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Submission Grinder Literary Market Scraper

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Submission Grinder Literary Market Scraper

Scrape The Submission Grinder — the leading free literary market database for fiction, poetry, and nonfiction writers. Extracts market name, genres, pay rate, response-time averages, acceptance rates, and submission guidelines for 6,000+ markets.

The Submission Grinder is the primary free alternative to Duotrope. Its community-sourced response-time and acceptance-rate statistics are not available from any other free source. Market list browsing is login-gated, but individual market detail pages (/Market/Index/<id>) are fully public — this scraper enumerates them by ID to collect the complete database.

What you get

Field Description
market_id Numeric market ID
market_name Publication or market name
market_type fiction / poetry / nonfiction
genres Genres accepted (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Literary, etc.)
pay_rate Pay per word or per piece (e.g., "14 cents/word", "$69.50/piece")
response_time_avg_days Community-reported average response time in days
acceptance_rate Acceptance percentage with average days (e.g., "1.49% - avg 33 days")
submission_url URL to the market's submission guidelines page
guidelines_summary First 500 characters of the market's self-provided description
simultaneous_submissions Whether simultaneous submissions are allowed
reprints_accepted Whether reprints are accepted (when listed)
status open / temporarily_closed / closed / disqualified
source_url Source URL on The Submission Grinder

Use cases

  • Build a searchable literary market database
  • Filter markets by genre, pay tier, or acceptance rate
  • Track response time trends across fiction magazines
  • Power submission-tracking tools for writers
  • Research SFWA-qualifying or pro-rate markets

Input

Parameter Type Default Description
startId integer 1 First market ID to crawl (inclusive)
endId integer 25000 Last market ID to crawl (inclusive)
maxItems integer — Cap the total number of records scraped

Markets with IDs outside the active range return empty pages and are silently skipped. To scrape the full database, use startId: 1, endId: 25000, and omit maxItems.

Example output

{
  "market_id": 11,
  "market_name": "Clarkesworld Magazine",
  "market_type": "fiction",
  "genres": ["Fantasy", "Science Fiction"],
  "pay_rate": "14 cents/word",
  "response_time_avg_days": 3.2,
  "acceptance_rate": "1.49% - avg 33 days",
  "submission_url": "http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/submissions/",
  "guidelines_summary": "Note: after receiving a rejection, wait seven days before submitting again. Clarkesworld Magazine is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine...",
  "simultaneous_submissions": false,
  "reprints_accepted": null,
  "status": "open",
  "source_url": "https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/Market/Index/11"
}

Pricing

Charged per market record scraped. Uses the standard pay-per-event model — you only pay for data you receive.

Notes

  • Market IDs are sequential integers. Some IDs in the range may be unused or point to disqualified markets — these emit a minimal record with status: "disqualified" or are skipped entirely if the page has no market data.
  • Response statistics are community-reported and reflect the aggregate of all user-logged submissions over the past 12 months.
  • The scraper respects the site's public/private boundary: only the public Market/Index/<id> pages are crawled. Browse, search, and account pages are never accessed.
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