The home of fiction author Val Gryphin…

So I’ve mentioned a couple of acceptances I’ve had this week, and the ones I have pending. Now, to put that into context a little bit, since May 1^st, also I have submitted 15 stories that were rejected, and withdrawn 1 (Because it was accepted by Clean Sheets.)

So, since May 1st that is

39 submissions,
21 of which are pending,
15 rejected,
2 accepted
and 1 withdrawn.

Not bad percentages, but still, a lot of work – the acceptances don’t come easy. And I am NOT complaining at all LOL.

And here’s a new personal rejection letter:

“Thank you for your interest. We have included below our editors’ comments on your work; we hope you find them useful.

Editor 1 Vote: No. Over the top, dramatic, contrivance.
Editor 2 Vote: No. I don’t understand what happened, who these people are, or why I should care about them.”

Owch! Good to hear, but still, Owch!

Scribe and Quill accepted my story The Truth About Priscilla, which was originally published in a print magazine called Short Stuff for Grownups several years ago. Woot!

Right now I have 21 submissions out. Interesting statistics:

2 are at 100 days
2 are at 84 days
4 are at 82 days
1 is at 17 days (There were a lot of markets that responded faster which is a big part of the gap there. The 8 long times ones all have long response times on Duotrope.)
1 at 9 days
5 are at 7 days
and 5 are at 3 days.

1 Poem is out to 5 markets
2 Stories are out to 4 markets each
1 Story is out to 3 markets
1 story is out to 2 markets
and 3 stories are out to 1 market each

Any other interesting statistics? Hummm

11 of the 21 confirmed in some way the receipt of my submission.

It has been an insane few months. I attended my grad school residency, which went very well, and am currently working on my second packet. (Going half time is the best decision I could have made, more on that later.)

In July I attended a writers and agents conference, and pitched my novel Moving on Nightfall to a big name agent. It went very well, and she requested the first 100 pages of my novel. Unfortunately, she turned it down after reading it, but I learned so much about elevator pitches, and pitching to agents, and query letters just from that experience. I also have a lead on another agent who might like to see my work.

I currently have 9 stories out to 22 different markets. (I gave in on my avoidance of simultaneous submissions, although I don’t usually submit to markets that specifically say no to them in their guidelines. I have also found one or two that state by submitting they have the right to publish it, that is another post as well.)

Clean Sheets magazine accepted a piece of mine called “Tumbleweeds and Highways,” to be published probably within the next 4 months.

So this site will be active again as I spend more and more time working on not just the writing itself, but also the marketing and publication aspects!

So of the stories I have out, three are running a long time, not a big deal.

But of the five I sent out in the last few weeks I have received two rejections already, from Not One of Us, and Vestal Review. One is for a long poem I am having a lot of trouble finding a market for, one of those hard-to-place pieces. The other was a piece of flash fiction that I really need to re-work. The other three that are out are stronger pieces, so I’m hoping for more luck with those.

On the upside, I finished revising another short story I’ve been working on, and it is going out this weekend. I also want to get a rough-draft revision done on the short piece that was just rejected. I also have everything I need printed for the residency done, and I’m reading the books I’ll need.

And yes, I think it might be spring here. Yea!!

Part three of three.

Part One
Part Two

Ok, so we’ve covered what a copyright is, and what it means to sell rights to publish a work. Now we’ll talk about bad ways to loose your first rights.

One bad way we’ve covered is to post your work online for free without having a clear plan on how you are going to use it for marketing your book. This goes for any site that is offering to put your work online to gain readers, publicity, agents, or a contract. Don’t stop, run. There is no such thing as “pre-publishing,” and posting your work online gives up your first rights. You do not have to be paid to give up your first rights! All that has to happen is your work be printed in a periodical, or put online where anyone can access it. Do either one of those and you loose your first rights, which are the most valuable in almost all cases. While giving away content in a controlled fashion where you know exactly what you are doing like I discussed last week can be a big boost, really anything else is screwing yourself if you are wanting to publish the material.

Another trap to give up you rights are those so-called contests where everything gets accepted, and then they try to get you to buy the book that your piece was published in. Poetry.com is notorious for this, but there are others. Dana K. Cassell has a great article on this called Writing Contest Cautions. Some of her points for spotting bad contests are:

No entry fees - Writing contests cost money to run. If they aren’t charging, how are they paying prizes and judges?
Entry fees that are out of proportion of the prizes offered, i.e. $20 for a $200 prize, of $5 for a $25,000 prize.
When they take your rights by putting them up online or publishing them in a book, or even just state that they will keep all rights even if you aren’t a winner. Legit contests aren’t going to take your rights if you don’t win - once the contest is over non-winning submissions should be released all rights intact. Read the contracts, particularly if there is a lot of fine print.

Finally, don’t put anything you might want to publish later on up on your website, even if you are asking for feedback. Right there you have given up your first rights, and really, the amount of feedback you get will more than likely not be enough to make it worthwhile.

Part two of three.

Part One.

Yesterday I talked about what a copyright is, how to obtain one, and what it means. Today I am going to talk about this concept of selling rights of publication for your work. When you submit a piece of writing to a market, you are offering them chance - or the right - to publish it. Depending on the market however, the rights that the magazine is willing to buy can vary greatly. Here is a basic overview of the rights that a market can ask for.

First serial rights: This means the right to be the first to publish your piece in any form, in any market. That means it cannot have been published in either electronic or print mediums, in any country. You can only sell this right once, although if the magazine folds without publishing your story the rights revert to you. Again though, be careful. I know of a market that folded and the language of the contract was such that the rights did not revert to the authors even though the magazine was gone - always read the fine print. Also, be mindful that most markets consider the the first rights of a work gone if it appeared anywhere online, even if it was only on a personal website.

First North American (or any other region) rights: This means the publisher want to be the first to publish a piece in a specified market area. This means that if you previously sold first European rights, you are free to sell first North American rights to another magazine, and visa versa. (Although you should always specify where a piece has been published before so that they are aware of what market the piece appeared in.)

Another form of first rights is first electronic rights and first print rights. Sometimes print market will buy the rights to a piece that has been published electronically, and visa versa. Be careful though, always make sure that you own the first rights to an alternate market before you resubmit it with first rights.

One-time rights: The right to use a work once. For example, if you are submitting the same piece to two (usually non-competing) markets and offering them both a chance to print the work. Again, tell the markets you are submitting to. Another was it is used is when as electronic magazine purchases this right in order to publish the story without archiving it.

Perpetual Rights: The right to keep using your work. (As in keeping them up on the sire of an online magazine indefinitely.)

Second serial or reprint rights: Just what is sounds like - you are giving a market a chance to reprint a story that has been previously printed elsewhere. (Again, tell the market you are submitting to where it was previously published.)

Archival rights: The right of a market to keep your work archived (for instance in the archives of an online magazine) either for a specified amount of time or indefinitely. How long a story will be archived for is very important to know, because sometimes markets that accept reprints will not accept a piece that still available online. In addition, a market might specify that they have exclusive or non-exclusive archive rights, which tells you whether or not it can appeare in more archives than the original market.

Anthology rights: The right to reprint your work in an anthology. With both this and archive rights make sure you know what you are giving up - when you sell these rights you will not be compensated by the market for this extended usage unless they have specified otherwise.

All rights: Just what it sounds like - while you are NOT giving up the copyright to your work, you are giving up ALL rights to publish your own work - unless you renegotiate down the road (which many markets are not be willing to do) you will not be able sell it as a reprint, publish it in an anthology, or even put it on your personal site.

Work for hire: As I am primarily discussing fiction, this probably won’t come up much, but I think it is important to mention. Work for hire is a very slippery slope as not only does the market you are writing for obtain all rights for the work you do under their umbrella, but they are actually also are considered the CREATOR of the piece. For more information read What Writers Should Know About All-Rights and Work-Made-For-Hire Contracts by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

In addition to these market there what is called subsidiary rights, which mainly come into play when talking about a book.

Basically, subsidiary rights are the right to do anything at all with the writing other than publish it as a book. So, unless you sell subsidiary rights to the publisher, you still own the right to publish your work as a movie, film, videotape or audiotape, and electronic rights, translation rights, book club rights, foreign rights, etc. - Writer’s Rights: Know What Rights You’re Selling

However, dealing with compensation and/or retaining these rights are what an agent is for. Or, if you are self-publishing, you retain all your rights until you decide to sell them. However, if you are dealing directly with a publisher, it is well worth your time and effort to research the deal they are offering you to make sure that it is good for you, not just sweet for them.

Other sources on rights:

Blood and Ink: Publishing Rights
The Business of Writing: Minding the Details

(Part one of three)

Many beginning writers worry about whether they need to copyright their works for a variety of reasons. They worry that someone could plagiarize and claim ownership over their work, that editors or agents might steal their writing or their ideas, or that at some point they might need to prove that a work is their own. Also, many worry that by marketing a pieces they are giving up the copyright to their work. Most of this is inaccurate.

So what is a copyright?

A copyright in essence is the ownership by a creator over their “literary, dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and audiovisual creations.” - History of the Copyright.

There are several key points involved in analyzing the copyright process.

1. A copyright is simply a legal term for saying you own a piece of work. From the Copyright Office:

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

2. It is a common misconception that in order to hold the copyright to a work it must be registered with the Copyright Office. Prior to the The Copyright Act of 1976 this was true in some cases. However, after this act, simply putting a piece of work down on paper creates your copyright. While a writer can register their pieces for the Copyright Office for $45 a piece, this is widely considered to be unnecessary. (Note - in this case I am referring specifically to fiction and/or non-fiction. I believe that scripts and screenplays might be dealt with differently, but as I am not a screenwriter I’m not 100% sure and don’t want to spread any misinformation. Screen rights when it comes to books is something else and is included with novel rights.)
From the Copyright office: Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation

The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. (See following note.) There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. See “Copyright Registration.”

Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is “created” when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. “Copies” are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. “Phonorecords” are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the “work”) can be fixed in sheet music (“copies”) or in phonograph disks (“phonorecords”), or both. If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date.

3. When you submit a story to a market, you are not offering them the copyright - you are offering them the right to publish your work under specified terms. You still retain the copyright, and you are the author of the piece. (Although work-for-hire rights can be different.) The next post in this series will deal with rights.

4. When you are offering a piece to the public, such as on a website, posting a copyright statement is a good idea to warn the average web browser, who thinks everything they find online is free for the taking, that your work is not to be swiped. (I have a copyright notice on my own website.) Also, if a work is published with a copyright and date it can be beneficial in any plagiarism cases. However, having a copyright notice on your work is NOT required by law in order to retain the copyright. (Although works published before March 1st, 1989 may be different. More info here.)

For written work a copyright statement is written as:

1. The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word “Copyright,” or the abbreviation “Copr.”; and

2. The year of first publication of the work. In the case of compilations or derivative works incorporating previously published material, the year date of first publication of the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The year date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful article; and

3. The name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner.

Example: © 2006 John Doe

However, when a piece of writing is submitted to a market, the editors know that the author holds the copyright to their work, and including a copyright notice is seen as the mark of an amateur as it indicates a lack of trust in the editors.

So, in summery of how this works for me personally, I have a notice of copyright on my website because I don’t want random people taking off with parts of my writing without permission and/or giving credit. My website is out in the public’s eye, and in the same way that a magazine has a copyright statement, I want to make it clear the content is mine. However, when I am submitting a piece to a market I never place a notice of copyright on my manuscript as it is extremely unprofessional.

Next: What different rights mean.

(and, I am anal ;)), I got an email saying the myspace blog of the Terrible Beauty, Frightful Symmetry anthology had updated.

“Sincerest apologies for the delays…I returned on February 3rd and came down with a truly nasty case of bronchitis the next day and have been hors de combat ever since. This past Sunday (the 24th) was the first day I actually left my house–except for a quick visit to the doc who diagnosed the bronchitis and sent me home with about 4 different prescriptions.

I expect to have all the responses out with a week.”

Sweet! I’ve had stories go longer, but I do tend to track them as much as possible, so I like hearing that I’ll have an answer soon, even if the date ends up changing.

So I took a peek at their site just to see if anything new had been posted as last I read, they were going to respond the week after the 4th of Feb, and found this.

“Because of the DELUGE

of stories we recieved (approx. 480 for the 2 anthos.) some of you may not be notified until after Feb. 29, 2008. Our apologies.

Some people have already been notified. Stories were read in the order received.”

He he. I’m amused. I sent mine on Nov. 25th, (more than a month before the deadline), so I still hope that means they are hanging on to it for consideration.

I received an interesting article, Get Real: Online vs. Print Publishing, via one of my online writing groups, which asked writers which medium they preferred to submit their writing to, online or print. It is an interesting article with some extremely varied responses. This is an ongoing debate, and I think most writers I know, even if they are very open to online publishing, have at least a slight preference for print media. At Duotrope, when authors search for a specific media, 88.18 % search for print publications.

I admit I have a bias towards print media when it comes to my own submissions. I am a tactile person, and I love holding a magazine with my work in it. Print magazines can be kept as tangible reminders of success, and shown to people when they ask the question, “What have you had published?” Online media does have its own pluses though, one of the biggest being that it is great exposure, and they make it much easier to share your published work with others. There are also more online publishers than print, and they have the capacity to print as much fiction as they choose. There are many long running, well-run, online magazines, and some of them pay well.

Both formats also have their downsides. Print media is severely limited in terms of space, and it costs more to keep the magazine running - if they run out of money to print and mail, the magazine folds. The downside to online is any hack can start a magazine, so before a writer submits they need to look over the market, as well as check it out at places like Duotrope. Also, they don’t garner as many prize nominations or prestige as print media does, although this is changing over time.

Personally, I submit to both, although if there are equal markets in both media I usually go with the print publication. The online markets I have been accepted by though are well established, and both paid, which is more than many literary magazines can say they do. However, when it comes down to it, every piece that is published increases both a writer’s credibility and experience levels, and is a step further up the writing ladder.

Just received the email (4am in the morning no less!) from Tattoo Highway.

congratulations! “liturgy of the abandoned” has tied for 2nd place in our “picture worth 500 words” contest.

Sweet! I’ll post when I know for sure the publication date.

And I get paid!

I have had a submission out to the “Slow Magazine” (not the real name obviously!) for quite a while - since February of 2007 as a matter of fact. This particular piece is a long poem, which they specifically state they like in their guidelines. Because I am anal (and my handwriting sucks!) I had printed labels for both the to and return envelopes, I included postage for a reply, and dropped it in the mail slot. (Well, really, I gave it to to post office lady over the counter, if we are going to be specific.) Although I have a tendency to go over my Duotrope tracker and see how long my submissions have been out, I really don’t stress over them, well, until they get to a year or so, and then I start to wonder.

I have one other story that has been out for a year, to BUST Magazine. However, in this case, as it was an electronic submission, I shot them off a polite email in December inquiring about the status of my submission:

I am writing to inquire about a submission for your “One-Handed Read” I sent in February of this year, “Story Title.” I was wondering if I could find out if it was still in the consideration process?

Thank you very much for your reply - I appreciate your taking the time to let me know.

I very promptly received an email reply that stated:

thanks for contacting BUST! It is still in our folder for consideration.

thanks again

So, I know they still have the story, it is still in consideration, and while I will still look at it in my submission tracker, I’ll be waiting a while to inquire again. It is a glossy mag, and I can wait to hear

However, my submission to the “Slow Magazine” is a different story. Part of that story is its dismal Duotrope stats. Of the 26 responses that have been reported, over half were assumed rejections and withdrawals, and of the assumed rejections, the average time was almost 400 days. Yowsers. If you know Duotrope, you know those are some sucky stats. Now granted, I did look at those numbers, and wonder if I should attempt it, but I figured what the hey, long poems are harder to find markets for, and who knows, it might get in there.

Yeah.

So, while years ago I did have a non-responsive email-submitted market (Literal Latte - which is also on Duotrope’s list of low-responsive markets - they didn’t respond to a follow-up email either), I hadn’t yet encountered a snail-mail submission market that not only hadn’t responded, but had such low response stats. I looked all over their website, and couldn’t find an email where I could even ask about inquiring about my submission. So, I thought about it, and sent them a snail-mail inquiry (on printed envelopes, with postage on the return envelope as well), and I said:

I am writing to inquire about the status of a long poem that I submitted to the “Slow Magazine” on February, 26th, 2007, titled “This Long Poem.” I would like to know if this piece is still being considered, or if it was lost in the mail. If I have not heard of the status by April 1, 2008, I will be withdrawing it from consideration and submitting it elsewhere. Enclosed is an SASE for your reply.

Thank you for your time in replying to this inquiry.

Now, hopefully I will have heard from them one way or the other by April, but if not I have it put it writing that I will be withdrawing it. Then I will revise it again as I haven’t looked at it in over a year, and send it back out.

Somewhere with better stats.

So, one of the markets that I am waiting to hear back from is Dark Hart Press. I submitted a piece for their anthology Terrible Beauty, Fearful Symmetry back in November, and they had over 300 responses. The information link, once the submissions were closed the end of Dec., was set up to lead to the anthology’s MySpace page, I thought this was a little odd at first, but since then they have posted a couple of updates on their blog about the submissions they received, so I actually think that it is rather neat. Checked it out today, and there was a post dated the 26th:

Hi All,

In case you haven’t heard we had about 300 stories come in for this antho….if you have not heard back yet definitively with a yes or a no, you are probably on the maybe list (and in very good company with about 100 others) I’ll be re-reading.

I will be out of town from tomorrow till Feb 3rd, so expect a response following the fourth and I apologize, but it will take me a week or two to get through all the maybes…

Sorry for the delay.

So since I haven’t gotten a rejection letter yet, that means I have been in the third she is still looking at, not the two-thirds that she has rejected. Which is a good thing, and there is still a chance. (Yes, as writers we look for every possible indication that we are this much closer to having a piece accepted.) Plus, I might hear this coming week, which would be awesome. Hopefully.

I was perusing the guidelines for Strange Horizons,an online speculative fiction magazine, and found they have two great lists of plot lines they see too often. As they say:

This is not a canonical list of bad stories or story cliches. This is a list of types of stories that we at SH have seen too often; it’s not intended to be a complete list of all types of bad stories, nor are all the items on the list necessarily bad.

I admit I read through this list a wee bit apprehensively, wondering if anything I wrote landed smack dab in the middle of one of these plots. Luckily, they did not but they are a great read and I agree with just about every single one of them. I’m not going to repost the whole lists here, but I’ll post some of the best and then you can go read the rest.

Stories We’ve Seen Too Often (non-horror)

• 1.) Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says “I want to be at point B.” Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.) (you mean life doesn’t work like that?)
• 2.) Creative person is having trouble creating.
  • Writer has writer’s block.(Stephen King’s The Dark Half is the only story I can think of where this actually was memorable - obviously I’ve forgotten the rest of them!)
  • Painter can’t seem to paint anything good.
  • Sculptor can’t seem to sculpt anything good.
  • Creative person’s work is reviled by critics who don’t understand how brilliant it is.
  • Creative person meets a muse (either one of the nine classical Muses or a more individual muse) and interacts with them, usually by keeping them captive.
• 3.) Visitor to alien planet ignores information about local rules, inadvertantly violates them, is punished.
  • New diplomat arrives on alien planet, ignores anthropologist’s attempts to explain local rules, is punished. (Bush goes to Iraq for example. Except he hasn’t been punished yet.)
• 4.) Weird things happen, but it turns out they’re not real.
  • In the end, it turns out it was all a dream.
  • In the end, it turns out it was all in virtual reality.
  • In the end, it turns out the protagonist is insane.
  • In the end, it turns out the protagonist is writing a novel and the events we’ve seen are part of the novel. (Now this would be a desperate writer.)
• 5.) An A.I. gets loose on the Net despite the computer it was on not being connected to the Net.
  • An A.I. gets loose on the Net but the author doesn’t have a clear concept of what it means for software to be “loose on the Net.” (Hint: the Net is currently a collection of individual computers, not some kind of big ubercomputer; software doesn’t currently run in the wires between computers.) (Word)
• 11.) Scientist uses himself or herself as test subject. (and turns into Dick Cheney)
• 12.) Evil unethical doctor performs medical experiments on unsuspecting patient. (and turns them into Dick Cheney)
• 15.) White protagonist is given wise and mystical advice by Holy Simple Native Folk. (arrgh)
• 28.) The narrator and/or male characters in the story are bewildered about women, believing them to conform to any of the standard stereotypes about women: that they’re mysterious, wacky, confusing, unpredictable, changeable, temptresses, etc. (It must be said (from the point of a geek) that this is often the viewpoint of a geek)

Horror Stories We’ve Seen Too Often.

• 4.) Evil creature kills lots of people.
  • In the end the creature escapes to kill again. (How else would there be a sequel?)
  • The creature is disguised as something cute. (Fluffy Bunnies!)
• 6.) Warnings are ignored, with unfortunate consequences.
  • Person is warned to Always Do something; fails to do it; thereby sets Nameless Evil free. (Gremlins Gremlins, bite after bite, what a tasty way to satisfy a gremlin Appetite!)
  • Person is warned to Never Do something; does it anyway; thereby sets Nameless Evil free. (See above…)
• 9,) Person is targeted by Evil Thing; in the end, Evil Thing kills person. (of course it does, what else would it do??)
• 11.) Initiate into religion discovers that the religion is actually killing/destroying its initiates. (Jazzercise?)
12.) Alien creature lays eggs under the skin of a human. (I knew that wasn’t a ordinary pimple!)

The lists are great fun, but at the same time they are a great resource, particularly for beginning writers, but a good refresher for those who aren’t so beginning.

And if you understand the Gremlins reference, you are probably over 30

What do you mean postally isn’t a real word? Oh, ok. Well, on the serious side, as more and more publications establish an online presence, and more and more accept electronic submissions, this method of submitting had become less of a novelty and more of a norm. Glimmer Train prefers electronic submissions, and The Kenyon Review accepts this method exclusively. And of course, almost every magazine now has a website, usually with their guidelines posted, and often with sample stories.

My preference? I much prefer to submit electronically. Of the all of the stories I submitted over the last year, three out of twenty-nine (Artful Dodge - who I am starting to despair of hearing from, Cemetery Dance and American Short Fiction) went postal (Ahhh! Stories running around with machine guns!) and all of the others, including Glimmer Train and The Kenyon Review went electronically. For one thing, it is much more convenient to submit electronically. I can do it at any time of day, or on a weekend, I don’t have to worry about it printing right, (although electronic submissions have to be formatted correctly – I’ll post on that another time), and I don’t have to pay postage. (Which does add up, as does paying for paper and ink.) Also, when a story is submitted, many markets email you to let you know that your submission was received, and some of the larger ones even let you keep track of your submissions online at their website. Responses are also somewhat quicker I think, as the editor can write the decision in an email and send it right out. And of course, there is less paper used, and fewer manuscripts to recycle or discard.

The only advantage that I can think of to postal submissions is the fact that it has a physical aspect to it. There is a certain satisfaction in the tactile sensation of holding a manuscript, and of putting it in the mail, and I admit to having a weakness for a paper rejection letter, (although not enough of a one to make me submit by mail!) The downsides to postal mail is that pretty much they don’t notify you when your manuscript was received, (which I notified by over half of my electronic submissions,) following up on long-time manuscripts is a little bit trickier, and of course the amount of paper that is wasted. And I’m not just talking about wasting paper from a financial point, but because of the environmental impact. I hate how much paper I go through as it is, even though I try to keep it to a minimum, and I have gotten to the point that a huge amount of my revision is done on the computer. I try to print on the backside of other pages I’ve printed, and for the most part I just print them out for final polishing, and any errors I missed on-screen. Adding up all of the manuscripts that are sent out and discarded equals a huge amount of paper. In the end though it comes down to what works better for each individual author. For me though, electronic submissions are the way to go.