These are the two Duotrope alternatives I introduced a few weeks ago. That post is here if you’d like to familiarize yourself with it.
Sadly, we’ve lost Submitomancy before its launch. Its Indiegogo campaign was unsuccessful, meaning they did not receive the funding they needed to get off the ground.
Though Submitomancy frequently posted aesthetically pleasing screenshots of the possible site on both their Indiegogo page and their facebook page, I’m afraid not having a working model to sample hurt them. When Duotrope closed to those who could not or were unwilling to pay their subscription fees, those who fled were ripe for the picking. I believe the Submissions Grinder ran away with the bunch, since it launched in about a week after Duotrope’s pay model went into full effect. Because there was already a free, functional alternative, and there was no working model of Submitomancy to test, I believe most people did not see a clear reason to donate to the cause. Why pay for something that looks pretty but may not work at all?
Perhaps if its creators ever decided to take another shot, they might put up a basic, functional version to heighten their appeal to donators.
The Grinder, on the other hand, is in full swing. It’s highly functional as a sub tracker and market database, and they’re adding new features all the time. I have to say, I’ve never seen a nonprofit venue work so hard to accommodate every user. If you’d like to see a function, just suggest it. If it makes practical sense, it will go on a to-do list. I really hope they can keep their customer service up, as it’s run by just two individuals (that I’m aware of) in their spare time. Their mission statement declares that their users will never have to pay a mandatory fee for an account–but man are they earning their donations.
Two things really excite me about this site. First, the one thing I’ve longed for in a sub tracker are graphs. Bar graphs, line graphs, stem and leaf charts–anything to make the data more accessible to the visually-oriented. I always meant to suggest it to Duotrope, but I could never find a suggestion box on their site (if they had one, it wasn’t very obvious). Right now the Grinder has histograms that display response times on each individual market page.
The second thing I’m excited about is a feature not yet available. In addition to submissions tracking, they also want to add sales tracking–which is brilliant. Only tracking submissions means that tracking ends with either an acceptance or a rejection. But that’s not helpful to those who actually sell their stories. There’s a world of things to keep track of afterwards: edits, publication dates, payment, rights reversion, etc. To the professional, having a system to track these things accurately and consistently is priceless.
So, if you do use the Grinder, I hope you’ll seriously consider donating. They are working hard to make writers happy, and they know that not everyone can afford a subscription. Here’s their link again, if you haven’t tried the site yet: The Submissions Grinder.
~Marina
A Little Lost 
Deborah Walker is a writer, poet, all-around neat person and a friend of mine. She’s also a submissions beast. I consider myself to be pretty good about getting submissions out there. I’ve been in two submissions challenges with her and she has literally wiped the floor with me. When I was imagining the perfect submissions tool, of course I thought about how other people would use it. And then I thought about how people might break it. And then I thought about Deborah. That’s not really fair. But I did specifically consider heavy usage of the site and how that would affect the running costs. That’s why all the resource-hungry functions (for example, the way I frantically refresh keep up-to-date with recent market responses) are all part of the pay-for service. That keeps the site safe from becoming a victim of its own success as the more people who want options means the more people who are helping to cover the running costs.