Comparison
DraftAndQuery vs QueryTracker
QueryTracker is built around finding US literary agents and recording what you sent them, while DraftAndQuery is built around the manuscript and the dates it is waiting on.
Comparison
DraftAndQuery vs Duotrope: short work markets or a book pipeline
Duotrope is a market listing and tracking service built around periodicals and the writers who feed them, while DraftAndQuery is a pipeline for book length manuscripts moving through agents and presses.
The short answer
These two rarely compete for the same writer, and picking by feature list will mislead you. If your working unit is a story, an essay or a poem going out to literary journals, market discovery is the bottleneck and Duotrope is aimed squarely at it. If your working unit is a novel or a memoir with a query letter, a synopsis and sample chapters attached, discovery is a small part of the job and version control plus the response clock is most of it. Writers who do both often keep one on each side.
DraftAndQuery and Duotrope side by side
| What you are deciding | DraftAndQuery | Duotrope |
|---|---|---|
| Working unit | A book length manuscript with its packet and its versions | A short piece sent out to periodicals |
| Where submissions go | Agents, small presses, contests, anthologies and journals | Oriented to the literary magazine and periodical market |
| Discovery of markets | You bring the list you researched and hold the guidelines with it | Market listings are the core of the service |
| Versions | Each submission carries the numbered draft that went out | Assumes the piece is finished when it is sent |
| Simultaneous submissions | One view of who holds what, with withdrawals logged against the title | Built around the calendar the periodical market runs on |
| Follow ups | A dated queue grouped by agent or press | Approach centers on the market record rather than a nudge list |
| Best fit | Novelists, memoirists and small press writers running book projects | Writers whose main output is short work for journals |
On the right is the kind of tool Duotrope is and the job it is shaped around, rather than a list of what it includes at any given price. Any product moves on, so confirm the live details on their own pages first. DraftAndQuery is published by MLJ, SASU and this page is written by Jimenez Julien.
Choose DraftAndQuery when
- When the thing you are placing is a novel, the packet matters more than the market list and the packet is what has to be tracked.
- If a small press has your manuscript and an agent has the same book, you need one view of who holds which version.
- When you are sending sample chapters cut to different lengths for different guidelines, only a version stamp keeps that straight.
- If you also run submissions for another author, separate pipelines under one login stop the two lists blending.
Choose Duotrope when
- If most of your submissions are stories, essays or poems going to journals, a periodical market service is built for exactly that.
- If finding open reading periods is the part that eats your evenings, a listings service earns its place immediately.
- If your books are already placed and short work is your active output, tracking on the periodical side is the simpler home.
Short work and book work run on different clocks
A story goes out to six journals at once, gets accepted somewhere, and you withdraw it from the other five in an afternoon. The whole arc can close inside a season. A novel goes to an agent who states a twelve week window, or to a small press with an open reading period twice a year, and the arc runs for eighteen months with revisions folded into the middle of it.
That difference decides what a tracker has to be good at. Short work rewards breadth of markets and fast withdrawal. Book work rewards a memory for which version went where, what materials each recipient asked for, and when a follow up crosses from patient into overdue.
Why the version stamp matters more for a book
Nobody revises a poem between the third and fourth journal and then forgets which text is where. It happens constantly with novels. You cut the prologue after four passes, tighten the first fifty pages after a partial request, and six months later an agent comes back with notes on a chapter you no longer have in that form.
DraftAndQuery numbers each draft and attaches the number to the submission, so the reply that arrives in month nine can be read against the pages the agent actually has. When she asks for an updated manuscript, you know precisely what changed since she got it, and you can say so in one clean sentence.
Writers who need both sides
Plenty of working writers keep short work in circulation while a novel is out with agents. The two efforts pull on the same hours but almost nothing else. Trying to force both into one system usually means the book submissions get the loose treatment, because they are fewer and slower and feel less urgent week to week.
The practical answer is to let each side keep its own record and be honest about which one carries risk. A story that sits unreported for a month is untidy. A full request that sits four months past the stated window without a follow up is a missed opportunity, and that is the one worth putting a dated queue behind.
Questions people ask before they choose
Can I track short story submissions in DraftAndQuery?
Yes, journals and anthologies are supported as recipients and each piece can carry its own pipeline. It is not a market listing service though, so you bring the journal list yourself. Writers with heavy short work output often keep that side elsewhere and use DraftAndQuery for book projects.
How does it handle simultaneous submissions and withdrawals?
Every open submission on a title shows in one view, so you can see who is holding it right now. When an offer comes in, you mark the others withdrawn and the record keeps the date and the reason. That history is useful the next time you approach the same press.
Does it work for a small press tracking its own slush pile?
The Small Press tier is built for a team reading incoming manuscripts and moving them through stages with response deadlines attached. It works from the receiving side as well as the sending side. Presses running open reading periods use it to keep decision dates from slipping.
Other comparisons on draftandquery.com
Comparison
DraftAndQuery vs Airtable
Airtable hands you a flexible database and expects you to design the submission system, while DraftAndQuery hands you the system already shaped around manuscripts, response windows and follow ups.
Put the two against your own target list
A comparison table only takes you so far. Bring twenty names from the list you are querying now, the drafts already in circulation and the stated windows you were quoted, and we will set them up live so you can watch the follow up queue fill in. If the other tool turns out to be the better home for this round, that will be just as clear.