SubTracker

My gift back to the writing community:
a simple database for tracking submissions to magazines, publishers, contests, etc.

SubTracker is built in LibreOffice. It also works in other OpenOffice implementations. To use it you will need to download a free, open-source copy of any OpenOffice suite, which you can do at the links above.

Tables are where your data is stored and can be used for importing data or manually entering it. The database contains three main tables:

  • Places: for listing magazines, book publishers, contests, etc.
  • Submissions: for cross-referencing Places & Titles submitted by date, with response, date and comment
  • Titles: for listing information about each title Each Place and Title record has a unique ID that is cross-referenced with each Submission.

Required Fields:

  • Places: Type and SubmissionMethod (TypeID and SubMethodID)
    • Type = magazine, book publisher, contest, etc.
    • SubMethod = mail, email, online, Submittable, etc.
  • Titles: Mode, Kind, Genre, Author (ModeID, KindID, GenreID, AuthorID)
    • Mode = available, published, retired
    • Kind = poem, story, book, chapbook, translation, etc.
    • Genre = poetry, fiction, CNF, drama, article, etc.

The options for these required fields can be managed in the “Manage xlist Values” form and are stored in the tables named xlistTypes_Places, etc. Other optional lists include Collections for books, chapbooks, etc., and Authors in case you work with other authors as a translator or an editor of a collection. The table name lists the name of the list and the table where it is used.

Forms are where you will usually enter data because they are more user-friendly, and there are dropdown lists for selecting required fields like TypeID or KindID. The dropdown list shows the name of the list options, but enters the corresponding ID (which is stored as an integer) in the table.

Available Forms:

  • FindSubmission: allows editing of submissions and searching by title, place, and dates
  • NewSubmission: allows entry of new submissions only
  • Places: allows entry of Place information and displays submissions by each place
  • Titles: allows entry of Title information and displays submissions by each title

In Places and Titles forms, you may also edit and add new submissions to the Submissions table. Be careful not to change titles, places, or date sent (DateS) fields for existing submissions unless you need to correct that information.

Queries are where you can see the status of your submissions.

Available Queries:

  • Submissions_Accepted – lists all submissions “Accepted”
  • Submissions_In – lists “Available” titles not currently “Out” in any submission
  • Submissions_Out – lists all submissions that are “Out”
  • viewPlaces_by_Type-SubMethod – lists places sorted by type and submission method, omitting inactive places
  • viewTitles_by_Collection – lists titles sorted by Collection, omitting titles not in a collection
  • viewTitles_by_Mode-Kind-Genre – lists titles sorted by Mode, Kind, and then Genre

Getting Started:

Note from the project creator:

If you find SubTracker useful, please consider making a donation to LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or whichever database program you use. Without LibreOffice, this project would have been impossible. I would also like to thank The Frugal Computer Guy and the OpenOffice Forum for providing tutorials and answers that helped me learn enough about Base to make this project functional

If you would like to thank me for my part in setting up and distributing SubTracker, feel free to leave a comment, buy one of my books, or buy a book from your local bookstore or subscribe to a magazine like Poetry South or Ponder Review, which are both listed in the Places table.

I am a poet, translator, editor, and Director of Creative Writing at Mississippi University for Women, where we offer a low-residency MFA program and an undergraduate concentration in Creative Writing. This project is the latest adaptation of a submission tracking project I first created in Hypercard and then in Supercard, using the Hypertalk and Supertalk scripting languages. Though my original scripts had to be abandoned with the move to a database, the overall concept of records for Titles and Places remains about the same, as does the functionality of querying submissions by Title, Place and Submission status or date.

While I welcome comments and suggestions, please recognize that every writer’s submission process is idiosyncratic, and what works for me may not make as much sense for you. I provide this project free of charge and cannot offer support. I encourage you to adapt this database to meet your needs, but please be aware that I also can’t support those changes and they may break certain features or make any updates to SubTracker harder for you to implement.

You are welcome to pass SubTracker on to others as long as you include this ReadMe file and do not charge for it.

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