For the writer waiting on a reply.
Free, private tools and clear guides for querying agents and submitting to literary magazines. No account. No newsletter. Your data stays in your browser.
Tools
Submission Tracker
Log every query and submission. See response rates and how long agents actually take. Data saved locally.
Word Counter
Word, character, paragraph, and sentence counts. Page and reading estimates. Paste text, see results.
Reading Time Estimator
Estimate silent and read-aloud time for any piece. Useful for readings, podcasts, and pacing.
Shunn Format Checker
Quick checklist and generator for the standard manuscript format most magazines expect.
Query Letter Builder
Fill in the blanks. Get a clean, correctly structured query letter you can paste into an email.
Guides
Querying Agents
Query letters, loglines, bios, word counts, researching agents, rejection, and the offer of representation.
Craft
First pages, opening lines, point of view, dialogue, show vs. tell, and a sane revision process.
Publishing Business
Trad vs. self-pub, rights and contracts, advances, pen names, author platform, and taxes.
Magazine Submissions
Cover letters, simultaneous submissions, response times, and how to withdraw politely.
Start here
- How to write a query letter — the structure agents expect, with a worked example.
- Novel word count by genre — the ranges agents use as a first filter.
- How to format a novel manuscript — and how to paste sample pages into an email.
- What to do when an agent offers representation — questions to ask and how to nudge other agents.
- Publishing scams and red flags — read this before you pay anyone anything.
Why this site exists
Most advice for writers sending work out is paywalled, buried under newsletters, or written to sell a course. Slushpile is the opposite: a small, static site you can read without logging in, and tools that run entirely in your browser. There is no database on our end because there is no server doing anything interesting.
If you want to know how the tracker stores your data or what we collect, the answer is in the privacy page — short version: what you type into the tools stays in your browser's localStorage and is never uploaded; the site itself uses Google Analytics to count page views.