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[eZine] Tor.com

James D. Macdonald

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Tor.com: A rare, hard-to-find actual “market report.” No, really.
Posted by Patrick at 02:58 PM * 7 comments

[Cross-posted from Tor.com.]

Tor.com has been a venue for original SF and fantasy since 2008, but we’ve never formalized our process for submissions. Indeed, for a long time, we were totally winging it. I was buying and editing almost all of our original prose fiction, but I resisted giving excessively specific information to various “market report” organs, because I was reluctant to deal with the explosion of submissions that would be generated thereby.

But that barn door has sailed. (As we professional “wordsmiths” say. Don’t try this at home.) Tor.com gets more submissions all the time, and I’ve gotten farther and farther behind at dealing with them. Some people have been awaiting responses for over six months—a few, for embarrassingly more than six months. Clearly something must be done. If only…if only I had an editorial colleague at Tor.com so smart, energetic, and discerning that just this year she’s become the youngest editor ever honored with a Hugo nomination. Oh, wait.

Going forward, then, Tor.com’s original fiction will henceforth be co-edited by me and Liz Gorinsky. Submissions should henceforth be sent via email, not to my personal or work email addresses, but to the newly-created [email protected]. (If you already sent a submission to one of my addresses, please don’t resubmit. We can cope.) Tor.com welcomes original short SF and fantasy, broadly defined. We’re particularly interested in stories under 12,000 words, although we’ve made exceptions in the past and will do so again. We pay 25 cents a word for the first 5,000 words, 15 cents a word for the next 5,000, and 10 cents a word after that. Although we try to employ common sense in dealing with edge cases, “original” means original—not previously published. Contrary to some previous reports, we do not want you to query first; to submit to Tor.com, just send us your story. Stories should use standard manuscript format and be emailed as Word, RTF, or plain-text attachments. Stories sent inline in the body of an email will be ignored. Questions? Send them to [email protected].
 

msfowle

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Tor.com

I'm sure most of us know of Tor-Forge (http://us.macmillan.com/torforge.aspx) but who here knows anything about Tor.com http://www.tor.com/ ???

The website looks legit, claiming to be affiliated with Tor-Forge but only publishes e-books. It's just that two things seem a bit sketchy to me: (1) the email to submit your work is a gmail address, and (2) they claim to pay 25cents/word. Not that I would complain about 25cents/word, but most short story magazines only pay 5cents/word; so it leaves me wondering.

Any thoughts? Anyone with experience with them?

Thanks in advance! :)

EDIT: Thanks for redirecting my thread. Guess I should've done some more searching. My bad. :D
 
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charmingbillie

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tor.com is indeed legitimate and they do pay .25/word for short stories. More specifically, they pay .25/word up to 5,000 words, .15/word for the second 5,000, and .10 for anything over that. They also purchase audio rights for that. I think they only buy a couple of original stories a month, but the pay is exceptional.

If you look at the 'About Us' link you'll see that many of the tor.com staffers are also Tor Books staffers, though the purpose of the tor.com site, as I understand it, is to be a place to discuss science fiction and fantasy not necessarily just books from Tor.

Hope that helps!
 

eqb

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I sold a story to Tor.com in April. Payment was prompt, the editing outstanding, and the contract writer-friendly. My story should appear in mid-September.
 

elae

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So the 25c/word pay seems like public knowledge, but does anyone know what they pay per comic page? They've run a few great ones and I'm curious.
 

Monomaniac

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Tor.com (Short Fiction)

I submitted a short story to them and didn't realize how slow they would be to respond. From what I'm reading it takes like six months to a year. It is unfortunate that they take so long because it's going to compel writers to send their material to them last, leaving them with all the rejected stories.

Anyone submit to them recently? How long did it take?
 

Saskatoonistan

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I submitted a short story to them and didn't realize how slow they would be to respond. From what I'm reading it takes like six months to a year. It is unfortunate that they take so long because it's going to compel writers to send their material to them last, leaving them with all the rejected stories.

Anyone submit to them recently? How long did it take?


I submitted in February 2009, didn't hear back until this past June.
 

defyalllogic

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i totally agree. i use duptrope.com and i definitely factor in wait time when i choose markets to submit to. I would prefer less pay then to wait that long.
 

Monomaniac

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I would prefer less pay then to wait that long.


Agreed. The 25 cents a word they pay isn't going to give me the patience to wait that long. I feel like the short story market is about building a name for yourself, not making a few hundred bucks. And I am very eager to get my name out there.
 

eqb

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The response times should improve now that Liz Gorinsky has joined the team as Patrick's co-editor. (See his post here on the subject.)

ETA: My response time was around a week, but the story was semi-requested.
 
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Monkey

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I submitted in May, which is after Ms. Gorinsky joined the team. I'll try to remember to post again when I hear from them.
 

waylander

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Agreed. The 25 cents a word they pay isn't going to give me the patience to wait that long. I feel like the short story market is about building a name for yourself, not making a few hundred bucks. And I am very eager to get my name out there.

Appearing in a market like Tor.com will do a load more for your name than appearing in anything other than the other top tier markets such as Asimov's and F+SF.
 

eqb

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A 5K story sold to Tor.com earns you $1250, plus reviews in the top trade magazines, plus notice from the Tor.com community. Plus notice from the Tor acquiring editors. I'd say that's both money and fame. :)
 
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Monomaniac

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Appearing in a market like Tor.com will do a load more for your name than appearing in anything other than the other top tier markets such as Asimov's and F+SF.


I agree, I'm just saying that Tor.com will be the last on my top teir market list. F+SF takes about two to three weeks for a response, Asimov's around a month. I'm always going to submit to those magazines first.
 

miamyselfandi

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When I was looking for this thread, I searched "tor" and it brought up nothing. It took me awhile to find the alphabetical masterlist of topics.

Is there a way to make "tor" a searchable keyword? Thanks.
 

miamyselfandi

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That explains it. And actually, I put the comment in the wrong place, meant to put it in Tor/Forge. But the answer is the same so it makes no difference.

Thank you.
 

miamyselfandi

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I sold a story to Tor.com in April. Payment was prompt, the editing outstanding, and the contract writer-friendly. My story should appear in mid-September.

Congrats on the sale! How long did it take from submission to sale? Did you have previous short story sales?

Be sure to let us know when it posts.
 

eqb

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Congrats on the sale! How long did it take from submission to sale? Did you have previous short story sales?

Thanks! It took about a week from submission to sale, but the story itself was semi-requested. (As in, "Hey, your book is coming out this October from Tor. If you happen to write a short story set in the same world, keep us in mind.") After three or four failed attempts, I came up with a story I really cared about, and apparently it worked for Patrick, too, because he bought it.
 

msfowle

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Congrats to those who've been published with tor.com! I really hope they catch up on the material they've got -- not too excited about waiting a whole year. :( live and learn i guess...so here's a question: how long must I wait before considering it an "R" from them and send my short story elsewhere? This whole "no simultaneous submission" thing is killing me. (I think I'll stick with novels from now on...)
 

Monkey

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I've now been waiting six months. It feels like an eternity.

I'm really, really hoping, though. If this short gets accepted, I can finally buy my husband the wedding ring I promised him ten years ago.

ETA: 12/10/10 - Seven months, still waiting, almost ready to sub another short to them.

ETA: 1/20/2011 - Eight. And I did finish and send that second sub. Hell, I might send them another.

ETA: 2/09/2011 - Almost nine months later, a rejection. :( I hope my second sub to them does better. In the meantime, I've got a nice fantasy short to sub around...
 
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