Rejectomancy

Sai

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After a long cricket season I finally got an response this morning. It was an 'R' from Asimov's, but a personal one so that gives me hope that I'm getting closer (the editor said the story was good but not a good fit for Asimov's, which I knew deep down to be true when I subbed it). I haven't been doing a very good job of getting my stories back out there, but since I'm at a place today with a computer and internet I plan on fixing that.
 

ShadowFox

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Looks like everyone has suddenly got rejections... (((hugs))) to everybody in general.

Lillie - looks like we are going for the same markets :)

Matt - I wouldn't worry, thousands of people submit to WotF every quarter. Not worth being upset over. Odds of getting anywhere are slim, so the fact you did says to me your story will find a very good home, and is real quality.
 
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defcon6000

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Hmm, well this is interesting. Got an R from Untied Shoelaces, which was supposedly rejected on the Oct. 5th, but I'm just getting this email NOW. Also, I find it a little odd that they said it was a form rejection, yet they made a personal comment pertaining to the story (they don't like characters dying at the end).

So I dunno. Maybe gmail is messing with me or something.
 

AlwaysJuly

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I've gotten a few R's from things I subbed a while back, but... but...

My hard drive on my laptop started to fry and I lost the latest version of my W1S1 excel spreadsheet. I am devastated, y'all. I loved my spreadsheet.

So I haven't even bothered to catalogue those recent R's, because now everything is ruined because I don't have my spreadsheet!

Yeah. I just turned into a bit of a diva there.
 

Project Deadlight

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Herd of crickets in my inbox.

Loads past the average wait too... The Black Static one is doing my head in because I have another story I want to send them and they didn't respond to my one query.
 

Project Deadlight

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Hmm, well this is interesting. Got an R from Untied Shoelaces, which was supposedly rejected on the Oct. 5th, but I'm just getting this email NOW. Also, I find it a little odd that they said it was a form rejection, yet they made a personal comment pertaining to the story (they don't like characters dying at the end).

I think they just like appearing to have tiers on duotrope so request you log it as "form", but they are still nice enough to write comments which I think is rather top notch.
 

jazzman99

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Had a handful of Rs lately from anthologies I really wanted to be in. I've got to learn to resist the siren call of a good anthology theme and get back to magazine/journal submissions.
 

Lillie

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((((Defcon, Sai, Jazz))))

Sorry about the Rs.

I've gotten a few R's from things I subbed a while back, but... but...

My hard drive on my laptop started to fry and I lost the latest version of my W1S1 excel spreadsheet. I am devastated, y'all. I loved my spreadsheet.

So I haven't even bothered to catalogue those recent R's, because now everything is ruined because I don't have my spreadsheet!

Yeah. I just turned into a bit of a diva there.

:( I grieve for your poor spreadsheet.

Sorry about the R's too.
 

AlwaysJuly

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Thanks, Lillie!
Had a handful of Rs lately from anthologies I really wanted to be in. I've got to learn to resist the siren call of a good anthology theme and get back to magazine/journal submissions.
Why's that? I hardly ever submit to anthologies, but it's because I never have anything that's a good fit written already. I always want to...
 

soapdish

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Ugh! I know what you mean about the anthology siren's call. :rolleyes: I fall for them far too often. Really, I shouldn't complain, though, most of my published work is in anthologies. :tongue

But still, I know what you mean, they can lead you off on tangents.

Sorry about all the Rs everyone. :( Still crickets here. (From subs to a couple anthologies :D)
 

Brett Marie

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AlwaysJuly, I know exactly how you feel. I almost abandoned working on my novel when my trusty laptop died. Luckily the muse came back to me when I found a newer model cheap on ebay. I hope you get back on your spreadsheeting feet.

As for me, I got a heartbreaking R from Barnstorm yesterday:
Thank you for sending us "Sex Education". We really enjoyed this piece, but we didn't feel it was right for Barnstorm.

We hope that you will continue to send us your work.

Sincerely,

The Editors of Barnstorm

This may look run-of-the-mill to you, but my last sub to them earned me a wonderful, personalized R asking me to send more. I feel like I've been bumped back down to form letters.

Does anyone know if they reserve the 'we really enjoyed this piece' line for pieces that they honestly 'really enjoyed?' I know I'm grasping at straws, but I'll take whatever affirmation I can get at this point.
 

ShadowFox

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but my last sub to them earned me a wonderful, personalized R asking me to send more. I feel like I've been bumped back down to form letters.
.

I haven't submitted there, but I find I often jog around between form, and personal rejection in some markets. I've come to the conclusion it just depends on a lot of factors - for example, how the editor is feeling, how much time they have etc, etc.

It can be depressing when you go from a spate of personal rejections, to one of form letters, but...

They ask for more work, so give it to them :)
 

Lillie

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Sorry abut the R, but sometimes this stuff doesn't seem to signify anything.

I've had 5 Rs from DSF.

The first three were all identical, a polite paragraph saying thanks but no thanks.

The fourth was the same, but at the bottom there was a PS, and it said, 'This made it through to the second round.'

Nice to know, but is it personal or just tiered? I entered it on Duo as just a plain R, neither form nor personal.

The next one I sent them, again had a PS. This one was certainly personal, it mentioned specific aspects of my story. But it said 'This almost made it to the second round.'

So the personal one didn't get as far as the non personal one. :Shrug:

I'm sure a lot of it depends on stuff like how busy they are, who is reading/replying, that sort of stuff.
 

mfowler76

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I received a rejection from Daily Science Fiction today, but instead of it being the standard variety I've received MANY times before, it said "This almost made our second round." Probably a tiered form letter, but it's good to know this story made it further than some of my others.
 

Aggy B.

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Crickets.

(((((hugs))))) for all the Rs. It only means there's a better home for that story out there somewhere else.

Aggy, unreasonably optimistic
 

jazzman99

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Thanks, Lillie! Why's that? I hardly ever submit to anthologies, but it's because I never have anything that's a good fit written already. I always want to...

Oh, I don't mean to imply there's anything wrong with anthologies--they can be a lot of fun and get you some real exposure. I just like to strike a balance between stories aimed at anthologies and stories I'm writing with magazine publication in mind; ideally I want to keep active in both markets. Lately I haven't been doing too well with the balance. Looking at my submissions records, the last six new pieces I've written have been done with specific anthologies in mind. Of course I've also been busy getting the final draft of my novel posted and dealing with...what's that other thing called? Oh, right. Work.
 

Lillie

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*sigh*

Just got an R. And I have no idea where to send it to next.
 

Marzioli

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I'm pretty new to writing short stories. I started writing them last month after having no luck with two novels (both YA) that I wrote over the last year and a half. So far I've banged out about 8 in the past month.

Anyway, I have a question. Today I got a rejection from Analog--no big surprise. The thing is, I noticed the "submissions sent as recently as" date was a week past my submission date, and had climbed steadily during that week. So I figured maybe it wasn't an easy reject, maybe they considered it for at least one pair of eyes past the slush reader? Is that ridiculous? What do you guys and gals use as a standard for deciding if you're being considered, even briefly? Or is worthless to speculate based on that field data?

Also, on the sixth of this month I got a rejection from Clarkesworld. Love their quick response time, but hate that form R.
 

Lillie

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I got one from Analog the other day.
It was about 35 days. I thought they had looked once and tossed it back.

The best thing to do is to look at the recent responses, and see if yours fits the current pattern for Rs.

There was a shockingly quick analog R on the 29th Sept, (13 days) and that's still showing as the 'submission most recently sent'.

Even when your get way over the average wait, you still don't know. They might have lost it. It's happened.

In the end it's not really worth speculating, as you can really never know. But I do it. I do it all the time. And I know I'm not the only one.

Sorry about you Rs, and good luck subbing them back out.