Simultaneous Submission Rules Editors Wish You Knew
Sending one poem to five magazines is normal, until two of them say yes. An editor explains the simultaneous submission rules that protect your reputation and the withdrawal email that takes ninety seconds.
The worst email a poet ever forwarded to me began with the word "Congratulations" and ended with her hands shaking. Two magazines had accepted the same poem, nine days apart, and she had not told the second one it was still under consideration at the first. Now she had to un-accept an acceptance from an editor who had already scheduled it. The editor was gracious about it. Editors usually are, once. But poetry publishing is a village, and the village remembers.
None of this needed to happen. The simultaneous submission rules that govern this whole territory are few, they are simple, and they exist for exactly one reason: so that the moment of good news never turns into a moment of damage. Most poets learn them by breaking one. You can learn them tonight instead.
What Simultaneous Submission Rules Actually Say
A simultaneous submission is one poem, or one packet, under consideration at more than one venue at the same time. Once scandalous, now standard: when magazines routinely take four to nine months to reply, no reasonable editor expects your poem to sit exclusively in their queue for most of a year. The vast majority of journals allow the practice, and their guidelines say so in one sentence.
The entire etiquette rests on a single trade. Editors give you permission to send widely. In exchange, you promise two things: you will tell them the submission is simultaneous, and you will withdraw the poem immediately, and I mean immediately, the moment it is accepted elsewhere. That is the whole contract. Every horror story in this genre is someone welching on one half of it.
Etiquette is not decoration. Etiquette is empathy with a paper trail.
Understand what the editor's side of the trade costs them. A poem they loved, argued for in a meeting, and slotted into an issue can vanish with one email from you. They accept that risk because the alternative, demanding exclusivity while taking six months to reply, is worse for everyone. Honor the risk they are carrying and you can submit as widely as you like with a completely clear conscience.
The Seven Rules, in the Order They Save You
- Read the guidelines and believe them. If a magazine says no simultaneous submissions, that is not a suggestion to work around. Either give them an exclusive window or do not send to them at all. Sneaking is the one offense on this list with no recovery path.
- Declare it in one plain sentence. "This is a simultaneous submission; I will withdraw promptly if the work is accepted elsewhere." In the cover letter, every time it is true. It signals professionalism, not disloyalty.
- Track every poem like inventory. A spreadsheet with poem title, venue, date sent, and status. The poets who cause double-acceptance disasters are almost never dishonest. They are undocumented.
- Withdraw within 24 hours of an acceptance. Not after you have celebrated for a week. The same evening if you can. Speed is the entire courtesy.
- Withdraw only what was taken. If one poem from a packet of five is accepted elsewhere, send a partial withdrawal naming that poem and confirming the others remain available. Editors deal with partial withdrawals daily; what they cannot deal with is guessing.
- Never shop an acceptance. Once you say yes to an editor, the poem is spoken for, even if a shinier magazine accepts it the next morning. Backing out of an acceptance is the fastest reputation damage available to an unknown poet.
- Never resubmit a withdrawn or rejected poem to the same magazine unchanged. Withdrawal is not a bookmark. If they invited revisions, that is different, and they will have said so explicitly.
The Withdrawal Email, Solved Forever
Poets put off withdrawals because they imagine the email is awkward to write. Here it is, complete, three sentences.
Subject: Withdrawal: "The Feeder" (Submission #4471)
Dear Editors, I am writing to withdraw my poem "The Feeder," submitted on 14 March, as it has been accepted elsewhere. The remaining poems in the packet are still available and I hope you will consider them. Thank you for your time and for reading my work.
Notice the mechanics. The subject line does the whole job for a busy inbox: the word withdrawal, the poem's title, the submission number if the magazine uses a portal. The body names the date, states the reason in four neutral words, clarifies the rest of the packet, and says thank you. No apology, no gushing, no explanation of which magazine took it. If the venue uses a submission manager with a withdrawal button, use the button for the record and send the note only when a partial withdrawal needs explaining.
Before and After: The Withdrawal That Burns Goodwill
A real example, details changed, of how poets get this wrong. Before: "Hi, please take my poems out of your system, they got picked up by a much bigger journal (!!), sorry, but you guys took forever, no offense." After: "Dear Editors, please withdraw 'Salt Year' from consideration, as it has been accepted elsewhere. The other four poems remain available. Thank you for reading." The first version is honest, and it costs the poet a magazine forever. The second is equally honest and costs nothing. Tone is the tax you pay on good news. It is a very low tax. Pay it.
The Gray Zones Nobody's Guidelines Explain
- Contests are usually different. Many contests require exclusivity while judging, because prize money and blind scoring make substitutions messy. Read the rules of each one; never assume magazine norms transfer.
- Six months of silence is not a contract. If a no-simultaneous-submission magazine has held your poem far past its stated response time, you may send a polite status query, and if nothing comes back in a few weeks, a formal withdrawal releases the poem. You are allowed to leave a queue that has forgotten you. Our answer on how long magazines take to respond covers the reasonable waiting periods.
- Revised versions are still the same poem. Changing a title and two line breaks does not create a new work you can leave in a queue after the "old" one was accepted elsewhere. If you would recognize it, an editor will.
- Posted on your own blog counts as published at most venues, which surprises poets constantly. Previously published and simultaneously submitted are different problems, but they get tangled in the same guidelines paragraph. Read both clauses.
The Acceptance That Taught Me the 24-Hour Rule
My own scar: years ago, a journal accepted a poem of mine on a Friday, and I decided the withdrawals could wait until after the weekend I spent grinning at strangers. On Monday morning, before I opened my laptop, a second acceptance for the same poem was sitting in my inbox, sent Sunday night. The second editor had read my poem on her weekend, off the clock, and chosen it. I had to tell her the poem had been gone for three days, and that the only reason she spent her Sunday on it was that I had been too busy celebrating to send three sentences. She was kind about it. I still think about her Sunday. Since that morning I have kept a four-line poem taped above my desk, and you are welcome to it:
Say yes, then say the quiet no
to every door still standing open.
Good news you sit on hatches slow
and ugly. Send the word. Then celebrate.
Doggerel, admittedly. But it has kept my record clean for years, and it makes the point better than a policy manual: the withdrawal is part of the acceptance. They are one event.
Etiquette Is a Career Strategy Wearing Manners
Here is the argument to leave with. Poetry publishing runs on a currency that never appears in any guidelines page: editorial goodwill. Editors move between magazines, judge contests, screen for prizes, and remember names in both directions. The poet who declares, tracks, and withdraws cleanly is building a reputation with every submission, including the rejected ones. The poet who is careless with other people's queues is spending a currency they have not earned yet.
One quiet advantage of a fast contest cycle is that this entire dance gets simpler: Writory's monthly contest runs entries from the 1st to the 25th with results on the 30th, and every entrant receives a five-criteria score breakdown, so a poem is never trapped in limbo for half a year while your spreadsheet ages. If your best poem has been sitting in slow queues since winter, give it a fast, scored reading this month and let the magazines take their time with the others. For the craft side of getting that poem ready, the writing tips shelf is where I would start.
Send widely. Declare plainly. Withdraw fast. That is the entire rulebook, and following it makes you, in the eyes of every editor you will ever meet, that rarest and most publishable of creatures: a poet who is easy to work with.
By Team Writory, for Writory.
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