Submission Woes

I've been thinking a lot lately about the inefficiency of submitting work to literary periodicals or independent presses. As an editor, I'm constantly struggling with how to sift through the plethora of manuscripts we receive ever week in a timely manner. On the other hand, I'm also frustrated with how difficult it is to find good work. What I'd like is to find some way to expeditiously sift through all the crap and get to the work that we'd like to publish as quickly as possible. But even with my interns reading all the material, we still take about four months to get back to folks, sometimes longer if a piece manages to get through a couple readers without being rejected.

As an author, I'm frustrated with having to wait months to hear back from journals. Literary presses have even longer waits. For example, right now, I'm waiting to hear back from a press that requested my short story collection ms in September 2006. In their guidelines, they mention that the very soonest that an author will hear back from them is four months. If they like a manuscript, it then goes to the whole editorial board who then has to agree unanimously to publish it, often taking much longer. Oh, and here's the kick: they don't accept simultaneous submissions, which means that if they decide it's a no-go, then I'm stuck with another year-long wait from another understaffed and underpaid literary press who may also decide to pass on the ms. Simultaneous submitting to manuscripts helps alleviate some of the wait, but many literary presses (such as the one I'm waiting on) don't accept simultaneous subs.

So what to do? Honestly, I'm torn. Some mags/presses are able to handle the ever-growing slush pile with ease, but they generally have a pretty hefty budget and editorial staff galore. What do you do when you're one of the poor struggling authors trying to publish with one of the poor struggling presses? At least I'm learning that under-appreciated virtue of patience.