Record Keeping — It’s A Pro Thing 28 August 2009
Posted by Camille Gooderham Campbell in Advice For Writers.trackback
I am reminded once again of how important it is for writers to keep clear and precise records of their submissions, including pertinent details such as the date submitted and the title of the piece. It’s part of being a professional, of being serious about your work. A nice spreadsheet does the job quite well.
Writers, you do not want to be querying editors with phrases such as “I think I know which ones I might have submitted to you” and “this would go back 3-4 weeks ago”.
Accurate record-keeping also prevents inadvertent resubmissions of pieces that have already been rejected, simultaneous submissions where they’re not welcome, and querying before a publication’s specified timeframe has elapsed.
You may also want to back your records up. You’d be surprised at the number of queries we get where a dead computer is blamed for the author’s lack of specific information about his or her own submissions.
Copy. Edit. Proof. 
I find that Duotrope’s Digest (http://www.duotrope.com) is great to keep records of submissions. You know exactly when you submitted each piece, and to which publications. It also tells you the average time for that market to respond, and the minimum time to wait before you query. You can also have a lot of fun with statistics.