So I track everything I send out in Excel, adding notes when I receive rejection letters, a request for a full or an acceptance (I have seen two of these so far, and I do not believe that it will ever, in my life, cease to be an exciting dance-around-the-living-room-and-scare-the-cats moment).
The First Line actually gets it own page, since, as described in my last two posts, I enjoy creating something to meet their requirements. This is what it looks like:
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Issue | Story Title | Submitted | Response |
| 2 | ||||
| 3 | Fall 2006 | The Way We Say Love | 30-Jul-96 | Rejected 16 Aug with nice note asking me to try again |
| 4 | ||||
| 5 | Spring 2008 | The Perfect Girl | 17-Jan-08 | Rejected 19 Feb w/ encouraging personal note |
| 6 | ||||
| 7 | Spring 2009 | Starlets at Work and Play | 20-Dec-08 |
My novel also gets a page, although I've taken a hiatus from sending that baby out. I feel maybe it's a "ten year novel", one that I will re-work many times before it is published. Hopefully the next novel goes faster.
| A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Literary Agent | Date Sent | Type of submission | Response | Notes |
| 2 | Levine Greenberg Literary Agency | 18-Dec-08 | Electronic | ||
| 3 | Donald Maas Literary Agency, Jennifer Jackson | 19-Dec-08 | Electronic | Rejected - 20 Dec | |
| 4 | Laura Dail Literary Agency | 23-Dec-08 | Electronic | Rejected - 13 Jan | |
| 5 | Irene Goodman Literary Agency | 2-Jan-08 | Electronic | Rejected - 14 Jan | |
| 6 | Aaron Priest Literary Agency, Lisa Erbach Vance | 5-Jan-08 | Electronic | ||
| 7 | The Writers House Literary Agency, Maya Rock | 6-Jan-08 | Electronic | Request for a full on 07 Jan! | Full sent on 08 Jan, Rejected |
| 8 | Folio Literary Management, Rachel Vater | 6-Jan-08 | Electronic | ||
| 9 | Dystel and Goderich, Chasya Milgrom | 6-Jan-08 | Electronic | ||
| 10 | Brick House Literary Agency, Sally Wofford-Girand | 12-Jan-08 | Electronic | ||
| 11 | Trident Media, Jenny Bent | 30-Jan-08 | Electronic |
Hours of research, hours of designing and tweaking the perfect cover letter, and it all boils down to 44 cells in Excel. And no advance.
Last but not least, I keep my goals in the same Excel doc so that I can be inspired at the same time as I enter the latest news--
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2009 Goals: | Intermediate Goals: | Completed: |
| 2 | Secure an agent for Shards | Market novel to 30 agents | 11 |
| 3 | Complete a second novel | 56,000 words | |
| 4 | Sell 5 more short stories or poems | ||
| 5 | Enhance my personal marketing | Update writing blog 2x/weekly | Did NaNoWriMo '08 Interview |
| 6 | Create professional website | ||
| 7 | Read & apply 6 books on marketing |
Hey, I may not be a brilliant published author (yet), but at least I'm organized.
So let's here it from the peanut gallery - how do you organize your work? I've been thinking that each market-ready story and poem really deserves it own Excel line in a worksheet, at a minimum, so I can keep on top of sending them out.
Oh, wow. I think I just added to my To-Do list.
2 comments:
I have a very very similar Excel document for novel submissions!! I keep that quite organized. As far as magazine submissions go, for a while, I didn't have much, so all i did was at the bottom of the piece, I'd make a little note. I did open a Word document just for those submissions, but nothing fancy.
I have not submitted much as this point so I lazily just save the emails.
But you have inspired me to get organized and submit more! Thank you. :-)
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