Friday Writer Roundup: Sonar

One of the most embarrassing things that can happen to a writer is submitting a piece to a market that already rejected you. I mean, getting rejected once is bad enough as it is, but twice? From the same people? On the same piece? Now, not only do they not want it, but they're starting to question just how desperate/egotistical/insert adjective you are, subbing to them multiple times with this thing?

Well, those worries are ended (and for someone as paranoid as I am, it was a big worry) with Spacejock's Sonar Submission Tracker.

When you first open up Sonar, it can be a little intimidating. There's a touch of a learning curve to it, and the Manual that's provided is sometimes less than helpful, depending on what it is you need to do. But it's well worth the small amount of effort you put forward.

So let's go through it, just very quickly. The very first thing is to start a new file. Call it whatever you like. Mine is 'Submission Tracker.' Cut and dry, easy to find. Once you have that, you'll have this nice blank spreadsheet looking thing.

Now you load up your work(s), one at a time. This is where you can begin to see the first glimmer of hope—this program could rock. You go up to Works, click add, and enter in the vitals of each individual piece: the title, the word count, the genre, any description and comments you might have for it. You can even link to the actual file, right in here, so you can easily access it while you're going through Sonar. So, you set up MegaDoc, your novel about a robot crocodile that got infected by a corrupt Word file. It's all in there, and ready for step two.

Now you set up the markets. For the most part, your markets are probably going to just be the places you submit whatever pieces to, but if you have markets you submit to regularly, it wouldn't hurt to add them in. It's the same shtick for adding a market as it is to add a work. You go to the Markets tab, click Add, and begin. The name of the market, the editor, the guidelines, even all the contact information for them. And you've decided to submit MegaDoc to Corporate ArtSlayer Press, dedicated to wringing every bit of artistic merit out of their books before publication.

Again, we hit the tabs: Submission, Add. Then you pick your work, you pick your market, and you enter the date. Once you do that, it'll tell you exactly what's going on: MegaDoc <> 2014-08-22 <> Sent to Corporate ArtSlayer Press (Out 2 days). And it lets you see if you've sold it, too.

Now, this is where it becomes your safety net. Say that Corporate ArtSlayer doesn't take this genius manuscript, for whatever reason. Bad taste, most likely. It then sits there for a while as you mope and consider if you should maybe cut it down from 400,000 words. But then, as you're looking around one day, inspiration strikes: you should submit it. And you found the perfect press: Corporate ArtSlayer. So, you get ready to go and… wait… Sonar says I've subbed this to them already. Oh lordy lord, thank you for saving me, Sonar!

Now, there are other options for this, although I don't think any of them quite stack up to Sonar in usefulness. Duotrope, of course, has a submission tracking option for paying members, which also gives you access to the response data, something I very much miss. The Submission Grinder has the same exact setup, but they are A: still new, so not very well-known, and B: Free. It's a trade-off, really. Or, you could do what I did before I found Sonar: an Excel document or other spreadsheet. It works, but with Sonar being free, I'd say it's worth it.

Voss

Glorious Spreadsheet, Hallowed be Thy Cells

Recently, I realized I was having a hell of a time keeping track of my submissions, and that can get dangerous--at that point, I wasn't entirely sure whether a story just sat there, or if it was just in a really long submission process. So, I made a spreadsheet (It's also proving helpful for Write 1 Sub 1.), and I discovered something.

Spreadsheets are bitchin'.

Rejections don't tend to upset me nearly as much as they did before the spreadsheet's glory came into my life (Wow, talk about religious fanaticism...). I have a theory about this, too. I think that, when you're just flailing with a rejection, it suddenly stands alone, the only piece in your mind. But, when you go in and look at the spreadsheet, and see all of those other stories aside from your recent reject, it all seems much less evil and nasty. That leads to faster turnaround on your part, which leads to more submissions, which leads (eventually) to more acceptances.

And really, who doesn't want that.

Voss

New Year's Resolutions

I hate New Year's resolutions. They're evil and, when not met (which is quite often, as most of us know), will depress you quite severely, sending you falling out of writing grace and in with the denizens of teenage fast-food drones and old people that knit cat sweaters in tiny cottages in their own backyards.

Or maybe that's just me.

However, there are some lovely people more than willing to set goals for you:

Write 1 Sub 1

The general idea started with Ray Bradbury (on an aside: can you believe that rascal's still kicking? 91 years old. Bloody hell.), who submitted a story once every week--and it worked. Think about it: you write 52 stories, what are the odds that they'll all be brainless drivel? It's almost impossible, really. At least one story of the fifty-two is going to be good enough for publication, and probably more.

The great part is that it can be any length to qualify--from 1 word all the way up to 15,000, which is pretty much the highest that most markets go for short stories (I've seen them go up to 25,000 words, but really, let's face it--that's a novella.).

Now, you might already write that much, but that's not all there is to it--you have to submit one every week as well. It works to not only get your name out, but also to familiarize you with the markets and the submission processes and to help desensitize you to rejections. Not completely, but eventually you have to kind of shrug it off if you're writing and submitting one story a week (more if you're up to it).

On the site, they also have market listings and (if you get published and paid) a place to list your published work (great publicity, considering that they have 200 plus members and counting to date).

Plus, they have a sort of Write 1 Sub 1 Lite, if you will: 1 story written and submitted every month. Much more doable for most of the busy people in the world. Plus, you can pretty easily aim in-between those. Two a month or three a month: the point is to write and submit massive amounts of work throughout the year so that you get more work out into the world and into the public eye.

Sound like my much-beloved NaNoWriMo? It is, but this is not so much about fun and writing useless crap you'll never sell. Some things about NaNoWriMo are good and should be taken away (don't be afraid to write crap, for instance) when you leave, but a lot of it should be left at the door.

So just pop on over here and write to submit, to sell, for quality, and still have some fun, I'm sure, along with your selling satisfaction. Plus, being only the second year, you'll be getting in on pretty much the ground level.

Besides, how guilty are you really going to feel? I bet you're going to write more than you usually do no matter what, and it's not like you're chiseling your name on a stone contract here--it's just an undertaking.

So, for my New Year's resolution, I'll be taking the plunge into Write 1 Sub 1. Note I said taking the plunge--I'm tricky that way. No real obligation, you know?

Happy New Year (I'll probably be posting another Happy New Year thing on the 23rd--Year of the Dragon, baby!),

Voss