Trying the same publication over and over again

Definitely, though my only sale thus far was made on the first try to that particular market.

I've joked a bit in the rejectomancy thread that I don't even feel like the submission process has begun with a story until I get my Clarkesworld rejection. I always start from the top and work my way down, depending on where I've already got subs out and how long it's been since I've sent to a market I'm considering (since some of them have a waiting period after a rejection).

Also, besides that first sale, the closest I've come was with a market I'd already submitted to multiple times. Some markets definitely seem to remember your name if you pique their interest, even if they've never bought anything.

gettingby said:

Do you guys try the same places over and over? Has it paid off? Do you guys think there is a point where you should just give up on a certain publication after multiple tries?

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My submission process involves submitting to markets in descending pay order ( pro, semi-pro, etc ...) so it's inevitable that I will be submitting to the same place more than once.

I don't think I would ever give up a market unless the editors sent me a personalized please p'ss off

Of course you have to submit to the same places multiple times. There aren't so many decent markets that we can avoid it. As for "how it works out"... I don't think it makes much of a difference to editors either way unless one of two things happens:

1. You frequently (i.e. every week or two, maybe three) submit work that is almost good enough to publish. I'm talking about work that makes it to the final round of the market's submission process.

2. You frequently (same time frame) submit work that is well below the market's standards, or completely incompatible with their style.

In the first case, I would think that they would start to notice your submissions and expect good work from you, so that they'd be quicker to give you their full attention when your story comes across their desk. In the second, well...that would be a bad reputation to build up. I'm sure they'd still read your work most places, but it might be with a sense of dread.

Not an editor, just thinking of how it would work out if I were.

^yes, but you don't need to submit twice a month to get the effect. Once every eight weeks will do it, too. I finally cracked some top markets. The pattern was the same every time: "Sorry" jotted down on rejections, then a few sentences handwritten, then typed or handwritten letters discussing my work, then finally, publication. When I quit submitting short, I was having written conversations with a fiction editor at The New Yorker and George Plimpton at the Paris Review. (which shows you how long ago it was.) I was just *that* far from publication at those places--only needed one kick-butt story to do it. I never wrote that top story (and perhaps don't even have it in me), but still, perseverance with solid work was effective. Also, I let them know I read the magazine, praising stories I found praiseworthy. It establishes a relationship, just as you'd do in any business.

If you're getting nothing but forms, though, month after month, year after year, you need to consider you might be case #2. Make sure you've let total strangers assess your work as good. Years of submitting crap can burn your bridges with a mag.

Yes, it's worth trying again with different works. Whether it'll pay off or not is another matter. Once a work is complete it has to go out and keep going out if it's ever to sell.

And if I kept to that myself, I wouldn't be sitting here thinking, you hypocrite.

phineas12gauge said:

My submission process involves submitting to markets in descending pay order ( pro, semi-pro, etc ...) so it's inevitable that I will be submitting to the same place more than once.

I don't think I would ever give up a market unless the editors sent me a personalized please p'ss off

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This. When I first start subbing a new story, it always goes to the usual suspects. They may get rejected but I think they've come to look forward to my stuff. I'd like to think they at least remember my name. I had an encouraging note from the editor of one market, which made me feel that though they were rejecting me, at least they were noticing me.

Of course I submit to the same publication over and over. How else can you reasonably expect to break in? Editors not only don't mind, they EXPECT it.

As an editor, I don't care how much crap a writer submits, or for how many years he submit it. It takes time for many to learn, and that writer who has been submitting crap for years is not a problem. Now and then something clicks with such a writer, and just like that everything he submits is good. I've seen it happen many times.

As an editor, the only thing that bothers me is when everything a writer submits is simply not appropriate. It may be bad, it may be good, but it simply is not appropriate. It doesn't fit in any way.

This tells me the writer isn't reading the magazine at all. He's just reading the guidelines and firing stuff off. Some few writers can pull this off, but they're usually experienced writers, and at least look at the index, and do enough research to learn what does and doesn't fit.

Which does not mean I don't want to see things I haven't done before. All editors wants to see things they haven't done before, but they still have to come in context, they still have to be something the particular readers of the magazine will enjoy.

Anyway, you don't have to tell me you read the magazine. The stories you submit will tell me this in a much more honest way.

Perhaps the most famous case of a writer submitting over and over to the same magazine is that of William Saroyan. He write to the editor at Story, saying he was going to submit a new short story each day for a month. He did so, and along about day twenty or so, the story he submitted was The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.

The one story made his career, and he sold it because he kept submitting until the editor said yes.

Now, as a writer, I wouldn't submit that often, but I usually write stories aimed at particular magazines, and my own personal rule when a new writer was two stories in the slush at the same time, one near the top, and one near the bottom. So if a magazine reported in six weeks, I'd submit a story every four or five weeks.

I'm not going to disagree with Lorna too strongly, but I am not going to buy a story because I know a writer, because I'm friendly with a writer, or because I have some sort of relationship with a writer. Nor am I going to reject a story because I don't know the writer, or because the writer submits too often, or because everything he's submitted in the past was crap. I'm not even going to reject a story if I do know the writer, and dislike him intensely.

I buy a story because it make me go wow, and I believe it will make my readers go wow. I reject a story because it doesn't make me go wow, and I believe my readers will have the same reaction. That's it. Period. Over and out.

One last thing. The writer I'm usually pretty will fail all the way around isn't the writer who keeps submitting crap, or the writer who submits a little too often, it's the writer who doesn't submit nearly often enough, or who stops submitting completely after one or two tries. Or even after ten or fifteen tries. When you stop trying, you fail.

How can you expect to sell to a market if you don't keep subbing to it?




-Michelle

The only time I've *really* noticed someone sending me something is when it's:

a) A completed revise request
b) They've sent me the same story a second time despite that it didn't receive a revision request (and they haven't made any significant revisions)
c) The person makes sure to send so much stuff that I actually recall them with a faint sent of dread (to send this often tends to mean that I get multiple stories sent to me at the same time to review. One hilariously even switched up the titles in his cover letter.)

The first one puts me in a good mood, the last two in a bad. If the story's good, I'll still pass it on, though.

I do not submit a second story to a publication, if I haven't had any feedback on the first one UNLESS they state that they are okay with multiple submissions. Once the first story has been responded to, you often get a better idea of what they might want (or not want) and be able to tailor your next submission to meet those requirements. If you get a personal rejection, i.e. feedback on why they rejected the story, it may include an invitation to submit more of your work. If this happens, you know that 1. your story has been noticed and deemed worthy of comment, 2. they are giving you advice on how to better meet their needs and 3. they WANT you to send something else.

Good luck with your stories and keep writing, gettingby.

Yeah, I've done this.

I actually got a rejected story published about two years after they rejected it. This was in the mid-1990's, I knew nothing about the 'rules' of publishing, submitting, etc. I just knew I'd fixed the story up a bit and sent it back. No explanation, no hey do you want to read this again?

Second time they bought it and I'd done only a few minor changes.

I would not advise writers to do this today, however. Once rejected, send it somewhere else.

And back to original question: yes, keep submitting to a market even after being rejected. Send something new. And if they made comments on the rejection, keep those in mind when writing and submitting.

Boy do I hear you in re Clarkesworld! I usually start by submitting a story to Clarkesworld because: it pays really well (10 cents a word), its easy (takes about a minute using Clarkesworld's online submission system), free (no postage), and fast (response in hours to a few days). So far I'm zero for 17, but I just sent Clarkesworld my 18th story today, so here's hoping! I feel that I have nothing to lose by submitting 2 to 3 stories a month to Clarkesworld.

On the other hand, with other markets, I'm not so sure if I'm shooting myself in the foot or not by submitting early and often. As I rack up the rejections (approaching 200 now), I may be seeing a pattern. For example, Shimmer used to comment on my submissions (and not always bad comments) and take 3 to 4 weeks to respond, but my most recent sub came back rejected in just a week without comment. Fantasy & Science Fiction always sends me the same, generic rejection letter, but my most recent one was dated the day it must have been received. I have a feeling that the F&SF editors said, "Not another one from Gondomir--automatic reject!"

In any case, I have decided to aggressively market my stories and that means putting them out there. If an editor tells me to please stop, I'll stop. But until and unless that happens, I think I have everything to gain and nothing to lose by submitting again and again and again to the same markets that have rejected my stories in the past.

gettingby said:

Do you guys try the same places over and over? Has it paid off? Do you guys think there is a point where you should just give up on a certain publication after multiple tries?

I have fallen into a bit of a pattern where I try The Threepenny Review for full length stories and Flash Fiction Online for shorter ones. Do you guys have go to publications too? How has it worked for you?

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I've only sold to two publications, AHMM and EQMM. But if you are experiencing a lot of rejections from a publisher/magazine you really want to get into, I'd start reading as much from that publisher as possible. Get a subscription, read at the library, or whatever is required. Devour their work. Read it. Study it. Take it apart.

You do this not to copy someone else's work or style, but to really understand what the editors are looking for.

Anyhow, that's what I am currently doing with re. to a few SF publishers.

Carolyn See tells a story about how she kept sending stories to (I believe) The Atlantic Monthly. After many rejections, the editor wrote her a personal letter, wanting to know why she hadn't figured it out yet -- she wasn't TAM material! What was she going to send next, pictures of her kids?

She sent him pictures of her kids, with goats.

Not long after, she visited the editor in his office and got an article assignment.



I hit the same top markets over and over again, though I usually space out my subs so they don't get sick of seeing my name. Unless they've asked for punishment, er, to see more.

With one magazine, I'd been able to place several stories with them, until they changed owners. After that point, everything I submitted was rejected. I finally decided to stop submitting to them after receiving some feedback on a story that suggested changes which I didn't agree with, just before the story ended up being accepted by the very next magazine I submitted it to. And since that (first) magazine closed its doors, I guess I don't have to wonder about submitting to them again...

Such is life.

jaksen said:

I've only sold to two publications, AHMM and EQMM. But if you are experiencing a lot of rejections from a publisher/magazine you really want to get into, I'd start reading as much from that publisher as possible. Get a subscription, read at the library, or whatever is required. Devour their work. Read it. Study it. Take it apart.

You do this not to copy someone else's work or style, but to really understand what the editors are looking for.

Anyhow, that's what I am currently doing with re. to a few SF publishers.

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I do this, and it may be the same thing in different words, but what I look for when tearing a magazine apart is what that magazine has never done.

I do want to give the editor the kind of story he wants, but I want characters he's never used, a setting he's never used, etc.

I have the best luck breaking in when I give the editor several elements he's never used, and a story that can come from no one else. This, for me, is the crucial aspect, a story that no one else could possibly write. This means I write what I know, my life, my experience, my small hometown, the people, places, and things I'm intimately familiar with.

No one else is me, and if I can put this into a fictional framework, I have an excellent chance of make a sale to a new magazine.

I enjoyed reading this thread in the "I'm not the only one" sense. I do sometimes decide not to send to a place for awhile if I've made it to the almost desk several times. Mainly because it's a drain on my ego. I also think I need to push my writing further before trying again and then I go back.

Having never received any significant encouragement to submit anything else to a given publication after a rejection, I've never done so. Plus the stuff I succeed in getting to a finality is so eclectic that it's hard to figure out even one possible market for it, I mostly don't have more than one thing to send to any given possibility.

Submission sucks.

caw

There are many publications I've submitted to more than once. Since I think (and hope) my writing improves with each new story I write, why wouldn't I take another shot at a market that's rejected previous work?

I am lining up the neighbor's kids with a couple of goats and taking their picture. I will send that to TAM with every submission from now on.

Phaeal said:

Carolyn See tells a story about how she kept sending stories to (I believe) The Atlantic Monthly. After many rejections, the editor wrote her a personal letter, wanting to know why she hadn't figured it out yet -- she wasn't TAM material! What was she going to send next, pictures of her kids?

She sent him pictures of her kids, with goats.

Not long after, she visited the editor in his office and got an article assignment.



I hit the same top markets over and over again, though I usually space out my subs so they don't get sick of seeing my name. Unless they've asked for punishment, er, to see more.

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It is not a problem unless "over and over again" means every month, for years, with increasingly frantic queries, and with work that continues to be grossly outside anything they will every accept. That might cause you to develop the wrong kind of reputation.

Before the days of the internet there were a number of places I frequently posted work out to. In those days many editors scribbled a few words of advice with a rejection.

I eventually gained publication in a few of them.

These days I rarely submit to magazines, either print or online. Though I do get a few eds emailing and asking if I have anything for them.

Of course, it's enough to make your piss boil when a mag asks you for something -- and then rejects what you send.

veinglory said:

It is not a problem unless "over and over again" means every month, for years, with increasingly frantic queries, and with work that continues to be grossly outside anything they will every accept. That might cause you to develop the wrong kind of reputation.

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If you do this, and editor should let you know long before years have passed.

If a publication rejects me with the "no response" method, I usually skip them and move on.

The publications who have accepted me then get on my favorite list for new submissions!