Simultaneous Submissions

I don't know if these accept simsubs or not, but they're worth checking out.

http://www.dnapublications.com/info/guide.htm Publishes several different magazines. Some are open for submissions, some aren't right now.

http://www.journeybookspublishing.com/ Amazing Journeys Magazine. Pay isn't great, but it's a start.

http://www.talebones.com/ Talebones Magazine. Click on the guidelines button.

Good luck.

Simsubs

Mr Underhill said:

Does anyone have any good advice on short story markets that accept simultaneous submissions?

I have a science fiction story just returned today, and I'm thinking about sending it right back out to several places. Most of the big names do not accept simo, it seems, so submitting stuff to them means figuring out what to send to whom. But I would like to get some material out to a wider range, and now that many people are accepting simultaneous submissions, I would like to take advantage of that.

So any advice on which markets are good, or personal experience with them would be most helpful.

My immediate question has to do with markets that accept SF&F material, but I also have mainstream fiction stories that I will be shopping around shortly as well.

Thanks!

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Simdubs are usually a bad idea, even if the editor doesn't mind. It really doesn't speed things up at all, and just adds one more manuscript to an already huge slush pile.

Figuring out what to send to whom is what selling is all about. Shotgunning is a horrible approach, and even when simsubbing, the same exacting care should be taken to make sure the right story goes to the right magazine, and the wrong story never, ever goes near a magazine it doesn't fit. Doing so only makes the editor put you on the "never mind this writer" list.

The only way to do this is to read the magazines.

Sense

Mr Underhill said:

Thanks James. Please be assured I am trying to make sure the pieces go to the right place. I have no intention of taking a "clean out the desk drawer" approach and sending a copy of everything I have to every listing in WM. In fact I do not intend to submit more than one story at a time to any one editor.

So let me put it as a more specific case to the crowd. Suppose I identify four markets that would be a good fit for a piece that I have. Of these, three accept simultaneous submissions (or at least say they do). The fourth pays a little more, naturally, but takes a year to reply. Wouldn't it make sense to send it to the three markets first, at the same time? And if all three reject and are done with it, then send it to the fourth?

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I think maybe a case such as this is one that does make sense, and that doesn't make sense, depending on the goal of the writer, on how patient the writer is, on how much the writer wants the story at the bigger market, etc.

Sort of a "six of one and half a dozen of the other" case. If it fits your goals and needs, it's fine.

The only problem with it I see is that you may well lose out on some larger sales this way. One of the smaller markets may accept the story, which means the larger market won't.

I think it also depends on how prolific you are. I've always been prolific enough that the time factor simply isn't an issue. Something goes out every couple of weeks, and after a few months of this, you start hearing back from one market or another on a regular basis, no matter what reporting times are.

Because of this, I can take a "submit and forget" approach. I don't worry about the stories that are out, or how long it takes a given market to respond, because I have so many stroies in circulation that I hear from someone pretty much every week.

I had one story that was out so long, a bit over two years, that I literally forgot all about it. When an acceptance letter arrived in the mail, I had to look through my records to make sure I'd actually written that story. I didn't recognize it from the title in the acceptance letter.

But that's me. I'm prolific enough to take this approach, and to have it work. I'm always concentrating on what I'm writing at the time, and on getting more stories into circulation.

In your case, I'd say match your submissions to your goals, and to your writing habits.

Mr Underhill said:

What I'm really trying to do here is to spark a discussion about simultaneous submissions, including pointers and pitfalls from people who have tried it, or even better, editors on the other end. So that would include questions such as: do editors really mean it when they say they accept simultaneous submissions? is it required to inform them on a cover letter? does it hurt your chances if they do know?

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Note that I haven't been an editor of anything for about 10 years. As I've worked on my new Web site, I have been very surprised at just what you said -- lots of magazines now accept sim subs. They sure didn't 10 years ago. So, a lot has changed, and my opinion on this may be hopelessly outdated.

However, my feeling is that you should be very, very careful. If you follow the rules, you'll be fine & productive. But be careful. I have all sorts of nightmare stories about sim subs. I didn't consider them. But I got them anyway. I know this for many reasons:

1. I talked to other editors. Sometimes we would be considering the same work, and chat about it, and then both get pissed when we realized we were about to fight over the same story. (This didn't really happen much, maybe only once.)
2. A submission would come in, and a week later a review copy of another magazine would arrive. I would open them up, and realize they contained the same material! (This did happen a lot, but it may have been the writer failed to disclose the work was previously published, rather than a sim sub. Since I did take reprints, I was always really pissed when a writer tried to pass a reprint off as virgin material -- why do that? Just tell me who originally published it, I'll give them some credit somewhere, and everyone is happy.)
3. The writer would send me a letter asking to withdraw a story from consideration, as it had been sold elsewhere. But how would that be possible if I didn't accept simultaneous submissions? Hmmm.
4. I accepted and published a story. Almost immediately, an editor was calling me, pissed off that I had pulled the rug out from under him. It turns out that HE had accepted the same story, and his magazine was still at the presses. This was really bad. I ended up as an enemy of that editor through no fault of my own. I swore I would never publish that writer again. Can I just say how much I hated hated hated hated this? This was a bad day for me.
5. In one hilarious instance (involving a poet, not a fiction writer), the writer sim subbed BOTH SUBMISSIONS TO ME. Bwahahaha! She was a fairly prolific small press poet in the 90s, and she had no system for tracking anything, and she sent out a good 10 submissions per DAY. Dealing with her was a mess.

Nowadays, if I did a magazine, I would take submissions via email. And I might be open to sim subs just because of the ease of communication. But even if I did accept sim subs, I would be sooo pissed if someone sim subbed to me and a magazine that didn't accept them. Because what if I accepted the work? The other magazine's staff would find out, either because the author finally fesses up, or because the editors over there see my magazine in print. That could get the other editor upset, and I don't want any of that to spill over to me. I don't like being in the doghouse with my peers.

A sim sub to 3 magazines that are all open to it sounds great, though. Just, you know, be careful. It sounds obvious, but don't put an editor in a bad position.

-Tony

I'm not keen on simultaneous submissions either. Unless magazine editors actually say they don't mind, they tend to get a trifle peeved if they accept a story and you've already flogged it to someone else.

Your chances of selling to them after that are nil.

I don't sim sub. It's too cost prohibitive for me with postage and handling. Then sometimes I would get two or three rejections in one day. Talk about depressing. I think the better route is to be prolific and not simultaneous submit.

Remember to keep record of what you are sending to who.