Tracking Submissions

Track your story submissions to magazines, anthologies, contests, and publishers — from submission through acceptance, with payment and rights tracking on the back end.

What Submissions Are

A submission records that you sent a specific story to a specific market on a specific date. As the submission progresses (accepted, rejected, withdrawn), you update its status and Inkwren keeps the dates and details. When a story is accepted, an Acceptance Details panel appears for tracking the payment, contract status, and rights reversion date.

This is the author-side flow — submissions you send out. If you're a publisher receiving manuscripts to evaluate, that's a separate workflow under each publication's Manuscripts tab.

Feature Availability

Submissions is part of the Story Submissions feature, enabled by default for author workspaces. If you don't see Submissions in your sidebar under the Business section, your workspace administrator may need to enable it.

Viewing Your Submissions

Click Submissions in the sidebar under the Business section. You'll see a table with five columns:

• Story — the submitted story title (links to the story detail page)
• Market — the market name. If the submission is linked to an Inkwren publication, an arrow link to that publication appears below the market name.
• Submitted — the date you sent it
• Status — Submitted, Accepted, Rejected, or Withdrawn (with a colored badge)
• Response — the response date (or - if you haven't recorded one)

Columns sortable by Market, Submitted, Status, and Response. The default sort is Submitted, descending.

Filtering Submissions

Use the controls above the table:

• Search Submissions: Type a market name to find submissions to that venue
• Status: All Statuses, Submitted, Accepted, Rejected, or Withdrawn

Pagination at the bottom offers 10 / 25 / 50 / 100 per page.

Creating a Submission

1. Click New Submission at the top of the page
2. Fill in the details:
   • Story (required): Type to find one of your stories, or click + New to create a story inline (the title pre-fills with whatever you typed)
   • Market (required): Type to find an existing market, pick a known global market (Inkwren auto-creates a workspace copy), or type a new name and click Add [name] to create a fresh market
   • Market URL (optional): Pre-fills the new market's URL — only used when creating a brand-new market through the autocomplete
   • Market Type (optional): Magazine, Digest, Anthology, Contest, Publisher, or Other — only used when creating a brand-new market through the autocomplete
   • Submitted Date (required): Defaults to today
   • Notes: Anything worth remembering about this submission
3. Click Create Submission

You'll land back on the list with a "Submission created" confirmation.

Editing a Submission

1. Click the pencil icon on the submission row
2. Update the fields:
   • Market: Still editable via the same autocomplete
   • Status: Submitted, Accepted, Rejected, or Withdrawn
   • Submitted Date and Response Date
   • Notes
   • Link to Inkwren Publication (optional): Connect this submission to a publication record in your library. The list page will show an arrow link from the market to the publication.
3. Click Save Changes

The story can't be reassigned after creation — if you submitted the wrong story, delete the submission and create a new one.

Acceptance Details

When you set the status to Accepted, an Acceptance Details panel appears with four optional fields:

• Payment Amount: A dollar amount with cents (e.g., 50.00). The currency is implicit — Inkwren doesn't track currency separately.
• Payment Received: Check this when payment actually arrives (separate from the agreed amount)
• Contract Signed: Check this once the contract is signed. This is informational only — it does not create a record in the Contracts feature. If you want a tracked contract, create one separately.
• Rights Reversion Date: When rights to the story revert back to you. Useful for reprint planning.

You can mark a submission Accepted without filling any of these in — token markets or non-paying acceptances don't need to fill the panel.

Deleting a Submission

1. Click the trash icon on the submission row
2. Confirm the deletion in the dialog

This removes the submission record entirely. The linked story and market are not affected.

How Submissions Connect to Markets

Every submission references a market — either an existing one in your workspace, a global market (which Inkwren auto-copies into your workspace on first use), or a new one you create inline. See Managing Markets for how the workspace and global markets work.

When you select a global market like Clarkesworld for the first time, Inkwren creates a workspace-scoped copy that inherits the URL and market type. Subsequent submissions reuse that copy so your acceptance rates and submission history accumulate on a single record.

Tips

• Default the submitted date and move on: The form defaults to today — no need to fiddle with it for fresh submissions
• Set Response Date when you hear back: Even if rejected, the response date helps you track average response times per market
• Use Notes for tracking-relevant details: Editor name, simultaneous-submission policy, expected response time — anything you'll want to know later
• Mark Accepted without payment details if needed: Token markets and non-paying venues are common; the Acceptance panel fields are all optional
• Link accepted submissions to publications: When an acceptance becomes a real publication, link them so you can navigate between submission history and the published work
• Don't conflate Contract Signed with Contracts feature: That checkbox is a self-tracking marker. Use the Contracts feature when you want a real tracked record with templates and PDFs.