Strange Horizons

Tburger · May 19, 2008

OK, so I submitted a sci-fi piece to Strange Horizons on 23 April. According to their website, if you haven't heard back from them your story is still under consideration. Does this mean that they just haven't gotten to mine yet or does it mean that I made the first cut?

Adam Israel · May 19, 2008

That's still pretty early for them. Their average reported response time is 36 days.

FWIW, my sub has been there since April 12th. I imagine we're still in the slush stage.

drachin8 · May 19, 2008

Strange Horizons tends to run around 35 days if you are going to be rejected on the first cut, and around 60 days if you make it to the second cut (stats taken from Duotrope.com and personal experience).

Keep your fingers crossed (I have a story sitting with them as well, submitted April 5)!

-Michelle

Soccer Mom · May 19, 2008

Certain editors also take longer. :crossed fingers:

Tburger · May 19, 2008

Yeah - it makes more sense that they haven't gotten to mine. I'm expecting a rejection, my story comes awfully close to one of their "we've seen too many of these" kinds of stories.

badducky · May 19, 2008

Instead of worrying about whether you made the first cut or not, just hold in your mind that after about three months, you are perfectly okay to e-mail a polite follow-up.

During that time, push it out of your head, and write some more cool stuff.

If you haven't built a spreadsheet to track this kind of stuff, you really ought to.

Gray Rose · May 19, 2008

23 Apr is very early. You can see it on Duotrope.
They are running late right now, too. Their fastest first round rejections are all around 43-45 days.
Fingers crossed on the stories!

eqb · May 19, 2008

badducky said:
Instead of worrying about whether you made the first cut or not, just hold in your mind that after about three months, you are perfectly okay to e-mail a polite follow-up.

Note: Strange Horizons explicitly says to query them at 70 days if you have not heard from them. Do not wait beyond that.

dmytryp · May 20, 2008

On Ralan's it is said that they are closed to submissions from 16 of April till 1st of July, so your submission might have been discarded.

eqb · May 20, 2008

dmytryp said:
On Ralan's it is said that they are closed to submissions from 16 of April till 1st of July, so your submission might have been discarded.

Ralan's notice is incorrect, then. The official guidelines state the close dates are from May 1st to July 1st. Anything sent before the May 1st cutoff date is still being considered, however.

badducky · May 20, 2008

Beth Bernobich said:
Note: Strange Horizons explicitly says to query them at 70 days if you have not heard from them. Do not wait beyond that.

Honestly, I never had to worry about it, because they usually reject me in about three weeks.

eqb · May 20, 2008

badducky said:
Honestly, I never had to worry about it, because they usually reject me in about three weeks.

My point was to say the OP should not wait three months, as suggested.

That's about right for most magazines, but not SH.

Shweta · May 20, 2008

In my experience from SH, two of the editors have a faster turnaround time than the third, and give more form rejections. So the time doesn't necessarily mean anything other than "you're in that slow 1/3" and form vs personal rejections don't necessarily mean anything other than "you got that editor".

The closest I ever got to a sale to them took over 90 days and two queries.
So don't do too much rejectomancy with SH

ETA: ftr I have something that's been with them since 4/7. Had to look that up

I'd start getting antsy about it... sometime in mid-June I guess.

badducky · May 20, 2008

Oh, I don't disagree with you at all, Beth... My point is more like "Relax, write something new, and don't freak out on submissions!"

I've always been impressed with Strange Horizons' submission system. Their record keeping is better than mine, that I can tell, and mine is pretty strict.

Shweta · May 20, 2008

badducky said:
I've always been impressed with Strange Horizons' submission system. Their record keeping is better than mine, that I can tell, and mine is pretty strict.

I know! I am in awe. I queried them a bit ago to say "You rejected an old old version of this story lo these many years ago, but I've totally reworked it. May I re-submit?" and the resonse was "So that would be either this story or the other that you submitted in 2003?"

I went :Jaw:

"...I guess it was 2003? I dunno!"

eqb · May 20, 2008

badducky said:
Oh, I don't disagree with you at all, Beth... My point is more like "Relax, write something new, and don't freak out on submissions!"

Oh, absolutely! The best and only thing to do is to keep writing new stuff.

But I do understand the urge to fret.

I've always been impressed with Strange Horizons' submission system. Their record keeping is better than mine, that I can tell, and mine is pretty strict.

They put a lot of thought into it, from what I've read.

I've only had one submission fall through the cracks with them. It was a rewrite request that got eaten by my ISP's wonky outgoing spam filter. So I waited the max days, queried, and found out they'd never received it!

Luckily the story sold, which made up for the extra sixty days I had to wait.

(And right after that, they added a new auto-receipt for rewrite requests.)

Ken · May 20, 2008

Shweta said:
I know! I am in awe. I queried them a bit ago to say "You rejected an old old version of this story lo these many years ago, but I've totally reworked it. May I re-submit?" and the resonse was "So that would be either this story or the other that you submitted in 2003?"

wow :-O
With a lot of publications I get the feeling that if a writer submitted the same story week after week for ten years straight they wouldn't even notice, causa how little attention they focus on subs. So SH must be a good pub.

waylander · May 20, 2008

anis said:
wow :-O
With a lot of publications I get the feeling that if a writer submitted the same story week after week for ten years straight they wouldn't even notice, causa how little attention they focus on subs. So SH must be a good pub.

SH is a very classy pub.
however they continue to reject my offerings.

Shweta · May 20, 2008

waylander said:
SH is a very classy pub.
however they continue to reject my offerings.

Mine too, but they "like my writing", so I'll crack them eventually!

eqb · May 21, 2008

An editor from Bantam once wrote me because she read my story in SH, and she wanted to know if I had any novel manuscripts. And I've heard from other writers who had the same thing happen.

Paichka · May 21, 2008

Shweta said:
Mine too, but they "like my writing", so I'll crack them eventually!

I got a veeeeery nice rejection from them on The Devil and Gracie Price. Before it was edited and...like...better. From Jed. Seemed relatively personal, in any case -- loved my voice, etc etc, look forward to seeing more of my work, pointed out the weak bits in the story. I was really grateful for the critique, honestly, because I think the story is SO much better now.

So I love Strange Horizons. I think I'm going to send my next one to them, once it's done.

Tburger · May 21, 2008

Paichka said:
I got a veeeeery nice rejection from them on The Devil and Gracie Price. Before it was edited and...like...better. From Jed. Seemed relatively personal, in any case -- loved my voice, etc etc, look forward to seeing more of my work, pointed out the weak bits in the story. I was really grateful for the critique, honestly, because I think the story is SO much better now.

So I love Strange Horizons. I think I'm going to send my next one to them, once it's done.

That's funny - I just queried SH about a sci-fi sub genre to see if they take that kind of work and Jed answered immediately. I get the impression that they take a long time to respond on manuscripts because they are good about reading them; they seem totally on the ball. I like 'em too!

Tburger · May 26, 2008

Three more days until I hit the average length of time for rejection...

eqb · May 26, 2008

Tburger said:
Three more days until I hit the average length of time for rejection...

You *are* writing more stories while you wait, right?

Tburger · May 26, 2008

I'm writing my second novel. 30K words so far!

Strange Horizons

Wahoowa

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Crypto-fascist

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The BIC-Believer

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