Good idea, Paula. Usually, my article proposals are time-sensitive, but I have some very specific targets, so the slant determines who gets what idea. Frankly, I don't tell anyone it's simultaneous. If I've worked with them before, they get first dibs. If not, I'm not taking a chance that they'll act according to an older established practice.

If it's something more specific – like a celebrity profile tied to a specific date or cause – I'll just tell them it's a simultaneous submission. On occasion, when the story is right, knowing their competitors may have received the same pitch has been known to shake editors up enough to reply quickly – and with a better offer. But it has to be an amazing story for that to happen.

It speaks directly to professionalism. Either you're professional enough to follow your own rules or you're not, in which case I may reconsider working with you. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt once or twice, but there's a limit to how much you can attribute to spam or busy-ness or vacations, etc.

Non-response to emails is one of my pet-hates. I mean just how busy can people be? A simple 'Really busy right now, will get back to ASAP' would take a second to write but would go down so well.

In my experience journalists can be pretty arrogant individuals: I'm sure ignoring emails makes them feel even more powerful than they already imagine themselves to be.

Keep on badgering!

I would think it's more of a way for them to fill their website with free content. Typically magazines are just asking for reader feedback – not uncommon.

I would do this – since you know the magazine, I would send the editors a well-crafted idea to their email address. The minute you post that on their site, it's their property and they owe you nothing. It's much more professional to send it to them in proposal form rather than hope for them to notice it on their website.

Thanks for asking! Did that help at all?

I get why you don't wait for magazines. Frankly, I don't care what their "policy" says – I shop it to several sources. In truth, if you know what you're doing, that query should be different to almost every other magazine you approach. I never submit to one place at a time if I think the idea is timely. Given that most editors don't follow their own protocol, I don't feel badly about it at all. Time is MY money, too.

But there are times, like with fiction writing, where the crossover is common. A friend of mine just had her fiction piece accepted – by two magazines at the same time. Delicious dilemma! She took the first offer after waiting nearly 3 months to hear about the original query. Naturally, they wrote the same week and wanted to publish. I told her to send them regrets and an offer for other pieces. Now she's got two pieces running in two different magazines. That's a great outcome!