What Is a Simultaneous Submission?
Quick answer: What is a simultaneous submission? Sending one story to several magazines at once. The etiquette, the withdrawal rule, and why most markets now allow it.
A simultaneous submission is the same story sent to more than one magazine at the same time. Most literary magazines now permit the practice, on one strict condition: if any magazine accepts the story, you must immediately withdraw it from all the others. The alternative, exclusive submission, means one market at a time, and a handful of magazines still require it, always saying so in their guidelines. The term should not be confused with multiple submission, which means sending several different pieces to one magazine at once.
The concept matters because response times run three to six months. Submitting exclusively, a story might reach four magazines in two years; submitted simultaneously to six suitable markets, it gets the same hearings in a single season. For working writers, simultaneous submission is not a loophole but the standard operating procedure the field's slow clocks made necessary.
How the System Works in Practice
The mechanics are simple. You select several magazines whose guidelines accept simultaneous submissions, send the story to each through their normal channels, and note in each cover letter, one line suffices, that the piece is under consideration elsewhere. Then you track everything: which story, which markets, which dates. A spreadsheet or a tracker like Duotrope's does fine, and the tracking is not optional, because the whole ethical structure rests on your ability to act fast when news arrives.
When an acceptance comes, two things happen the same day: you say yes to the accepting magazine, and you withdraw the story everywhere else, through each portal's withdrawal function or a short, courteous note. That is the entire contract. Magazines accept the risk of losing a story to a rival; in exchange, writers guarantee no editor spends further time on a piece that is already spoken for.
Batch size deserves thought too. Four to six well-matched markets per story is a common rhythm: wide enough that the waits overlap usefully, narrow enough that a sudden acceptance means five minutes of withdrawals rather than an evening of apologies.
Why Most Magazines Came Around
Exclusivity was the historical norm, and it quietly favoured institutions over writers: a magazine holding a story for eight months cost the writer eight months, while costing itself nothing. As response times lengthened and submission volumes grew, the arithmetic became indefensible, and editors themselves led much of the shift; most now state plainly that asking for exclusivity without fast responses is unfair.
The holdouts that remain fall into two groups: a few top-tier magazines whose prestige lets them demand exclusivity, usually paired with genuinely faster answers, and some genre markets with quick turnarounds, where exclusivity costs writers days rather than seasons. Respect both; their guidelines are the contract. Submitting simultaneously to a market that forbids it, and getting caught in an acceptance collision, is one of the few genuine ways to burn a bridge in this field.
The Etiquette, Compressed
The rules that keep the system trusted:
Where Writers Trip Up
The serious offence is the silent double-acceptance: a story accepted at two magazines because the writer withdrew slowly or not at all. Editors talk to each other, mastheads overlap, and the short fiction world is smaller than it looks. The lesser but common errors: forgetting where a story is out, so a withdrawal gets missed; submitting simultaneously to no-simsub markets on the assumption nobody checks; and treating disclosed simultaneity as a bargaining chip to hurry editors, which reliably irritates them.
Contests write their own rules on this, and they vary: some accept previously submitted work, some require the entry be unpublished and exclusive during judging. Writory's monthly Short Story Contest, for example, asks for original, unpublished entries within its 100 to 2,000 word band, so a story entered there should not be simultaneously shopped until results arrive on the 30th. As always, the governing document is whatever the market's own guidelines say, read on the day of submission.
What poets can take from this
- Confirm the simsub policy in the guidelines every time; policies change without announcements.
- Send each story to several allowing markets at once; exclusivity is the exception now.
- Track every live submission so withdrawal takes minutes, not archaeology.
- Withdraw the same day an acceptance lands, everywhere, in writing.
- Never simsub to a forbidding market; the shortcut can cost a reputation.
Try it yourself
Write a comic story in which a writer receives two acceptance emails for the same story within one hour and must choose. Give each magazine a distinct, tempting personality, let the choice reveal the writer's actual ambitions, and end before the reply is sent.
Questions
What is the difference between simultaneous and multiple submissions?
Simultaneous means one piece sent to several magazines at once; multiple means several pieces sent to one magazine at the same time. Magazines hold separate policies on each, so check both lines in the guidelines before sending.
Do you have to tell magazines a story is a simultaneous submission?
If their guidelines request disclosure, yes, and a single cover-letter line does it. Where guidelines are silent, disclosure is still courteous and never hurts. What is universally required is immediate withdrawal upon acceptance elsewhere.
What happens if two magazines accept the same story?
You may accept only the first offer; the story can be published once. A prompt, apologetic withdrawal to the second magazine, sent before they invest further work, keeps you in good standing. Slow handling of exactly this scenario is how writers earn quiet blacklistings.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the August contest and have your own poem read and scored.