be a real editor for a magazine (i mostly do books stuff for back patio, although i handled web submissions for about two weeks when cavin was very depressed and was facing a large backlog of emails, and this experience was very pleasant, i think because of how well cavin has curated the site so far and how talented he is at enthusiastically engaging with writers, and i happily accepted maybe 75% of the submissions).

there are some people i know not to bother with soliciting because i have the sense that they are often solicited for too many things and/or do not like me personally, even though i like their writing a lot. i have also been pleasantly surprised about other people responding positively to being solicited. i have had good experiences encouraging people to (continue to) write and/or complimenting their writing as well.

in general, soliciting strangers whose work you like when you have no name for yourself/clout online doesn't seem to work very well. i encourage people to forge friendships via reaching out with compliments and/or questions and having low-stakes, friendly conversations with people, and then, later, if you feel like you are more or less friends, you can solicit them for writing, or ask permission to publish something they've already sent you to read/edit as part of your friendship activities.

INTERVIEWS

i have interviewed a few people about their books and these interviews have been published online. i quickly got exhausted by the experience - it's a lot of work, and i was surprised by the unique, sometimes frustrating quirks many people had about the editing and framing of the interviews, which added to the mental effort required. 

i originally started interviewing people based on a pitch request for pank that gabino iglesias posted on twitter. he was encouraging at the idea over DM or email, but then basically ignored my emails for ~10 months, including emails where i said i was publishing the interviews somewhere else. the first interview, with troy james weaver, was published on the nervous breakdown, i think because joey grantham was by that time the editor, and he had published troy's book via disorder press (joey declined to run the rest of the interviews, but recommended i reach out to tobias at vol. 1 brooklyn).

i was lucky to have a good relationship with tobias, who was open and accepting of each interview i sent and gave few/no edits. if i had to independently pitch each interview the way most magazines expect, i would have done much fewer. i think this kind of open/trusting relationship is important and good for independent publishing, and the fact that most interviews/reviews need to be 'pitched' seems like an unnecessary obstacle for book promotion. 

the general lack of interest/purpose to interviews also contributed to me being uninterested in continuing them, as well - the results often felt like the work wasn't worth it.

i flaked on interviewing three people and i feel bad about it: steve anwyll, who i DMd to interview, and who agreed, but who had by that time done like 4 recent interviews online with people, and i felt like i had to read/listen to all of the interviews before i initiated mine so i wouldn't make him repeat himself needlessly, but the prospect of reading/analyzing each interview felt overwhelming and i more or less ghosted on him; rebekah morgan, who answered 2-3 questions over email but who then wanted to set up a phone call instead, which felt like a lot of work and logistics i didn't feel like doing, and i more or less ghosted, although we have briefly corresponded since in a friendly way over twitter DMs; and anthony dragonetti, who i originally reached out to, then he reached back out, then i agreed to interview again after i read his book, and then i more or less ghosted on the topic, mostly feeling uninterested in/overwhelmed by the idea of doing interviews in general and all the associated work by that time. i also reached out to joey grantham once for an interview in anticipation of raking leaves, but he left my DM unread. everyone else i've asked to interview has agreed.

ben devos solicited me for an interview with blake middleton for the apocalypse party blog, which i was happy to do, because i liked blake's book a lot (and his other writing, either published or sent to me directly). reading back on the interview, i feel kind of embarrassed by my dumb attempts at humor in the introduction. there was also some brief confusion about the venue for the interview, which i felt bad about, especially since there was/is very little content on the AP blog, and it would have probably better served blake to put it on vol. 1 brooklyn.

mallory smart also solicited an interview on behalf of michael seidlinger, and i felt conflicted because i wasn't sure i'd have the time/motivation to do it, but i ultimately agreed to be sent an ARC for his book, which i couldn't really get into, and then he independently was interviewed for vol. 1 brooklyn, and i more or less stopped caring/worrying about it. i do feel bad, though, about accepting the ARC without doing anything with it, and for this reason i do not feel comfortable being sent free books - at most i'd like to trade books with someone, or purchase a book from them.

i did a couple less formal/more flippant interviews with mike and cavin, and one weird/very silly one with mike, cavin, giacomo, and elizabeth ellen. i was surprised she agreed to it. i thought it was really funny altogether but i don't think anyone read it.

i am sitting on a half-finished 'formal' interview with giacomo about neutral spaces and chainsaw poems - it might be the last real interview i do for a long time.

even though they were often a pain in the ass and a source of anxiety for me, overall i felt good about conducting relatively-in-depth interviews with authors (some of whom had not been interviewed previously). it feels like a good thing i did and i encourage other people to do it (if you are reading this and would feel more motivated by having a dependable venue, reach out to me and we can do this through back patio press). all of my interviews were about/for books that i independently purchased, although melville house did send me an ARC (with two-day shipping) for my interview with lars iyer, but i had already preordered the book.

i was interviewed (about my book) on three podcasts (get lit with leza, malarkey public radio, and writing the rapids) and once over twitter DM by nick farriella, which was published, alongside a short review, on hobart. i reached out to joe directly about being on writing the rapids, and i think i sort of suggested to nick that he interview me, or review my book, or something, because we had been having pleasant conversations about writing and publishing around the time the book was going to be published. i don't remember how the malarkey one came about, i think alan mentioned it in the neutral spaces chat and then i followed up later.

BLURBS

i have asked people for blurbs for my book and i have been asked to blurb a couple books. i asked many people to blurb my book of barn poems and had a fun/interesting experience, but i feel less interested in writing about that right now. i feel like i've talked about it sufficiently on various interviews and online readings.

i offered a blurb for lindsay lerman's book after she kindly wrote a great blurb for mine, and i think it's funny/strange to see my blurb for her book's 2nd edition, because "author of 50 Barn Poems" seems funny/incongruous with her book, which is a bleak and meaningful and and well-written novel.

kris hall hosted my reading in seattle and we had a great time the night before the reading - i got him really drunk and we talked about all kinds of stuff and had a nice time. the poetry reading was exceptionally fun and i enjoyed meeting everyone and reading with everyone. after the poetry reading he proposed to his girlfriend. we've texted occasionally since and he asked me to blurb a collab book he self-published. i really liked the book, especially his section, and felt good about/encouraged about writing a blurb. it was a long blurb and i sort of expected him to cut it down some, but he didn't. he later invited me to read as part of his inside the bunker poetry series with house of vlad authors and some other cool people. i tried setting up a back patio reading with him but that never panned out for whatever reason, and we haven't really talked since. i think our communication styles are to blame: i'm on twitter and email mainly, and he prefers text and facebook.

brian alan ellis asked me to blurb sophie jennis's book hot young stars on her behalf, and i really liked the book and was enthusiastic/motivated to burb it well. i felt good about being asked and it seemed like a good 'fit' for me to blurb. i think it's a good book.

mallory smart asked me to blurb a book by blake wallin, who i hadn't heard of but looked up online and read/enjoyed some poems by. i agreed and he sent me a pdf, and i realized it was a long novel, and not a poetry book like i had expected. at the time i felt like i could effectively read and blurb a pdf for a poetry book, but not a full-length novel, and mainly agreed to be sent the book assuming it was a poetry collection. i read the first few chapters on my phone, awkwardly (book-formatted pdfs are, like, impossible to read on a cellphone) while waiting to pick up some tacos. it seemed interesting but very different from what i typically read/understand, and i felt like i would not be able to provide a meaningful or insightful blurb, as someone who doesn't really understand the literary tradition of that type of book, or something, and in fact my blurb would probably sound stupid to other people. i more or less ghosted on this blurb request and i feel bad about it. i would feel confident in blurbing a poetry collection by blake if given the/another opportunity.

i provided blurbs for gateway 2000 by mike and chainsaw poems & other poems by giacomo, because i talk to them every day and had read various versions of each book over the past year. i rewrote a few older stories/story ideas for maybe ~5 of the 50 blurbs for chainsaw poems.

kat giordano has asked me to blurb her novel the fountain which comes out...this year i think. i'm excited to read it. i think it will be a pdf that they send. i am going to ask kat for a word doc so i can more easily read it on my phone, i think, if they can't/won't send a physical galley.

SUBMITTING INTERNET WRITING

almost any writing i've published online that wasn't that solicited beer money story or published on the neutral spaces blog were submitted to magazines/editors either via email or submittable. i have had more or less positive experiences submitting writing to places. i have not suffered any abuse or inappropriate behavior from any editor. my longest rejection took just over 365 days, and was for a ~300 word single-sentence about a toilet that i submitted to barrelhouse. my shortest rejection was probably from smokelong - they take only a few days, usually. my quickest acceptance was probably for muskeg.

my best experiences were with cavin (as soft cartel), kat (philosophical idiot), tao (muumuu house), jenn (xray), and muskeg magazine. i have positive friendships with all of these editors aside from the anonymous editors of muskeg, but they were always nice in emails.

the worst experiences i had were with barren magazine, who responded to an attempt to withdraw a piece (that had been overlooked in the slush pile for several months) by rejecting and critiquing it, and instant lit, which involved a long email with ideas for a complete rewrite of the story and a proposed phone call to discuss it that never happened for some reason (the story was then published more or less as i had submitted it). i have also been called [submitter's name] once and been rejected via submittable with no email notification once, which are both funny but unmalicious. i enjoy hearing stories of strange interactions with editors, for example, when i found out that the poetry editors of one magazine seem to have no idea who the editor in chief of the magazine was (even though it's in the masthead), or something, and stuff like that.

xray was the first place to accept and publish a story i wrote, although i had a couple acceptances come in for stories i had sent out before i had anything published, for example from the jellyfish review. i felt self-conscious about that one, felt convinced they had partially accepted it because i had not been published before - their editor, i think, has posted about feeling proud of publishing peoples' first published stories.

in cover letters, i have stopped listing any credentials or previous publications, and now say some variation of "Thanks for your time, I hope you enjoy this story." i'm unsure what impact this has had (if any) on my rejection rate.

in retrospect i feel embarrassed about my activities submitting (bad) writing to "any mag with open subs" in a manic, pointless way for several months when i first started looking into online publishing. publications in places i don't care about or read feel purposeless and unfulfilling. i submit very little writing to places now, mainly to just a couple venues every once in a while, in an effort to 'stay relevant' and active, to 'support' people i like, to gauge reactions to new things i'm writing, to expose my writing to more people who may like it and/or encourage others to read it, and to help encourage people who write things that would appeal to me more because of shared aesthetic sensibilities to submit to the same venues, so that i can read more writing that i like and less writing that i don't like. 

many people i talk to feel very little interest/obligation in publishing writing online in an effort to prioritize publishing books, and other people i have talked to feel the same way but about publishing books, which has helped me understand that publishing any kind of writing is a purposeless treadmill of disappointment. when thinking about publishing, i often think about this interview i heard with Moby, who admitted to almost killing himself the night he won a grammy.