Better hurry, kids: Tor.com closing to unsolicited subs Jan. 7

Dunno. The 600-plus-day stuff is on their remaining short-fiction slush pile from when they were still open to plebes like me. I'd like to hope they aren't that abusive to agented submissions??

Without going into details, yes, they have taken very long on agented submissions.

Introversion said:

I see that Strange Horizons opened again today for submissions, Tazlima. Don't know if they're an appropriate market for your story, but worth a shot?

Click to expand...

So, being by and large ignorant of tor.com's corpus of writing, can I ask what is strange horizons? As in a comprehensive explanation that makes more sense than a fool's errand search across the internet hounding down minutiae.

Vicent said:

So, being by and large ignorant of tor.com's corpus of writing, can I ask what is strange horizons? As in a comprehensive explanation that makes more sense than a fool's errand search across the internet hounding down minutiae.

Click to expand...

http://strangehorizons.com

I believe Ada Palmer took about 5 years going through Tor slush? Not sure. She did acquire an agent in the middle somewhere too.

5 years?? Yikes.

That's not too far outside of the normal time frame. Tor *is* the big dog in English-speaking SFF. They get large numbers of agented mms. They claim to be more efficient with slush now.

Plus, there's the time involved in revise & resubmit, either by agent or editor request. That can take a couple of years by itself.

Part of the problem with getting through the slushpile and *then* finding an agent: many agencies won't touch deals they didn't shepherd from the start.

Yes, five years does include all the edits and revisions, etc, plus going through slush so not so bad.

She used Tor interest to help entice agent.

After a grand total of 749 days, I finally got my rejection. But I'm glad I waited, because it was actually a personal rejection! With good notes!

"This is an enjoyably bizarre monster/first contact story with a good twist, and it even enchanted one reader who doesn't normally like SF horror"

*squee*

It ultimately got rejected because there are "missed opportunities for more suspense and rising tension" but the rejection was "reluctant" so all things considered, not too bad. I'm gonna have to give it a closer look and see where I can improve the tension and suspense and maybe get this somewhere. It feels like I got close!

Wow well done! That is very promising--submit and see how it goes elsewhere.

I've got a full with them but who knows how long that will take, and bit of a long shot anyway.

What great feedback, Maggie. Congrats and good luck with the ms going forward.

(gee, 749 days!!)