What is a submission tracker?
- A spreadsheet or database recording every submission.
- One row per submission, never multi-submissions per row.
- Six standard columns: recipient, materials, sent, status, responded, notes.
- Prevents duplicate submissions and identifies stale follow-ups.
- Most working novelists track 50-100 submissions per project.
A submission tracker is a spreadsheet or database recording every query and submission an author has sent — agents, editors, contests, magazines — with one row per submission. Standard columns: recipient, materials sent, date submitted, status, response date, notes. The tracker prevents duplicate submissions and identifies stale follow-ups.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Querying is a marathon, not a sprint. Without a tracker, writers double-submit to the same agent (embarrassing), forget to follow up on stale ones (lost opportunities), or cannot see patterns across their data (slow learning). A tracker turns querying from chaos into a managed pipeline.
Chapter ii·What to include
- Recipient: agent or editor name, agency or publication.
- Materials sent: query only, query + sample, full manuscript.
- Date submitted.
- Status: pending, partial request, full request, R&R, offer, rejection.
- Response date.
- Notes column for personal observations.
Chapter iii·Example
A querying writer keeps a 47-row submissions tracker across 14 months. By month 8 the data shows 28 rejections, 7 partials, 2 fulls, 10 pending. She follows up on the 10 pending at month 6, gets responses from 4, and stops querying once she has an offer in month 11.
Chapter iv·Related questions
WriteLoom’s Pitch studio tracks every submission with version, status, and response — so no follow-up gets lost.
See the Pitch studio