Black Gate Magazine

Hi guys,

I've heard so many positive things about Black Gate Magazine from a number of people. How professional and friendly they are, how great they are to work with. So I have only one question:

What gives? Why can't I get a response from this magazine? I submitted a story to them in June of '09. A year later, when I hadn't heard anything back yet, I asked a colleague of mine (who has a story placed with Black Gate) if I should contact them to find out the status of my story. He advised me to send a brief, polite query, which I did.

A month later, no answer. I tried again, making sure I specified my story had been sent by e-mail. Another month went by, again with no answer. I tried again. In total I sent four e-mails, I even tried another e-mail address, and received nothing in response. At this point I suspect my story never made it through, and perhaps my e-mails didn't either--I don't know, maybe they have their spam filter set on Rabid?

I again asked my colleague for advice. He suggested attempting to contact Black Gate's editor via Facebook. That's not normally a route I'd try, but I really wanted to know if my story ever got through. So I sent a brief, polite e-mail, apologizing for sending it through Facebook and asking for a status update on my story, if it had reached them.

That was days ago. If you've figured out the pattern by now, you've probably guessed that I've gotten no response to that as well. I don't see why a simple query about the status of my story should take as long to answer as the story itself. I really don't think it's unreasonable that some four months later I'm getting slightly annoyed that I can't get anyone to tell me anything. In fact, by all appearances I'm being outright ignored.

So again I ask, what gives? Has anyone had any contact from this magazine lately? Anything at all? Is there some kind of Offensive Dance I did by accident that has caused these people to ignore me? Something? Anything?

Please, please, someone tell me something.

P.S. I'm sorry if I sound a bit agitated but really. This is absurd.

Wow. I knew they took a long time in regards to responding to submissions, but I didn't realize that carried over to responding to things like status queries.

This is probably a stupid thing to ask, but what's a sim-sub?

Thanks for letting me know, guys. I guess I'll be looking for other places to submit this. That is, after I've taken my year-and-a-half of further experience and applied it to the story.

Terie,

I read the submission page only about 3 dozen times, so no, I didn't send it as an attachment. I sent it copy and pasted in the body of the e-mail with all the text formatting they requested.

I don't have any images, sig or otherwise, that I use in any of my e-mails. Maybe some day when I have a book coming out I'll want the cover image proudly on display, but otherwise I find such things incredibly tacky.

As far as I know, I didn't commit any major faux pas, hence my confusion.

Incidentally, I work at a review website and am the contact for people who want to request reviews for their books. I have way too much experience with people ignoring our guidelines to not pay attention to someone else's.

waylander said:

Black Gate #14 did come out in March, I have a copy and I also have a story in it.

Black Gate has moved to a policy of reading periods and are not open to submissions between those periods.
Brightlyiburn are you sure you subbed during a reading period?

Click to expand...

Dead certain. They closed the 30th of June '09. I sent my story in June, yes, but some two weeks before that. I didn't see anything on the site to indicate some other time parameters--just a date when they'd be closing to submissions.

Ouch. Be careful what you wish for, I guess. I just got my rejection tonight.

It was very nice though. I mean, for a rejection. Mr. O'Neill apologized for the delay and seemed genuinely appreciative of my patience. He had some really nice things to say about my story, too. I guess I should take solace in having my confidence in my dialog writing abilities validated by an actual professional but...this is my second case of "good but not good enough" this year. It's kind of a bummer.