for those of you thinking about submitting to zoetrope, i just got a message from one of their editors and he told them that as of now, the response time is estimated to be 10 months. usually it's supposed to be 6. personally, i'm very glad i didn't bother to submit to them.
zoetrope all-story, response time
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Argh! It leaves one with the frustrating dilemma: what does a writer do when a place sits on your piece for 10 months and doesn't accept simultaneous submissions? Do you just go on working on your other pieces? Do you submit to other places anyway, cause in your heart of hearts you know that your chances with Zoetrope -no matter how excellent your piece- is next to nil?
Any suggestions?
I submitted to Playboy a few months ago and got a rejection in less than two weeks. At first I was flattered, but then someone told me that unless you have an agent and have esteemed credentials, they don't even bother reading blind submissions...
I think I'm just ranting. Anyone care to join me?
Any suggestions?
I submitted to Playboy a few months ago and got a rejection in less than two weeks. At first I was flattered, but then someone told me that unless you have an agent and have esteemed credentials, they don't even bother reading blind submissions...
I think I'm just ranting. Anyone care to join me?
Mostly, I feel relieved when a piece sits in a pile like that, because it means I don't have to worry about it for five, six, ten months, and I can go back to writing other things.... 
Time
Why would you think your chances at Zoetrope are next to nil? If you write what they want, they'll buy it. And, no, you don't submit to other places. You follow the rules, or you don't submit in the first place.
What you should be doing is working on other fiction, and not worrying about response time. If you're writing half as much as you should be, you won't even notice response time.
As for Playboy, they do read stories. The competition at Playboy is brutal, and you're going up against the best writers in the world, so you have to be very, very good to get in, but they do read the stories. Or at least enough of the story to know whether they want it.
laroche said:
Why would you think your chances at Zoetrope are next to nil? If you write what they want, they'll buy it. And, no, you don't submit to other places. You follow the rules, or you don't submit in the first place.
What you should be doing is working on other fiction, and not worrying about response time. If you're writing half as much as you should be, you won't even notice response time.
As for Playboy, they do read stories. The competition at Playboy is brutal, and you're going up against the best writers in the world, so you have to be very, very good to get in, but they do read the stories. Or at least enough of the story to know whether they want it.
don't be too discouraged, laroche. if you don't want to wait that long, you can always withdraw your submission. i found several markets that respond much sooner and are just as reputable. personally, i think that one year movie option is sort of a rip off anyway. if your short story ever becomes a novel and that novel becomes a best seller, you'd have a lot more leverage in negotiating the rights and profit you make from the movie. with the option, they just give you a token amount and do whatever they want with your story if they decide to turn it into a movie.
laroche said:
blackpen said:
No, that's not how it works. An option has nothing to do with how much you're paid for movie rights, or with how much control you have.
An option means only that you can't sell movie rights to anyone else for X amount of time. In this case, one year.
If you story becomes a novel, it will only be because you turn it into one, and if it becomes a bestseller, dream on, you haven't lost a single thing where movie rights are concerned. Not to mention the fact that the one year option will be up long, long, long before your story is a novel or becomes a bestseller. But that's like playing a vacation for right after you win the lottery.
That one year movie option is not only a great deal, it's one you aren't going to find anywhere else in the short fiction world if you live to be a hundred.
James and Blackpen,
Thanks for the advice. I'm slowly getting out of the impatient phase of post-adolescent development, a little belatedly (I'm 34), but better late than never. I'm still trying to get my short stories published and ultimately I don't have a PLAN, and that, I think, is the source of my frustration.
Currently, I'm exploring lit mag/university writing contests as a means to break in, as they take multi-subs and right now I think I can afford to spend $10 a pop. Previously, I tried small lit mags and the big guns, but with little patience and too much insecurity.
So, any suggestions as to how one can break in to being published??
Thanks for the advice. I'm slowly getting out of the impatient phase of post-adolescent development, a little belatedly (I'm 34), but better late than never. I'm still trying to get my short stories published and ultimately I don't have a PLAN, and that, I think, is the source of my frustration.
Currently, I'm exploring lit mag/university writing contests as a means to break in, as they take multi-subs and right now I think I can afford to spend $10 a pop. Previously, I tried small lit mags and the big guns, but with little patience and too much insecurity.
So, any suggestions as to how one can break in to being published??
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laroche said:
I have a list of outlets in an Excel spreadsheet. One of the columns is "Accepts Simult?". When I find an outlet I add it to the list, and enter either Y or N into that column. I then sort all the items in the list using the 'Accepts Simult?' column as my key column. I sort it descending, and then a secondary sort by paid circulation. So all the outlets that accept simults come to the top of the list, and all the 'n' don't accept simultaneous submissions get pushed to the bottom of the list. I work the 'y' outlets first, then once they're exhausted, as a last resort, I start submitting to the 'n' outlets.
My personal philosophy is simple: I don't care how prestigious a particular outlet is, or how well they pay, they should be ashamed of themselves for demanding that a writer be willing to let them hang up a piece for ten months.
I am not as concerned about how long each piece is sitting in the office of a good magazine. The way I figure, if I get enough pieces written, there will be a "perfect" submissions dance occurring in which pieces wheel in and out and make me feel like something is always happening, so I can afford to wait on one story. In the meantime, I am writing even more stories and submitting them to other editors I think might enjoy them. So far, the concept is working. In the meantime, I patiently await results that are most likely "No" knowing that it is okay. The content of my stories isn't going to date them, so they can survive the wait. And so can I.
I get more antsy when editors haven't responded in average duotrope reported times (of course, an average is just what it says--an average--not a prediction of exact response time)(but I still get antsy).
-Michelle
I get more antsy when editors haven't responded in average duotrope reported times (of course, an average is just what it says--an average--not a prediction of exact response time)(but I still get antsy).
-Michelle
laroche, i've been reading the writer's digest and it seems like if you want to get novels published, it's nice to have some writing credits. a lot of people suggest that you start out with short stories, which are quicker and easier than novels. however, if you want to get short stories published, it's nice to have some awards on your resume, so you may want to start out with contests for amatuer writers. however, a lot of contests are rip offs or just have no prestige so i'd be careful about which one you enter. there's a sci fi/fantasy contest called the next future writer, or something like that, apparently it's very prestigious- and free to enter. good luck!
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drachin8 said:I am not as concerned about how long each piece is sitting in the office of a good magazine. The way I figure, if I get enough pieces written, there will be a "perfect" submissions dance occurring in which pieces wheel in and out and make me feel like something is always happening, so I can afford to wait on one story. In the meantime, I am writing even more stories and submitting them to other editors I think might enjoy them. So far, the concept is working.
-Michelle
Exactly!
Here's a useful link: http://www.critters.org/users/critters/blackholes/sightdata.html
Click on an individual mag or book publisher to see how response times have varied over the past few years.
Click on an individual mag or book publisher to see how response times have varied over the past few years.
blackpen said:
I dont know who told you that short stories are easier than novels. In some ways short stories are much harder. THey focus on a single event, they are very limited in word length and timing is all. In a novel, you can almost be forgiven some meandering as long as the story keeps moving forward, but in a short story each word has to be perfect.
In a novel, you can have the whole book to fully develop your character. In a short story you get a few pages. And that character has to be just as "real", just as fully realized as a novel character.
Writing short stories, good short stories, is a very different art than writing novels. Some people excell at one and not the other, and a few excell at both. Don't be so quick to dismiss short story writing as easy. or quicker. Some stories can take months to write, while you work out the theme, and the best word usage, while you try to come up with just the exact word to describe something.
Short stories...
are a very different kiddle of fish from novels.
The specific skills involved are not the same, although the general writing skills are.
Yes, it does help to get you off the slush pile if you have publishing credits, but successful short stories are written by people who love short stories.
are a very different kiddle of fish from novels.
The specific skills involved are not the same, although the general writing skills are.
Yes, it does help to get you off the slush pile if you have publishing credits, but successful short stories are written by people who love short stories.
Anyway, having a list of short story credits doesn't help THAT much, I'm afraid. THe novel still has to stand on its own, and so does your query letter. The short story publication credits just show that you're capable of writing something that someone is (drunk enough) willing to buy.
In some cases (yo) it means you're good at writing short stories, but crapper when it comes to novel length works.
In some cases (yo) it means you're good at writing short stories, but crapper when it comes to novel length works.
Jamesaritchie said:
The proof of this being, of course, the converse: If they buy it, you have written what they want.
I sooooo love circular reasoning.
caw
i'm not saying that it's easier to write short stories, i'm inferring from the advice in writer's market that it's faster to get a short story published than it is for a novel and that some credits are generally better than none. everyone says that if you write a great novel it'll get published but that isn't necessarily true. you also have to have some marketability and show some promise.
Fret not!
It's just that this is the short fiction board and we are a little tender about our lower ranking amongst the general public and certain novelists as short story writers.
We get tired of people thinking that short = quick and easy.
I know I do as much research for a historical short story as I did for my historical novel.
It's just that this is the short fiction board and we are a little tender about our lower ranking amongst the general public and certain novelists as short story writers.
We get tired of people thinking that short = quick and easy.
I know I do as much research for a historical short story as I did for my historical novel.
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I've had one with them about that long also, and I was beginning to wonder if they would respond at all.
Thanks for the thread.
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