My first acceptance using submittable but need etiquette advice

mleighb

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This is my first post in AW so I do hope I'm in the correct forum. I started using submittable a few months ago to submit short CNF and also opened a Duotrope account to follow submissions which work together nicely. I have about 4 different pieces out there among about a dozen publishers on an ongoing basis.

I need some advice on the proper amount of time to reply to the publisher who just wrote yesterday about an acceptance. I was thrilled of course, but I have 3 other outstanding (simultaneous) submissions that I hate to back out of. The time frame on the top 2 of those are but a mere week (if they are on time). My longwinded question is, what is the longest you would wait to reply back? I feel almost ungrateful not replying immedietaly. I'm getting more skilled at the timing I send submissions but I never dreamed I'd have this problem! Should I just let the others go? I'm stressed.
 

Kylabelle

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Personally I would withdraw from the other three immediately and say thank you to the one who accepted you. If you have reasons not to do that, such as the other places pay more or the like, well, I think I still would take this course.

I recently had a poem accepted to one of two places I had sent a group of pieces to. The other place charged a (very small) fee to submit and I have not heard back from them since sending. But I am glad to have my piece taken by the place that accepted it. Generally if I do simultaneous submissions, I make sure I have no preference between or among venues to avoid this problem!

In fact, I've decided not to do any more simultaneous submissions because of this. (And from what I saw last time I was in there, Duotrope does not support sim subs so not sure how you're working with that?)

Anyway congrats on the acceptance and good luck with your dilemma.
 

mleighb

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Thank you so much, this was very helpful. I am completely new to this and since you mentioned it, I went back to Duotrope to educate myself a little better and read through some of their guidelines. They do suggest accepting right away and not waiting. They do support sim sub but with some very firm guidelines which I wholeheartedly agree with. They have about 40% of their submitters who do sim sub but always with publishers who say up front they allow it. I think the good advice to stagger submissions if possible so that you won't run into this problem. DUO does allow tracking and apparently can help flag a sub that doesn't allow sim sub so you can correct it. One of the publishers I must let go was a contest and I was hoping to hear of I at least made a short list (as I have had a few of those recently) I guess I'll consider this a lesson in learning the process.