What Is a Multiple Submission?
Quick answer: What is a multiple submission? Sending more than one piece to the same magazine at once. When it is allowed, when it hurts you, and how it differs from simsubs.
A multiple submission is more than one piece sent to the same magazine at the same time: two stories in one reading period, say, or a story submitted while your earlier one is still in their queue. Many literary magazines prohibit it, asking writers to submit one piece and wait for a decision before sending the next; others allow two or three, and flash fiction markets often invite small batches in a single document. The magazine's guidelines always state the policy, and it is separate from the simultaneous submission rule, which concerns one piece sent to many magazines.
The distinction matters because the two terms get swapped constantly, and the penalty for confusing them lands on you: a second story sent against policy is usually rejected unread, and can drag your first story down with it in the reader's goodwill.
Why Magazines Limit Submissions Per Writer
The reason is queue arithmetic. A magazine with hundreds of submissions a month rations its readers' hours, and one writer occupying five slots crowds out five other writers; the one-at-a-time rule is a fairness device, the literary equivalent of one ticket per customer. It also protects writers from themselves: readers who face four stories by the same person tend to read the weakest first at random, and a poor first impression shades the rest.
Editors add a quieter reason: decision quality. A single story gets judged on its own terms; a stack invites comparison-shopping among your pieces, and the internal ranking can sink work that would have stood alone. When magazines do allow multiples, the caps are small and deliberate, usually two or three, and flash markets that welcome batches ask for them in one file precisely so they are read as a set.
Reading the Policies Correctly
The phrasings you will meet in guidelines, decoded:
Strategy When You Have Many Finished Stories
A full drawer is a good problem, and the solution is breadth, not depth. Spread your stories across different magazines simultaneously rather than stacking them at one; ten stories at ten markets respects every policy and multiplies your chances, while ten stories at one market breaks rules and concentrates risk in a single masthead's taste.
Lead with your strongest story at each market, since the first piece an editor reads becomes your reputation there. Sequence the rest as decisions return: a personal rejection with an invitation to send more work is a genuine door, and the correct response is your next-best story within a few weeks. Contests can absorb overflow on a different clock; Writory's short story round takes a fresh entry every month and scores each one against its published rubric, so a productive writer always has somewhere for this month's best piece to go.
The Mistakes, Ranked by Cost
Costliest: submitting a second piece where policy forbids it, then a third when the silence continues. Readers see the queue with your name repeated, and the impression is a writer who ignores instructions, which is exactly the trait guidelines exist to filter. Next: resubmitting the same story, lightly retitled or revised, without an invitation; declined means declined at that market unless an editor asked for a revision.
Cheaper but still wasteful: burning your allowance on a weaker story because it happened to be finished first, and splitting a flash batch into separate submissions, which triples your footprint against the spirit of the rule. All of it is avoidable with one habit: reread the guidelines at the moment of submission, and keep a per-market log of what you sent, when, and what came back. Guidelines are short and careers are long; the one-minute reread at submission time is the cheapest insurance in publishing.
What poets can take from this
- One piece per magazine at a time unless the guidelines explicitly say otherwise.
- Spread a full drawer across many markets instead of stacking one queue.
- Lead with your strongest story; it becomes your name at that magazine.
- Honour cooling-off clauses after rejections, and log the dates.
- Batch flash pieces exactly as instructed, in one document, one submission.
- When a magazine invites more work after a decline, send one story, not three.
Try it yourself
Write a story about a character who applies the more-is-better strategy to something it catastrophically does not suit: love letters, job applications, apologies. Let the reader see the logic from inside, and let one recipient's reply end the story.
Questions
Can I submit two stories to the same magazine at once?
Only if its guidelines permit multiple submissions, and most literary magazines do not. Where the policy is silent, assume one at a time; where it allows two or three, follow the stated cap and format exactly.
Can I resubmit a rejected story to the same magazine?
Not unless an editor invited a revision. A form rejection closes that door for the story; substantial rewrites years later are a grey area, best handled by asking first. Your energy is better spent on new markets.
Why do magazines reject extra submissions unread?
Because the queue is the fairness mechanism, and enforcement keeps it meaningful. Reading a rule-breaking second story would reward exactly the behaviour the policy exists to prevent, so most magazines decline it automatically and note the pattern. A polite writer simply waits; the allowance resets with each decision.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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