Rejectomancy

711 days? Wow.

After my submission spent 48 days on deployment, Compelling SF sent me a telegram: "We regret to inform you we will not be purchasing publication rights to your story."

Per The Grinder, I am now longest-held-sub Mayor of Compelling SF.

Peace
Ty

Sorry, Ty
Not an honor anyone wants!

Thanks, DF! Fortunately, 48 days is not that long in the grand scheme of things.

Peace
Ty

30-day form R from Plasma Frequency. This time of year is a little more painful, I think. RTs seem to be slowing down across the board - Plasma was doing 20ish days a couple of weeks ago.

They're rolling out 34-38 day Rs for Fireside over on SG, so I'm expecting my 36-day one any minute now. I jump a little every time my email alert dings.

The only good thing about getting a rejection two days in a row is that they didn't happen on the same day. I got a 8 day form R from Shimmer today. I'm treating myself to pizza for dinner to compensate. I might even go wild and have a bowl of ice cream!

CharlyT said:

The only good thing about getting a rejection two days in a row is that they didn't happen on the same day. I got a 8 day form R from Shimmer today. I'm treating myself to pizza for dinner to compensate. I might even go wild and have a bowl of ice cream!

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Pizza and ice cream... It's a birthday party!

CharlyT said:

The only good thing about getting a rejection two days in a row is that they didn't happen on the same day. I got a 8 day form R from Shimmer today. I'm treating myself to pizza for dinner to compensate. I might even go wild and have a bowl of ice cream!

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That was me yesterday - pizza for lunch and dinner, and then ice cream. It's been a rough week (work and writing).

36-day form dump from The First Line. Cool market, but tough to crack. (Both Duo and Grinder show zero percent acceptance rate for past year.)

I feel like the more rejections you got from DSF the longer they're gonna take to read your new submission.

If you get a rejection and it's mostly form but they say they'd like to see something from you again in the future, do you count that as a personal? I didn't, but I always wonder where other people draw that line.

It probably depends on the market; some markets have a "higher tier" form letter that includes a request for more, and "lower tier" form that doesn't. Others may add a personal note to the end of their form if they have something specific to say, but I suspect the different tiers of form are more common.

I know about tiers of rejections letters. My question was if anyone is marking higher tiers as personals on SG or Duotrope.

JJ Litke said:

I know about tiers of rejections letters. My question was if anyone is marking higher tiers as personals on SG or Duotrope.

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Don't know about others, but I usually won't record as "personal" (I use Duo) unless I got a specific reference to something about my story. I think of it as "personalized" to me and/or my story. It might only be a note at the end of a form ("This one came close, loved the ending. Ed.") but if it's personalized, I record it as a personal. Otherwise, it's "form" or (on Duo) "rejection" depending on the tier.

Sorry; I misunderstood! I hope people aren't marking higher-tiers as personals, because it wouldn't be quite accurate. I do sort of wish that SG had an option for form R tiers, though. It'd be nice to know how often those go out.

pdichellis said:

Don't know about others, but I usually won't record as "personal" (I use Duo) unless I got a specific reference to something about my story. I think of it as "personalized" to me and/or my story. It might only be a note at the end of a form ("This one came close, loved the ending. Ed.") but if it's personalized, I record it as a personal. Otherwise, it's "form" or (on Duo) "rejection" depending on the tier.

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Same here. That's how I recorded my last two rejections (both received over the weekend), even though one was "I have to say no. It OK". It was obviously a one-off typed response as opposed to a shortcut form, but since it didn't include any reference to my piece, I consider it a form.

Good to know we're all on the same page. And LostFins, it would be nice to know how often higher tiers go out.

There probably are a few people making different interpretations of what counts as a personal. I don't mind that so much, as long as they close out their subs somehow. The ones that really bug me are those really long-term ones that are such anomalies that it must be the user simply never closed it, and they end up skewing the times.

62 day R from Kaleidotrope. To be honest, I recorded it as a personal, but now I'll have to go back and look at the email to make sure it is. It seemed to be, but it's difficult to tell sometimes. I'm still pretty new at this.

JJ Litke said:

The ones that really bug me are those really long-term ones that are such anomalies that it must be the user simply never closed it, and they end up skewing the times.

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Like that ~1200 day one from one of the pro SF markets on Grinder? (Can't remember which one it is now off my head) You gotta know that's someone who logged into SG, then forgot about it without closing out their subs.

All of my oldies are finally rolling in - I got a 76 day form R from Strangelet late this afternoon. I know it's just their normal form, but it's heartening that their form asks for more subs.

I would only log a personal rejection (I should be so lucky...) if it has obvious references to the piece. I've had rejections that say

"this was an interesting idea, but the pieces didn't quite come together..."

etc. but I don't know if that can really be counted as personal.

Two more rejections in two more days for me. One was a disappointment, and the other was Clarkesworld (nuff said, lol). It's been two months since I've had a sale, and those rejections are starting to sting a bit.

Alma Matters said:

I would only log a personal rejection (I should be so lucky...) if it has obvious references to the piece. I've had rejections that say

"this was an interesting idea, but the pieces didn't quite come together..."

etc. but I don't know if that can really be counted as personal.

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I would count that as a personal.

Perhaps, I'm being too hard on myself Charly? I suppose it just feels a little inconclusive.

I kind of feel the same when editors say that they hope you keep them in mind in the future. I don't envy readers - such a hard job - and I wonder if those comments help both them, and us, feel a little better about the "No"? I can't blame them.

Sorry to to hear about the rejections... Get them back out there, that's all you can do.

42 day form R from Apex. It makes me sad, but even to have a pro market send the story for a second read is amazing to me. It's the first time that's happened. Hopefully not the last.

Another R came in.

I also just read an interview with someone I submitted a piece to that came out a while after I subbed. Apparently they don't tend to like the genre I submitted. If I'd known that before I wouldn't have submitted to them, but they said they were accepting all genres at the time and gave no indication of any preferences, so I had no idea. I guess I can safely write that one off as a R too, now it's just a matter of them getting back to me to deliver the inevitable.