I'm sorry, Bethany. The only thing worse than a rejection is a form rejection. :-(
Middling It
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I'm sorry, Bethany. The only thing worse than a rejection is a form rejection. :-(
Thanks for checking, Kaitlin.
I'm sorry, Bethany. I'm at 13 in the other queue. Not feeling very hopeful about my odds.
I'm sorry, Bethany. I'm at 13 in the other queue. Not feeling very hopeful about my odds.
And the form R from F!reside rolled in. After more than two months, on a Sunday night, a form R. Sheesh.
I had just hoped to get one sale before the end of the year, and it looks like that's not going to happen.
I had just hoped to get one sale before the end of the year, and it looks like that's not going to happen.
Form rejection after 60+ days indicates a total lack of manners. Now I feel bad I've supported them with 100 bucks when they were struggling with their donation drive; should've let the bastards burn.
Umm, no. Frustration or not, this is not an appropriate way to approach the situation. Forms are disappointing, especially after a long wait but they are a necessary part of the business side of publishing.
If the piece has been rejected by a slusher, then I concur. Managing editor of one of the leading sci-fi magazines once told me the stats: they receive around 1200 stories a month, and their slushers can't reject themselves--they can only write recommendations; eventually, everything has to go through that editor. Naturally he/she doesn't have time to read through all of the 1200 subs, so if a first reader rejects a piece, the editor rejects it too. Consequently, these are all forms because nobody would want to put their own name under someone else's words.
But I think in JJ's case the piece has been rejected by an editor who has that power and who is doing so based on his/her personal opinion. In that case, shrugging off a writer with a formal response is, like I said, indicative of the total lack of manners. The word for that indeed starts with 'b' and is 8 letters long, but it's not 'business.'
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Writing individual rejections, even those that are only a couple of lines is actually time consuming. Especially if one does want to be flippant with the reasoning behind the rejection. (We've had discussions before about editors whose forms sounded like personal rejections and the confusion that caused because the feedback was so different than previous responses. FREX: The voice didn't work for me and the characters were thin.)
And the hard fact is that sometimes an editor just doesn't need your particular story because it's a) too similar to something they've already bought b ) in a genre they've already filled slots for or even c) just not the right length. None of those are things that would be helpful to point out aside from soothing hurt feelings. And that's not an editor's responsibility. Not explaining themselves via rejection does not equal bastards. Cultivating that kind of attitude as a writer is not only unproductive but unhealthy because it turns a business relationship into a personal one and then everything starts to be unprofessional.
Aggy, has rolled her eyes at more than a few personal rejections
And the hard fact is that sometimes an editor just doesn't need your particular story because it's a) too similar to something they've already bought b ) in a genre they've already filled slots for or even c) just not the right length. None of those are things that would be helpful to point out aside from soothing hurt feelings. And that's not an editor's responsibility. Not explaining themselves via rejection does not equal bastards. Cultivating that kind of attitude as a writer is not only unproductive but unhealthy because it turns a business relationship into a personal one and then everything starts to be unprofessional.
Aggy, has rolled her eyes at more than a few personal rejections
As an aside to this, I notice that Strange Horizons is now giving out form rejections in the 60-70 day range, which I wouldn't have imagined a couple of months ago. Yet, there is still an occasional personal rejection in that range logged on the Grinder. I assume that the busier a magazine gets, the less likely you are to get a personal unless an editor was really moved by something in your story.
I had noticed a few personal Rs on SG, which made me hopeful that I'd get one, too.
Part of what gets me is the queue setup they used. I still don't know what the numbers meant or if they meant anything at all. My story sat at #25 for weeks after a big round of Rs showed on SG. Then it would drop in increments, stopping each time for at least several days. So they didn't just move steadily through the queue. Their process was a little confusing. Did my story survive an initial round? Maybe not, I have no idea, but that sure would have been nice to know if it had.
Part of what gets me is the queue setup they used. I still don't know what the numbers meant or if they meant anything at all. My story sat at #25 for weeks after a big round of Rs showed on SG. Then it would drop in increments, stopping each time for at least several days. So they didn't just move steadily through the queue. Their process was a little confusing. Did my story survive an initial round? Maybe not, I have no idea, but that sure would have been nice to know if it had.
I don't mind the idea of a form R in the first round. But it's disturbing to think that markets may decide to hang on to a story for a little longer, never tell you, then send a form R. I don't know if that's what SH is doing, maybe it's just the slush pile divided into groups and some move faster than others?
That's what I wonder, too. The last rejection I got from SH was at 50+ days. It was signed by one of the editors, not a slush reader. I'm not sure if that means a slush reader liked it and passed it up to an editor, who then rejected it, or if the queue was just backed up and the editor jumped in to help with some first-reads. Since it was a form rejection, I'll never know.
I suspect Uncanny divides submissions into groups, and some move faster than others. You see a wide range of rejections, both forms and personals, logged on the Grinder. It seems harder to judge where your submission is at by looking at the varied response times.
Rejections at SH on the other hand seem more predictable - shorter form rejections are usually signed by a first reader, and longer rejections are usually signed by an editor. I'm glad they do that, actually, as other publications just put the main editor's name on every form rejection. But it's all guesswork, so who knows?
And JJ, sorry to hear about Fireside, but there's still over a month in the year, so there's a slight chance you could meet your goal. And even if you don't, you're still writing and submitting, and building your skills. That's the important part, not a self-imposed deadline.
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I believe that at SH if you get a form rejection from an editor, it means it got passed along. I have only submitted there three times, all last year when (as I recall) submissions were moving faster than they seem to be now. I got one 15 day rejection from a first reader and two 30-ish day rejections from editors. The email was the same, just signed by different people. But I think it must mean something.
In ye olden days there was no bump notice. The first thing one heard was the rejection/acceptance/revision request. It's frustrating when we think we've figured a publication out, but it's all guesswork and different editors and slushers do things differently.
I do feel your pain though. I thought for sure with three novels out on sub this year that surely one of them would get an offer. But so far there's been one close-but-not-quite, normal rejections and silence. There is not enough chocolate (or rum) in the world to soothe the stress I feel right now.
But the year isn't over yet so there's still hope for all of us. (And, yanno, after Jan 1 we get a whole new year to try for publication, right?)
Aggy, glass is empty because rum not water
Well, I for one think that glass needs to be filled with champagne. So many writers would love to be at the level of having three books, an agent, and a close-but-not-quite. Cheers!
I think at SH sometimes the editors do jump in to help with the slush without it necessarily going through first readers. Which is probably not a helpful or optimistic thing to say >>
I think we all grumble when we receive a form after a long time or we've been bumped up or whatever. I remember when I got a form when every other rejection from that market at that time was a personal. I went and beat my head against the desk for a bit. But most of us also understand why it happens, that it needs to happen, and aren't inclined to threaten arson over it.
On the subject of the actual thread, I have a story that might be middling it. But it also might just be with a different pile of readers or about to receive the rejection or whatever *shrug*
I think we all grumble when we receive a form after a long time or we've been bumped up or whatever. I remember when I got a form when every other rejection from that market at that time was a personal. I went and beat my head against the desk for a bit. But most of us also understand why it happens, that it needs to happen, and aren't inclined to threaten arson over it.
On the subject of the actual thread, I have a story that might be middling it. But it also might just be with a different pile of readers or about to receive the rejection or whatever *shrug*
This is true. But I think it's worth noting that there's always another level of angst and worry about why it's taking so long to sell, if one is really good enough, etc.
I've had a story at L0ng H1dd3n 2 for a few months, long enough that I sent a query about it (they said we'd hear back by Nov. 1 and I haven't heard anything), but they didn't respond Has anyone else heard back from them?
Ugh, does that mean you have to start from the bottom or can you send it straight to the final editor?
I've had that happen a couple of times. (Though never with quite that long a wait. Although GUD had one of my stories for several years, had even accepted it, before I finally pulled it.) This is why I always query as soon as the minimum read period has passed.
Usually when a story is lost, it's perfectly acceptable to politely mention that in the resubmission. Most places will push it through faster because of it. (Obviously, YMMV.)
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Did anyone else sub to Apəx's Christmas flash contest? I never got a rejection, though surely they've chosen the stories since it's for the December issue, right? A few people have marked them as "never responded" on SG, so I'm not alone in thinking we should have heard by now.
