Three Coins in the Fountain

You’ve made up your mind. You are going for it! You want to become a writer. Now, where do you go from there? There is the old-school way: libraries, reference books, or published how-to books. I have tried that. It’s butt-numbing, like doing research for a term paper. Now, lucky us, we have the internet and devices that ensure you do not have to break a sweat finding a place for your writing. This is where I come in today.

I am a new writer, like many of you. I have been on my journey for one year and two months. I have had some experiences, both good and bad, and I want to share them with future hopefuls so you can maximize your time and, more importantly, your money, which you will be spending. Yes, make no mistake, you will be spending money. Be prepared. There is no free lunch, and you have to spend money to make money; these are quotes that are alive and well on the internet. There is absolutely nothing that’s free. The only free option is the library route, and I already covered that one.

For transparency’s sake, I will tell you that I have not yet started earning an income as a writer. Reaching that goal will take a bit of time, probably money, and most definitely patience and a thick skin. Okay, not probably money, definitely money. I am on the road with all of you, and I think it’s important to encourage you, driven literary types, and to save you from some things you might avoid if you knew the details, from a personal point of view.

I began this journey when a woman read a blog I was writing, which I dropped after realizing people don’t want to read painful stories. She is a published writer with several books to her name. She told me point-blank that I needed to write professionally. After hearing that, I asked some friends to look at what I had written. I received good feedback, and here I am, living the dream.

I have been on this track, as I said, for a little over one year. I have over 70 pieces published, both online and in print. It’s a good beginning. I don’t know other writers’ experiences in their first year of writing, but I imagine there are many similar experiences. Some, no doubt, have had better fortune, and some writers may not have had as much. It’s relative.

I write every day. A lot. I write essays, poetry, and non-fiction stories, and I’ve dabbled in fiction and erotica. I enjoy writing. Even so, I had a slow start, thinking things would come at some point, no matter what. They don’t. You have to go get what you want in life. Rule one.

I started by using a Writer’s Market book I purchased on Amazon. It was essentially an encyclopedia of nearly every publisher and publication, including their addresses and contact information. Under each entry was a list of submissions they accepted and where to query. The best thing I can say about this volume is that it is like reading a concordance front to back.

It made the process so slow. I submitted two or three pieces a week to the entities in the book and got nowhere. Don’t waste your time. Rule two.

In April, I received my first acceptance for publication in a book. That was the bite from the bug that injected its toxin into my blood. I never looked back. Somewhere in the next few months, I read that it was important to write every day, so I disciplined myself to write a bit each day.

The more I wrote, the more articles about writing popped up in my feeds. I never mentioned I was writing to anyone, and there they were. Everything from self-publishing to publishing tools was flashing at me. That’s when I found Submittable.

Submittable

Submittable is a clearinghouse for publications and publishers worldwide. It lists submission requests from entities, submission deadlines, and the requirements for those submissions. It is completely free for writers. It is one of the few places you can go as a writer at any stage of the journey that costs you nothing. I started using it, saw how simple it made finding homes for my submissions, and I still use it every day. Ninety-eight percent of my published pieces have come with the aid of Submittable.

There is nothing that even approaches its simplicity and user-friendliness. From searches in specific categories to searches by date or publication genre, you have it all right there. I have experienced only a few negatives.

One drawback is the lack of information you have access to regarding the acceptance rates of each publication. This is important at the beginning because you don’t want to waste time on a publication that accepts only a tiny fraction of submissions. You want to at least feel like you have a shot at success. The individual entities will not tell you that on their websites, so having that information would be an asset.

A second negative is that many publications and publishers do not update the status of your submitted pieces. This, in turn, leaves the pending status in Submittable unchanged. You can literally have hundreds of pieces in submitted status for years on end. I have page after page of pieces floating in the ozone. The publications or publishers are not held accountable for keeping submissions up to date, which is inconsiderate of the writer.

There are a couple more technical and organizational issues that could be improved, but all in all, this is the best option for any writer. There are other options that are far less user-friendly.

Duotrope

Here is a site that seriously wants to become the go-to place for submitting work or connecting writers with publishing, but it falls short once you start trying to use it. I say “trying” because, since I paid the $50 annual fee for its use, using it feels like a labyrinth you cannot find your way through. It is a miserable experience navigating anywhere on the site.

Scrolling through lists of submission calls is painful, filling out criterion after criterion for your search. When you finally finish and get your list, you click on a publication to view the request details. When you decide to go back to look at the next one, you have to start all over. That is a hair-pulling experience. It’s a form of tedium that makes you not want to engage with the site at all. I rarely use it. It’s not worth the hassle or the money I paid for access.

When I asked for help from their support team, I was told to just open another window and flip back and forth between the list window and the publisher’s page in the other window. When you begin to write every day, for eight or more hours a day, as I do, you just don’t have the luxury of wasting time and still be part of your family, who by then will wonder why you spend so much less time with them to begin with.

However, I can’t say it is all bad. I have one quality that no other site has, which is extremely useful. Duotrope is the only site I have encountered that actually shows you, in a detailed spreadsheet, the stats for every publication they list.

The spreadsheet lists their names, contact information, and how and where to submit to them (yes, many use Submittable for all submissions). What sets this apart from several other submission sites is that they rate every entity on their list, publish their acceptance percentages both online and in print, and indicate whether they are still accepting submissions or temporarily closed. They also tag fledgling entities.

Like Submittable, the lists and submission calls are clearly labeled with respect to the fees charged to submit, or to prizes, payments, or rewards for being accepted for publication. This is a definite asset when you have a budget for what you can spend on submissions. The downside is that the lists’ information is often out of date, making them useless in that case. They always include a disclaimer stating that the information you are getting may not be accurate or current. To me, that makes the $50 they charge for access to their site pointless. I don’t want to have to question what I see and waste my time doing a lot of work for nothing.

I am not saying it’s entirely useless. For me, the acceptance rates and the sources from which those pieces are curated are important. I have submitted to many publications many times and been declined, only to come to Duotrope and find that the acceptance rate is so low that I have wasted a lot of energy that would have been better spent on other publications.

Please know that some publishers have a very high bar to meet; they may have standards I haven’t met for their publication, or they may have limited openings. I understand that, and so should you. This is where you will need a thick skin, as I mentioned. You may be declined more than accepted. Please get used to that. It’s hard, especially if you are someone who doesn’t give up easily or a type A person like me. Rejection after rejection is hard for anyone.

The best information I can give you is that this is a numbers game, not just a substance game. My husband put it aptly, “The more you send, the more opportunities to be published you will have. If you don’t send anything, you have ZERO chance.” Always err on the side of the numbers, but not at the expense of quality. That goes without saying.

The Grinder

This is a free submission site, much like Submittable. It lets you access submission calls, track your submissions and accepted work, and even your expenses, which is a nice piece of the puzzle. It is not as simple to use as Submittable, but if you want to track your money in and out, this is a valuable tool. Since it’s free to use, there aren't many negatives.

The only drawback is that if you submitted through other channels, such as Submittable, Duosuma, direct submission, or mail submission, you will have to manually enter the information into The Grinder to track everything here. That is a lot of redundancy and extra work. It will be beneficial to you to pick your main squeeze wisely, and then keep a side piece or two if you like variety in your life.

Manual entry on this site is a downside, but on the upside, The Grinder has many off-the-beaten-track and indie publications that other sites do not. Many of their listed publications use Submittable or Duotrope’s submission tool, Duosuma, adding redundancy. But if you keep it strictly for those publishers that do not use the other two, you will be able to keep track of your work with them.

Chill Subs

Chill Subs is another site like Submittable. The differentiation here is that Chill Subs is not free. They have a free version, yes, and some of the other submission sites do as well, but the free version is lacking in many ways, and those are the features most useful to a writer.

Of the submission sites I have written about, this one is by far the most costly. At $10 a month for the basic, lowest tier, it costs more than double Duotrope's price. When you start out, it is seriously all money out and no money in for a long while, unless you get lucky or have something unique that is highly marketable. So this is a hard pass for that reason.

It is currently undergoing a transition, I believe, to make it more appealing to writers and publishers and to draw submissions from other submission websites, but that cost will still keep many out of its reach.

If you choose the free version, be prepared to be underwhelmed. Its limitations make it unattractive even at the free level.

It is supposed to be a place to network with others in the writing realm and to give you exposure, but you won’t see any of that on the free plan. Even your profile is tightly limited, so you cannot list your body of work beyond a few entries and leave it to be discovered by a curious curator of poetry or prose. That is aggravating.

Chill Subs has a large network of publishers and publications seeking talent, but you won’t have access to many of them. The core database offers many useful tools, but as a free member, you won’t have access to the more advanced features, like smart search (a basic one, if you ask me). Cover letter generators, premium lists, and other useful writing tools are locked behind their paywall. It’s pay to play.

I don’t have a problem with that, per se, but it will have to wait until income is consistently coming in.

Being discerning is key. You need to keep a tight lid on your spending. Think about what you really need right now. Tools like a good editing program that catches grammar and syntax errors are far more important than a fee-for-service submission site. In the beginning, focus your funds on tools that improve your writing.

You will have other expenses that will quickly add up, so find the free options and use them until you have income coming in. If you can spend more freely, get whatever tool will best help you get your work out there.

All of these sites will have fees in other forms. The sites themselves charge publishers to include them on their lists, and those charges are often passed on to writers. This is where additional fees come into play. Be cautious in your choices.

Some publications charge a nominal fee of a couple of dollars to submit your work. It’s fair, since they have to pay to post job offers. But set a hard limit. For me, if I pay more than $5 to submit to a publication and get turned down three or more times, it goes in the move-over pile until much later. I don’t send them any more work.

If the fees are higher, look into the reasons for the higher cost. Some costs cover contest prizes, reading fees that pay the staff who read each piece of work, or similar expenses. It is your choice whether their rates are comfortable. Do not be afraid to pass on a submission request. Also, seek out free submissions. All sites offer that criterion in search. Create a portfolio of published work in the most affordable way you can.

I would caution all of you against publishers who ask you to pay anything up front to publish your collections or manuscripts. If a publisher sees value in your work and believes it is a profitable venture for them, they will pay you, not the other way around. You may not be offered an advance, but they should not ask you to incur the cost of publishing your writing, nor should they ask for fees to market your work. This is why self-publishing is a problem, in my opinion. As a new writer, and maybe even as an experienced writer, you do not have the marketing network that publishers do. Keep your money and be patient.

If I have learned anything in life worth sharing with you, it’s that if something is meant to happen, it will. Let the process be the process. Keep writing.

(**Tomorrow I’ll tell you about my experience with what you read from those writers who say that submitting to “these sites” will have you making such-and-such an amount for each piece of work.

(Published by No Time on Medium, June 2026)

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