Hey everyone! A few days ago I went through my stack of submissions and I stumbled on one that I had sent more than a year ago and never heard back from. It was one of my very first stories and I had sent it to one of the top magazines, so looking it over again I was a bit angry with myself for sending what I thought was a flawed piece to such a great magazine. But I sent them an email, thinking I'd at least settle the issue and asked them about it. They wrote back saying they had received it a year ago, that the editor who read it liked it and that he had passed it on to the editor who makes the final selections who hadn't read it yet but would be encouraged to do so as soon as possible. Now, does anyone know how many submissions get to this stage? Is this really good news or is it still more likely that it'll get rejected?
Submissions follow-up
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Completely depends on the magazine. Sometimes Duotrope can give you a rough idea of how many submissions there are versus how many acceptances, but that's all self-reported data, and people are a lot more likely to report an acceptance than a rejection.
Honestly, hard as it is, I'd try to put it out of your mind and work on something new. Playing guessing games while waiting is a sure way to make yourself crazy.
Congrats on getting as far as you have, and welcome to AW!
Honestly, hard as it is, I'd try to put it out of your mind and work on something new. Playing guessing games while waiting is a sure way to make yourself crazy.
Congrats on getting as far as you have, and welcome to AW!
I don't know the numbers, but if they say the first reader liked it and passed it on, you're probably ahead of at least half the submissions they get. (that's a very careful estimate). Stop worrying about the numbers. You did something right, so go off and do that again.
It's both. It's good news to get passed on to the next stage, but at all stages there's going to be a lot of rejection.
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