Will Anything Get Me Organized?
by Virginia Boyce

There are days I think I must be out of my mind for wanting to be a children's story writer. It's not the writing part of it; that part's fun. It's all the rest of the stuff that goes with getting published.

Like keeping track of where you sent what and to whom and how long has it been gone--or was it rejected and is it time to send it somewhere else.

I don't know how typical I am, but I've always said I'm much better at "piling," than I am at "filing." However, when I decided to submit some stories, I was determined to get organized.

I tried a notebook. Kept forgetting to enter dates or activities.

I tried a card file. Kept losing the cards.

I tried a portable file. Never could find it.

I gave up and, to tell you the truth, I haven't submitted anything in a while even though I've continued to write.

But wow! The other day while surfing on the internet, I came across a website that seemed too good to be true. A group calling itself "Sandbaggers," (it's very interesting how they came by that name, but I'm not going to reveal it--you'll have to log on to their website and find out for yourself!), has a submission tracking system software that is free!

"I know, I know--you get what you pay for!" But read on.

The author of this program, Kevin "KC" Cummings, works as an Audio/Visual Specialist and Tech Writer at a Vocational School in Utah while he markets his middle-reader manuscripts. Prior to beginning his career as a children's writer, he was a shareware author and newspaper columnist. One software program he developed was used internationally to help new users understand DOS.

When he developed this tracking system, KC decided to share it with other writers at no cost (freeware).

You can download the program and follow his instructions to install it on your computer. I did and, while I haven't had time to play with it a lot--just downloaded it two days ago--I have to say I'm impressed with it so far.

You can track submissions; you can set up an alert system to remind you when something is due; you can keep a list of publishers and contacts---and much more.

I sent KC an e-mail asking permission to run this information in our newsletter and, not only did I get a nice letter from KC.in return, I received some very friendly e-mail from others at the website. That's all I'm going to say about the subject except to give you his URL: http://www.sandbaggers.8m.com. It's a website worth exploring!

(Note: Sandbagger's software is for DOS and Windows systems only.)