How often should you submit?

First off, I've posted pictures from the SAREX yesterday on my web site. They'll eventually be moved to my squadron's page once I get FTP access. Enjoy!

I have a bit of a dilemma at the moment. How often should one submit articles to a magazine? I submitted the gaming article I wrote just two weeks ago. The writers' guidelines say they have about a three-week turn around, although that was written some time ago. I'd be surprised if it were actually that fast. As I've mentioned before, I'd like to eventually get a column in this particular magazine. One of the things the editor would have to know is whether or not I can reliably produce a good article every two weeks. That argument would lend itself to the opinion that I should submit an article every two weeks, even if I haven't heard back from the editor about the previous article(s). The other side of that coin is that this is very close to multiple submissions (submitting several articles to a magazine at once), which is generally considered by most writers and editors to be a Not Good Thing. Basically, you're saying to the editor, "Feel free to buy one or the other!" because the editor will almost never be able to buy both. You're essentially costing yourself a sale on one of the articles. Also, there is some question as to whether someone can write good quality articles in such a rapid fire manner (I believe I can, but the perception is still there and must be overcome).

Hence my quandry. I want to show the editor that I can consistently produce good writing, but I don't want to annoy him while trying to do so. Overall, I think that the editor is going to want to buy good articles, in spite of any annoyances over lots of submissions with my name on them. I think one every other is not too bad, but then again, I'm not the one who has to read a million submissions every week. The end result is that 'll have to make sure my articles are truly a cut above the norm to get past that annoyance. If I can pull that off, I think that will be the better strategy for the long term. We shall see...