Ask Sally #3 - Response Times
(Thanks to the good friends who have got me off to a good start with all the questions they'd have liked answered when they first started writing. You're treasures, girls!)
Why do magazines take so long to respond to my submission?
Editors, particularly those of the more popular womens' magazines, receive thousands of submissions a year, and some of them, like Take A Break/Fiction Feast (who pay the best fees) receive thousands a month. Yours magazine states clearly in their guidelines that they may take up to six months to get back to writers.
Most of the bigger publications have readers, who will either reject your submission immediately or pass stories that might be suitable on to the main editor. So really the longer your submission is out, the more hopeful that is, as it means it's probably got past the reader and has gone onto the main fiction editor. It might still fall at the last hurdle, but at least you'll know that Mr/Ms Fiction Editor has read it.
Small press magazines have very different problems. They may not receive as many submissions as the bigger magazines, but the editor may also be running the magazine from their kitchen table, in between working full time at a day job. Some literary magazine say they can take up to a year to decide on a story - though if I'm honest, I think that's unreasonable as lit-mags won't get nearly as many submissions as the better paying commercial magazines and it's a heck of a long time to have a story tied up, so it's worth checking response times and making an informed decision as to whether the lit-mag is worth the wait. The New Yorker probably is. The (Insert Pretentious Name) Review probably isn't.
As I stated in the earlier post on Timing Submissions, there's no harm, if you've been waiting a very long time (over six months at least) in contacting the magazine and asking if they've received your submission. But don't pester, as you don't want to be regarded as a nuisance. You might also ask other writers for their experience and it's likely you'll find that what you think is a long time is average for that publication.
Duotrope, have a good database of response times for various magazines (though mostly specialist/genre/literary).
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