It would be nice if we could always believe what people told us.

For example, if a market says, “We usually respond to submissions within 2–4 weeks,” it would be lovely to assume that yes, you’ll see an envelope in your mailbox within that amount of time. But just look at a site like “Submitting to the Black Hole,” which tracks actual response times for a ton of markets, as reported by actual writers who sent actual manuscripts. You’ll see where the promises match up to reality, and where they don’t.

Note: “Black Hole” applies specifically to the markets for science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing.

Tonight, we’re adding a similar feature to the Writer’s Database site. In the right-hand column of any market detail page, you’ll see the average response time for all the submissions you’ve sent to a given market (and received back). For example: If you’ve sent 3 submissions to a magazine, and the replies have arrived within 3 weeks, 4 weeks, and 5 weeks respectively, you’ll see a little box that says: “Avg. response time: 28 days.”

Better still, if you have shared that market listing and other users have subscribed to it, you’ll also see the average response time for all WritersDB users who have submitted to that market. (Note: This only works if multiple users are subscribed to the same listing—not if they have cloned it to their own accounts.) So if your own responses from the Atomic Pigeon Review are averaging 90+ days, but the average response time for all 25 subscribers to the listing is only 21 days, then maybe it’s just your submissions that are confounding the editor.

(Yes, I’ve noticed that there aren’t yet any market listings with 25 writers subscribed. This is one feature that will only become more valuable as we grow toward a critical mass of active users. So if you have writer friends who aren’t tracking their submissions, let them know about the site!)