What Is Submittable?
Quick answer: What Submittable is and how writers use it: the submission platform behind most literary magazines, its statuses, fees and etiquette, explained plainly.
Submittable is a web platform that literary magazines, presses and contests use to receive and manage submissions. You create one free account, then submit to any market that uses the system by filling in a form and uploading your file. Your dashboard lists everything you have sent, with a status beside each piece: Received, In-Progress, Accepted, Declined or Withdrawn. For most writers it is the single place where the bulk of their submitting life happens.
Understanding the platform matters because it quietly shapes writers' behaviour. People refresh statuses like weather reports, misread In-Progress as encouragement, and sometimes withdraw stories in a panic. Knowing what the machinery actually does, and does not, tell you keeps your submitting calm and your records straight.
How it works from the writer's side
You register once at submittable.com with an email address. Each magazine has its own page listing open categories: general fiction, themed calls, contests, sometimes fee-free windows. You pick a category, answer whatever the editors ask, usually a short cover letter and a bio, attach your manuscript, and press submit. The piece appears instantly in your Submissions list.
Statuses are simpler than writers want them to be. Received means it is in the queue. In-Progress means someone at the magazine opened it, which might mean a first reader is halfway through, or an intern clicked it by accident three months ago. Accepted and Declined mean what they say. Withdrawn is yours to trigger, and Editable appears when a magazine allows corrections. That is the entire vocabulary. The platform offers no secret signals, and status-watching tells you almost nothing that the eventual email will not.
The honest complications
Not everything lives on Submittable. Plenty of magazines use rivals like Duosuma or Moksha, some run their own forms, and a stubborn, often excellent handful still take email submissions. So your Submittable dashboard is not a complete record of your submitting life, and serious writers keep an independent tracker, a plain spreadsheet works, listing every story, market, date and outcome across all systems.
Fees are the other wrinkle. Submittable charges magazines to use the service, and some pass costs on as small submission fees, commonly two to three dollars. Others charge nothing, or open free windows for writers who cannot pay. A modest fee at a paying market is normal economics; a large fee for a tiny prize is a different animal, worth judging by the same standards you would apply to any contest. The platform itself never takes your rights and never judges your work. It is plumbing, not gatekeeping.
A tour in one true example
Say you have a 3,000-word story ready. You search the guidelines of a magazine you actually read, find its Submittable page, and see three open categories: regular fiction, free for the first three hundred entries this month; a themed issue on rivers; and an annual contest with a fee and a named judge. You choose regular fiction, paste a three-line cover letter, upload the anonymised file the guidelines requested, and submit.
For eleven weeks the status says Received. One Tuesday it flips to In-Progress. Nothing happens for another month, and then an email arrives, a kind decline inviting you to send again. The status flips to Declined. You log the result in your spreadsheet, send the story to the next market on your list the same evening, and notice the whole cycle cost you no postage, no printing and no guessing about whether the manuscript arrived. That reliability, more than anything, is what the platform actually gives you.
Using it well
Fill in your Submittable profile once, properly: a short third-person bio and accurate contact details, because some editors read them. Write cover letters in the form itself but compose them elsewhere first, since browser forms eat text. Before every submission, open the file you attached and check it is the right draft; the platform faithfully delivers whatever you upload, including the version with your notes to yourself in red.
Learn the withdraw etiquette. If another magazine accepts a simultaneously submitted story, withdraw it everywhere else the same day, using the withdraw button plus a one-line note if the magazine asks for messages. For partial withdrawals in multi-piece categories, send a message naming the piece. And resist the urge to message editors asking for updates before the stated response time has passed. A query after the window closes is professional. A nudge at week three is noise.
What writers get wrong about it
The biggest misreading is treating In-Progress as a shortlist. It is a mouse click, nothing more. The second is assuming Declined at day two means nobody read the story; fast rejections usually mean an efficient first-reading team or a mismatch obvious from page one, not contempt. The third is submitting the same story twice to one market because the first attempt sits in Received silence, which editors notice and dislike.
There is also a quieter mistake: letting the dashboard become your whole strategy, submitting only to markets that happen to use the platform because the interface makes it easy. Some of the best homes for short fiction live elsewhere. Contests too: Writory's monthly Short Story Contest runs on its own site with blind judging and a five-part score for every entrant, and no Submittable account will surface it for you. The tool is excellent plumbing. Choosing where the pipes lead is still your job.
What poets can take from this
- Keep your own spreadsheet of submissions; no single platform sees your whole record.
- In-Progress means opened, not shortlisted, so stop refreshing and start the next story.
- Check the uploaded file is the final draft before you press submit.
- Withdraw everywhere on the day another market accepts a simultaneous submission.
- Do not query before the magazine's stated response time has fully passed.
Try it yourself
Draft the three-line cover letter you would attach to your best finished story: one line naming the piece and its word count, one line of publication history or an honest hello, one line of thanks. Cut every word that praises your own story, then save it as your template.
Questions
Does Submittable cost writers money?
The account is free. Individual magazines may attach small fees to certain categories, typically two to three dollars, and contests charge their own entry fees. Plenty of markets on the platform remain completely free to submit to.
Can editors see my other submissions on Submittable?
No. A magazine sees only what you sent to that magazine, plus the profile bio you chose to write. Your declines elsewhere, your acceptance rate and your dashboard are invisible to them.
What does it mean if my submission status says Editable?
The magazine has opened your submission for changes, usually because you asked to fix a typo or swap a file. Make the correction promptly and resubmit; the piece keeps its place in the queue.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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