Pimping Your Words Out: WordHustler.com

As I was about to submit some poems to a literary magazine today via online submission manager, I saw a third option at the bottom of the page: WordHustler.com. Intrigued, I clicked on the shiny button and signed up. While certain aspects of WordHustler had me tingling in anticipation--smooth submission process, automatic cover letter and project pdf formatting, and submission history organization--the less-than-helpful search engine and the service fee left me rather cold.

The search engine--meant to help you find contests, agents, publications, publishers, and fellowships--provides a seemingly straightforward selection process. You choose a submission type, then a genre and then you click on as many boxes of "market" types (i.e. their predominant subject/reader group) that might fit with your writing. I tried this with publications: poetry, selecting only literary magazines and a few other similar types in an attempt to narrow my search. I still ended up with 392 potential "markets" (WordHustler calls each publication/contest/etc. a "market"). 

Now, perhaps there really are 392 "markets" for my work, however, how am I supposed to whittle that down to a manageable (and affordable) number? Granted there is a small paragraph description and a star rating (which I really don't see the purpose of--who is rating them and on what?) for each "market," but that's still 392 paragraphs to decipher. This may be more helpful if you have a very specific audience/subject: religion, scuba-diving, cowgirls. 

In addition, WordHustler charges for each submission. Signing up is free, but using the service will cost you. I can see using this in lieu of snail mail for those magazines and contests that require an envelope/stamp effort, but there is no point in paying to submit to a review when they already have a free online submission manager...unless you really need someone to organize your submission history for you.

All that being said, I do appreciate the effort on the part of WordHustler's creators. The submission process is a long and grueling one, and dearly in need of a technological makeover. As someone who really hates paper cuts, I will probably look to them as my snail mail alternative in the future.