Wow. Good luck to anyone who's trying to publishing with them. I kind of figure some of the bigger houses would be a lot tougher to get into, but they sound really, really tough. I'm glad that they're a great place to publish with though. That must make up for the hard process.
For such a big name, I've found Samhain very author-friendly and incredibly supportive (once I got past their fierce gatekeepers).
Just ditto'ing what the others have said that yes, they are a bit difficult to get in with but I've heard nothing but good things about their editors.
I should also mention that Samhain provided me with an experience I have been looking forward to for a long time--walking in a (B&N) store and finding my book (4 copies of it) sitting on the shelf, with no urging or input from me at all. Yay!
that's awesome! The only bookstore I made it into was one in Texas... which was too far for me to walk to... since I live in Colorado! (I also had a couple of requests from libraries, but those were in other states as well.)I should also mention that Samhain provided me with an experience I have been looking forward to for a long time--walking in a (B&N) store and finding my book (4 copies of it) sitting on the shelf, with no urging or input from me at all. Yay!
I'm afraid Samhain's horror editor isn't currently interested in submissions of short story collections. He's happy to look at individual stories of 12,000 words and up, but not collections of shorter works at the moment.
I've been waiting just over 24 weeks on my horror submission. I read in an interview he did (before moving to Samhain) that a long wait is actually a good sign... though it sure doesn't feel like it. I've chased it twice, and it's still being considered. I suspect I need to bring it more into the horror genre -- which I could easily do.I submitted a horror novella to Samhain about 14 weeks ago. I'm itching to send a query, but I've held out this long, so I'm sure I can make it two more weeks. Still not sure if the wait is a good sign or a bad one...