Am I the only one not making a sale?

gettingby

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I am so happy for all the recent sales. This must be a great group of writers. But when I read the braggage thread and see all the good news, it makes me question myself. I have sent out 32 submissions this year so I am putting myself out there. I guess I am just feeling a little discouraged. Is it just me?
 

John Shepard

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It isn't just you. Don't give up.
 

mhaynes

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I am so happy for all the recent sales. This must be a great group of writers. But when I read the braggage thread and see all the good news, it makes me question myself. I have sent out 32 submissions this year so I am putting myself out there. I guess I am just feeling a little discouraged. Is it just me?

If it makes you feel any better, I had a string of 46 straight submissions get rejected late last year/early this year.

And, yes, it was frustrating.
 

sarahthegrey

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Not just you. Trust me. I'm in a pretty intense quitting mood this week myself.

I recommend Jay Lake's blog posts on psychotic persistence. Good stuff when you're feeling hopeless. Google 'em.

Also, Nascence by Tobias Buckell, cheap on ebook. Helps to see another writer's progress (and to know how often he failed at first).

None of this is magic, though. Just...encouraging.
 

alexshvartsman

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I am so happy for all the recent sales. This must be a great group of writers. But when I read the braggage thread and see all the good news, it makes me question myself. I have sent out 32 submissions this year so I am putting myself out there. I guess I am just feeling a little discouraged. Is it just me?

One of the most important qualities in the new writer is persistence. You can't get discouraged, even if every response you get in the first couple of years is a rejection.

Invariably your writing will continue to improve (as long as you stick with it and don't give up in frustration because you haven't made a sale!) and eventually your stories will begin finding homes.

Now that you found the W1S1 sub-group, you should read up on our mission (both here and at write1sub1.com) of writing and submitting new stories consistently (one a week or one a month, mostly, based on personal preference). See if this is a way in which you'd like to challenge yourself and, hopefully, have that help you produce more output and eventually sell stories.

Of course, you're welcome to hang out with us here whether you join or not.
 

Sai

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I haven't made a sale since January, so I know how you feel.

There's a poem that I have pasted inside a writing book I love (the book is 'Writing Tools' by Roy Peter Clark and I highly recommend it). Whenever I turn to the book for advice I also make sure to read the poem that I put in there. It's simple, but it still gives me a boost:


When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
 
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Polenth

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Of course, you're welcome to hang out with us here whether you join or not.

They let me stay around after all. ;) I do generally aim for one story a month, but I've no interest in signing up to a site to say so... I just sort of do it.

You've got to work at your own pace. Focus on improving your work and hitting small targets, rather than comparing yourself to others. Some writers sell ten pro stories in their first year of submitting, get nominated for awards and everyone's talking about them. Comparing yourself to that won't lead you anywhere good.

For people selling here, it can be deceptive as you're seeing the sales, but not what went on before. I've had some nice sales, but that doesn't mean it was fast or easy to get there. I spent years not being very good at writing (or more accurately, almost three decades). I wasn't a talented child writer or anything like that. Once I started submitting, it was two years before a pro sale and I haven't broken out in a big way (I average about one or two pro sales a year, which is peanuts compared to established pro writers). It isn't overnight for most people. That's why the overnighters get attention, because it's rare.
 

Project Deadlight

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I have sent out 32 submissions this year so I am putting myself out there. I guess I am just feeling a little discouraged. Is it just me?

Do you enjoy writing? If so, then why do sales matter?

I understand your frustration, but 32 submissions isn't that many to be brutally honest with you. To put it in context, when I made my first 3 sales all in one month, I briefly had a message on duotrope saying that my acceptance rate was statistically above average for the markets I had submitted to. The figure? 2.4%. How many subs had I made at that point? Around 170.

It is very, very competitive out there and what we writers are asking is incredibly weird when you think about it. "Here is some stuff I plucked out of my head, can I have some money for it?"

Maybe if you plug away at your writing for 5 years and submit 200 a year and only ever get form R's or horrible personals, perhaps start feeling a little discouraged. Otherwise, write lots, sub lots and expect to get rejected. And for goodness sake, enjoy it!
 

gettingby

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How can you say 32 submissions isn't a lot? To have written all those stories in 2012 is a lot in my mind. I don't think I can write any faster. It seems like most people here are writing one a month, and I am doing a lot more than that.
 

zanzjan

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It took me two and a half years to get to my first sale, which was my 31st submission. My best year was 35 subs. And that was a whole year, not five months. So to me, 32 does seem like a lot. I suspect that in 10 years of writing, my total number of subs is probably less than what Alex manages in a single year. And I'm okay with that. (I also write much longer stuff than a lot of folks here, and occasionally dabble in novels.) We all work at our own pace, around different obstacles and assists in our life, and there's no magic number for when you sell, or when you're writing "enough", as long as you're writing and subbing at a pace you feel is sustainable without shorting the other stuff in your life that is important (family, friends, regular meals, etc.), and as long as you're working on your craft and thinking critically about where you are and where you want to go, and still getting joy from the work itself.

The point I'm trying to make is that what's a lot for one person might be a midling to low output for another, and I think the only person who can assign any sort of quantitative value judgment to that output is you (and that value will certainly change over time, sometimes sharply.) Don't measure yourself against anyone else's numbers here, or anyone else's success, only your own. And you'll get there.

(And we'll all be cheering for you the whole way.)
 

NewKidOldKid

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How can you say 32 submissions isn't a lot? To have written all those stories in 2012 is a lot in my mind. I don't think I can write any faster. It seems like most people here are writing one a month, and I am doing a lot more than that.

When you said "32 submissions," it sounded like you were saying you sent your stories to 32 different markets. Are you trying to say you wrote 32 stories and sent each one out to only one market? Or is it 32 stories and hundreds of submissions?
 

Polenth

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How can you say 32 submissions isn't a lot? To have written all those stories in 2012 is a lot in my mind. I don't think I can write any faster. It seems like most people here are writing one a month, and I am doing a lot more than that.

This isn't a numbers game where you get points for writing faster. You need to write at a speed that allows you to produce quality work at a rate you can maintain for years at a time. That's a different speed for each person.

You do come across as though your current writing speed is causing you to burn out. Practising a skill for six hours a day won't mean advancement six times faster than the person who practises for an hour. Downtime is an important part of improvement. Think of it more like muscle building, where if you overdo it, you damage your muscles and they have to heal before they can start growing again. Slowing down might bring more success (but still don't expect it to be quick... we're quoting years because it takes most people years).
 

Project Deadlight

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Polenth and Zan both speak sense and in a nicer way than myself.

There may be obvious reasons why your stories aren't selling, there may not be and you have just been unlucky. However, without any of us reading your work we can't do anything but speculate.

You didn't answer the questions in my last post which makes me think that what you are after isn't advice but a stroke on the arm (which we all need from time to time, I needed a big one when my 135 day sub was rejected last week on the same day I got 4 other rejections).

But if you are interested in advice, we need to know more. Firstly why do you write? Why are sales important to you?

Secondly, as someone else mentioned above, do you mean you have written 32 new stories since January? Or that you have subbed your stories to 32 markets? 32 new stories since January is impressive, but that raises new questions about whether your volume of output is affecting quality.

Other questions that are important: Are you getting nice personal rejections or are they all forms? Are you subbing to only pro markets or are you subbing to token and free markets as well.

And my last question, are you letting anyone crit your stories? I would personally urge you to get a crit reader asap if you haven't already. In fact, get a bunch of them. That way you get feedback on your work that will either help you become a better writer, or let you know you are a good writer and just need to keep going. Either way, if you approach it in a spirit of self-discovery, there is nothing to fear.

In this spirit, I don't mind sharing with you that I just got a quite harsh personal about one of my early stories that hasn't been selling. I have just read through it and it is terribly written. I am really glad the editor took the time to point these things out to me and I will be editing the story next week. You really do have to learn from and cherish your rejections.
 

gettingby

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Thanks for all the posts. I now have sent 41 submissions out for 20-something stories. I am trying pro and semi-pro markets. I write mainstream/literary. I take a writing class so I do get feedback on my work. People seem to like my stories from what they say.

I spend a lot of time reading and writing short stories. I feel I kind of act like it is my job. I put that much time into it.

I guess I just needed to vent when I started this thread. It is great that so many people here are making sales. I just feel a little left out of the club.
 

llambertlawson

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I had a string of 50 rejections before I finally hit another acceptance. Maybe you're almost there! Keep it up; keep plugging on. We're all in your boat (most of us, at least). :D
 

ShadowFox

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I did write 1 sub 1 last year; my 38th story was the first one to sell, and I had 150 rejections by the point I sold.

Keep on keeping on. You will sell eventually.
 

sarahthegrey

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Venting is as much a part of the process as everything else.

Venting is indispensible, if you have sufficiently vent-friendly acquaintances.

I also find physically shredding paper to be cathartic. Scissors are acceptable. The electric paper shredder makes a satisfying whir sound. But really getting in there and wadding up a hard-copy manuscript and ripping the godforsaken piece of unreadable garbage into scraps until it screams for a quick death, and then flushing it down an unscrubbed toilet...that helps quite a lot.

(I'm having a very bad writing day, by the way. My manuscripts are trembling in a corner.)
 

Allana

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I'm just starting out on the short story route again, after a hiatus of over 5 years.
First time around, my 5th story was accepted and I thought "Yay! I've cracked it!"
20 plus rejections later and I realised I hadn't really cracked it at all, just got lucky.
The acceptances did come again after a while, but there was nothing I could rely on to say "this is the one".
And I found no real rhyme nor reason between acceptances, publishers submitted to and rejections.
And I shed quite a few tears, did copious re-writes, and resorted to tantrums in the meantime.:)

So, why am I putting myself through this again....?
(I don't know. Masochist I guess!)
 

Phaeal

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Lately I've found the short story markets to be incredibly slow in responding, except for the few old pro reliables, like F&SF.

I've been working so hard on the novel front that I just noticed the other day how many stories I've had out for six months or more -- some for more than a year! I blame the W1/S1 crew for swamping the editors with their productivity. ;)

Just waiting on a good new credit to become official, then I'll probably pull those long-languishing stories and get back on the subbing schedule!

Patience, persistence. Hell yeah. Those must be our mantras....
 

Eiro

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Just keep writing! If it makes you feel better, I was writing and subbing short fiction for almost two years before I made my first sale. I don't even know how many rejections I got before then. Let it suffice to say "a lot."

Keep writing. Make sure you edit your stories. If you're getting personal rejects, seriously consider whatever critique is there and think about whether it will help improve the story you're trying to write--don't blindly accept or reject it. Every once in a while, revisit some of your old stories and reread them. Hopefully, you'll have learned enough since writing them that you'll find ways to improve them.

Also, make sure that your stories are suitable for the markets you're submitting to. It doesn't matter how good your story is if it's not what the editor is interested in.

And keep writing! If you want to be published, persistence is key.
 

gettingby

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Thanks everyone. I am up to 57 submissions with a new story ready to go out soon. This is much harder than I thought it would be, but it is nice to have the support of all you other W1S1ers.