Writer: How To Handle A Double Acceptance From Editors

The competition to get a short story, essay, or poem accepted and published in a literary journal can be intense. Some literary magazine editors receive over 10,000 submissions during a single reading period! Against these odds, a writer should be over the moon when getting an acceptance. But expert targeting sometimes results in a client getting more than one acceptance for the same piece! Writers need to tread gently when dealing with a double acceptance — you don’t want to inadvertently offend an editor. For any writer lucky enough to be in this enviable situation, here’s how to handle a double acceptance from editors.

The Best Way To Handle A Double Acceptance

After spending hours researching to determine the right markets for your work — and eliminating the many markets that aren’t — you send out your simultaneous submissions, cross your fingers, and wait. Let’s say, on an especially good day, you receive an acceptance from a literary journal. Hooray! You break into your happy dance and prepare to withdraw any still-open submissions of that work to other literary journals. But while you’re busy dancing, running in circles, and waving your acceptance letter out the window at passersby — another acceptance comes in! You just received a double acceptance! Lift your jaw off the floor, then do this:

Offer reprint rights to the second journal. Reprint rights allow the editor to publish your work as usual. The only difference is that the second journal will need to credit the journal that originally published your piece. Many journals do not have a problem with this. However, the majority of editors prefer first rights. If this is the case, proceed to step two!

Offer the second journal another work. Some literary journals do not accept reprint rights, and that’s fine! Reach out to the editor and offer a new piece that you have not submitted anywhere else. This gives the second editor first dibs on your replacement submission.

When drafting your email reply, be sure to mention you would love to have your writing appear in the journal, and you are thrilled the editor wants to publish your writing! Specify that the new piece you are sending is one you have not submitted anywhere else.