Middling It

Last one I got from them was a 35 day from a slush reader. But I do hope you're right

50 days and counting....

*headdesk*

_Sian_ said:

50 days and counting....

*headdesk*

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They strongly invite you to query at 40 days.

I've had a story sitting with a favourite magazine since last June.

At the one year mark I wrote to see if I had missed their response. They said the story was with the final editor and I should hear back soon.

At the fifteen month mark now, still waiting.

When I sent it out, I felt like this was the best thing I'd ever written, but now that so much time has passed, I can barely stand the sight of it, and whenever it is finally rejected, I'm not sure I'll have the heart to send it somewhere else.

They strongly invite you to query at 40 days.

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Done, queried at day 41, no reply from that either yet. *sighs*

God, 15 months. You have my sympathy...

_Sian_ said:

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Done, queried at day 41, no reply from that either yet. *sighs*

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Argh, that sucks. Something must be up with them. Fingers crossed that your story has made it to a higher-level editor's desk.

As for Middling It, another one of my stories has made it to the second round at Andromeda Spaceways. (The last one got bumped out pretty fast; this one has been in Round 2 for a week.) ASIM might not be the highest-paying magazine, but it's important to me because they place an emphasis on sci-fi humor, which is the genre I tend to write in the most.

While I try and ignore a submission I sent to McS Q 495 days ago...I'm watching Unc@nny and F!reside and trying not to read too much into stories all around mine getting r's. Still right at the line between "I think it's progressing" and "nope, yours was just a little delayed."

No word from Strange Horizons yet, _Sian_? (or anyone else whose submission has been there awhile) I'm at 35 days; still below the 40-day marker, but much longer than they've had other stories of mine.

Nothing yet - according to their status on their website though, they've answered everything from before the 15th still. Again, someone's waiting longer than me, cause mine went in on the 24th.

I'm working under the presumption that they've at least read the thing (or it's at least gone through the slush), because people are reporting much quicker (14/15 days) form rejections on both Grinder and Duotrope....

ION, still out with uncanny (only been 2 days on that one though) and approaching 10 and urban fantasy. I love urban fantasy though, because they have a *que* on their website, and you can see if people have read it/how long till someone reads it ect.

I happened to click on the submission form at Strange Horizons today and saw a message I've never come across before:

"To keep our response times and reading load manageable, we're limiting the number of stories that we receive each day. Unfortunately, we've received as many submissions today as we can read in a reasonable amount of time. (Today we reached the limit after about 19 hours.)Please come back and try again later. This page reopens to submissions each night at midnight, Eastern US time, which is about 4 hours from now. In the meantime, if you haven't read our guidelines, please do so."

So they're definitely making an effort to scale down and control the slush pile. Unless this has always existed and I just never happened to submit anything after the limit was reached for the day.

I've also noticed some of the 14-day or so rejections on the Grinder, but there don't seem to be that many. So maybe SH's reading is progressing more slowly than usual. But yours has been out so long, _Sian_, that I'm hopeful for good things.

SH has been doing that for awhile. I've seen the message before multiple times (and blame it on generally submitting work around 11pm )

I'm cautiously hopeful too - we're at day 56, and the only one I've seen in that ballpark was a re-write request on duo trope at 60 something days. At 45 days I was "well, maybe they're just snowed under". But given they're rejecting things within their 40 day window currently, I'm hoping it's actually under consideration, rather than just not gotten to yet.

Some poor soul has had their piece with them for 65 days though. So it's not too bad. Could always be worse. I'll be a bit annoyed if after all this I only get a form though.... Then again, it is SH, and they don't often do personals. *sighs*

Just a heads up that F!reside tweeted this morning that if you use Microsoft email (msn or hotmail) and didn't get an automated response to check your spam folder. I went back to doublecheck mine, and clicked the link to check status. Turns out my story had been rejected days ago. I don't know why I didn't get an email (I did last time I subbed to them) but maybe they're having email issues. Anyway, if you've got a sub with them you might want to check it manually and not rely on getting a notification.

Oh, Jj, that sorta sucks, sorry to hear that.

Yeah, I'm watching my queue. May I ask how many days you were out?

Only four. It was back during first week of the month. I should have checked sooner, I just assumed I'd get the email, and I've been caught up with other stuff.

Fireside's queue hasn't budged today, right?

Thanks, JJ.

Detective, it hasn't - might not have budged yesterday either up to a certain point. I saw responses logged on grinder but I'm pretty sure my #'s been the same for 2 days.

I wonder if that could be due to email problems. I hope not, but that tweet plus my experience implies they are having some trouble with that.

Well earlier in the week, my # also stopped for a day or so. Seems normal enuf for queues but we'll see.

Gah, and no activity has shown up on SG for Cr0ssed Genres or Aby$$ & Apex in weeks. I'd love to think that means they're up to a second round and my stories are being seriously considered. But now I keep worrying about submission form/email problems. I got an auto-response from A&A but not from CG.

Does Shimmer send confirmation when they receive your submission?

DetectiveFork said:

Does Shimmer send confirmation when they receive your submission?

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I didn't get one the couple of times I've subbed to them.

JJ Litke said:

I didn't get one the couple of times I've subbed to them.

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Ok, good to know. I will therefore just wait for the rejection to come in. ;-)

Heh. On the plus side, they're generally quick to respond, and they do a good percentage of personalized Rs, too.