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Submitomancy

Track your manuscripts and your submissions on a social site aimed at writers just like you.

Writing – London, United Kingdom
20130109044538-submitomancy

 

 

What is Submitomancy?

Submitomancy is a tracking and social networking project aimed at writers and publishers. We will work closely with active markets; however our primary focus is to offer submission tracking system for writers of short fiction and poetry. Our basic service will be offered free to users with a simple sign up. Premium users will gain the advantage of the full library features, power searches and social interactions.

Organisation
Submitomancy is designed around a fully functional database of your manuscripts, tracking the data that you care about. It will be fast and easy to update your library to show your current body of work and your existing submission history. As a Premium user, you can store additional information with user-defined fields and tags.

Efficiency
Pull up your library at a glance and use filters to allow you to focus on the pieces that are unfinished, need submitting or that need chasing. The power search function for Premium users allows you to see the perfect markets at a glance. This search uses your manuscript information as well as your user preferences to optimise results, so you can focus down on the best paying markets or leave it wide open for inspiration.

We will anonymously track user responses for each market. If you are a Premium user, you can sign up for notifications that a response is due. No more chain refreshing and frantic analysis! Sadly, this does not make the responses arrive any quicker but it does allow you to focus on your writing, secure in the knowledge that we are obsessively refreshing on your behalf.

Example of Submission Tracking

We also notify you if the submission is overdue, with a friendly option to query on the spot. You can use our pre-formatted text or customize your own to query the market once the submission response is past due.

Motivation
The submission process can be a dark and lonely road. To counter this, we are designing the website to be a comforting light in the darkness. Bright splashes of color and user-friendly design set the mood. We'll be cheering you on as you update us with your progress. Your profile page will track badges based on specific accomplishments, such as manuscripts completed this year, number of submissions, personal responses and other factors to help motivate you into continuing.

As a Premium user, you can store text from personal responses and positive statements from responses you receive. This will be kept private to you but excerpts can be added to your manuscript and submission pages to remind you of your strengths.

We don't believe that a database needs to feel like a cold business transaction. Our goal with Submitomancy is to make the process fun!

Social Interaction
The more users we have, the more fun we can have. We'll be allowing Premium users to share their successes, either with the community at large or a select group of friends. You can post new works, brag about your submission rates and shout from the rafters when you get a sale. This will be a great way to keep up with what your writer friends are up to and to share your trials and successes with an understanding community.

In the future, we'd like to offer word wars, point-based critique circles and discussion areas for writing groups.

Reporting
Submitomancy will make it easy to follow market updates, including open periods and themes. Find out at a glance how many submissions you've made this week, month, year. Track your favourite markets. As a premium user, you can review your submission history by manuscript, market, wordcount, or even a combination of the above, allowing you to see where your successes cluster.

Free Services

A system like Submitomancy is only as good as its users. We want to encourage writers to track their data with us which is why we're offering core services for a simple sign-up.

Those users will get the following functionality:

  • Manuscript database
  • Quick CSV import
  • Basic search
  • Submission tracking
  • Average response times per market
  • Newsletters

If you pay annually, you'll get all of the above AND expanded databases, power search, detailed market response data, personalised notifications, profile page, status updates, expanded reports, skins, etc etc etc just as quickly as we can put them into place.

THE FULL SYSTEM will be available to Premium users as each new feature launches. To get the ball rolling, we need cash and we need users. That's why I am asking you to join NOW for the first year. Supporters of the campaign at £20 or more are automatically signed up all-access for the first year. You'll get full access to all the features for your subscription as a thank you for supporting my campaign.

If you'd like to help us fine-tune the details, please sign up for the early access bundle. This means you join in at the ground level and are in a position to help us define how the service works. You can ensure that Submitomancy offers exactly what you need by being part of the discussions from the beginning.

Want to Know More?

I take you step-by-step through my personal perfect submission process on Alex Shvartsman's blog: Submitomancy Premium Features Explained - A Guest Post by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley « Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction

 I've described the social interactions and notifications on Lee Hallison's blog: Submitomancy - Supporting Each Other | LEE HALLISON

Catch up on the background for the the Submitomancy project and why I decided to go the fundraising route on CL Holland's blog: Submitomancy: Questions with Sylvia Spruck Wrigley - Conversations with Dragons

There's a professional look at the general submissions process using Submitomancy on Cat Rambo's blog: Submitting with Submitomancy | The World Remains Mysterious

How can power users use Submitomancy? Find out more over on Deborah Walker's blog: Deborah Walker: Duotrope Alternative: Submitomancy

Want a kitten? Make a submission. Some thoughts on writer motivation over on Gwen's blog: What is Submitomancy? | Eating Money

What makes Submitomancy special? Read more about the manuscript tracking on JW Alden's blog: Submitomancy: Not Just a Copy Cat - Author Alden

A serious look at project planning on Anaea Lay's blog: Submitomancy | Anaea Lay

Writing communities and response tracking featured on Absolute Write: Submitomancy! | Absolute Write

*whew* Would you like to know more? Just ask!

 

Stretch Goals

We have a number of stretch goals set up which I'll be posting as the previous goals are met.

£7000 : Word Wars!

If we reach £7,000 in funding, we'll be creating an interactive game module for writers to work together. Push yourself to create and challenge your friends! Writing is hard work but that doesn't mean it can't be fun.

 

Project Manager

Sylvia Spruck Wrigley is a writer with stories published or forthcoming in Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, Boston Literary Magazine and True Romance Magazine. She takes part in a number of writing groups, both online and in person. As a German-American who has lived in Spain, Japan and the UK, she's well versed in international issues.

Sylvia has been working with online communities since 1989 and the Internet since 1992. In 1996 she was employed by Demon Internet as Online Marketing Manager, the first person in the UK to hold that title.

She has worked as project manager for dozens of websites, ranging from corporate sites to an interactive, multi-lingual system. Since returning to consultancy work in 2008, she has focused on innovative community projects, backed by solid tracking and reporting.

 

Questions Answered

Why should we trust you to do this?

I'm putting my reputation on the line. A quick search will tell you that I'm a real person. I'm active on Facebook and Twitter and AbsoluteWrite and W1S1. I comment on blogs and I post on forums.

I have attended Viable Paradise and Eastercon and World Fantasy Con. I'm an active member of Codex and Broad Universe. I have a popular aviation blog. I run Saturday Scenes, a collaborative photography project on Twitter (come join us @SatScenes!).

I can't just disappear.

I'm not anonymous. Photographs of me are plastered all over the net. I have met many writers and editors in person. I'm attending World Fantasy Con this year and the London WorldCon in 2014. Also, my professional life is on the line. I work as a consultant and regularly get involved on large scale online projects involving social media and community building.

I can't afford to screw this up.

I've purposely not created a set of web pages and identity for this project because there's no reason for you to trust "The Submitomancy Admins". I think transparency is important. That's why I'm here as a real person, talking to you directly.

 

Will markets need to pay to be listed?

Absolutely not. Market listings will be added as quickly as possible.

However, editors will be encouraged to purchase an editor's account which will allow them to update their listings.  As a verified editor for a market, you can list open and closed periods, manage your market details, post updates (for example the current state of your slush pile) or simply import your feed from your blog or Twitter account.

 

What do other people have to say about Submitomancy?

There have already been a surprising number of tweets and forum postsabout the project (thank you!). Here is a selection of blog posts adding to the discussion:

 

 


If you've written about Submitomancy, please let me know!

 

 

 

 

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Team on This Campaign: