The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

Congrats on that flash fiction acceptance, Elle!

Pingle - I would think Query Tracker is not really reliable when it comes to agent response time statistics. Not every querying writer is a member of QT, and not every member will post their results on there. So, I don't think QT can give you an accurate estimate of any agent's average response time...

Short stories sounds like a good idea in the waiting period. I wouldn't do anything more on your completed manuscript either, unless you have some feedback or R&R requests. (I've had some agent feedback on length that I think I agree with, so I'm still working on that…sigh)

(Yes, I'd like a link about that mentoring day, thank you – sounds interesting. Not that I'd qualify, being an ESL-writer is probably not considered under-represented exactly, but,still… )

rocoroca – I had about six betas I think, but on different stages of the manuscript. Yes, at one point you have to stop seeking feedback, close your eyes and go for it! So, if your betas mostly agree, and their feedback makes sense to you, then, OK – send it out!

Liz_V – you mean you had copies of Analog with your story in it??? whohoo, that must have been awesome!! And a three-sentence story? That's awesome too if you ask me - short is difficult! Absolutely a start, yes.

Congrats, Elle and Liz_V! Elle, be sure to post a link when it’s published.

Congrats, Elle & Liz_V!

Torill, I always post my data on querytracker. I've found it to be a reliable source most of the time. My response time is very close to the average response time reflected by QT. FWIW.

Thanks everybody and congrats Liz_V!

Congrats Liz, must be so nice to hold your words.

Torill, I've never actually used querytracker (beyond trying it once and getting confused by it all and giving up), I think I'm just remembering some old chat on here from ages ago. Are you cutting words or adding them? Good luck either way, I always struggle with length.

So breaking my toe and not being able to walk all weekend was good for my creativity. I've written, edited and polished two short stories and sent them out to one place each, and have a rough draft of a third, and a good idea for a fourth. No idea if they're any good, this is all new to me, but I'm enjoying it.

A question for those that writes shorts, do you send them to one place at a time and wait for a response before sending to the next? From what I can gather from my initial research, a lot of competitions and anthologies have a theme, so I guess you can't send one story everywhere. Are there any websites/magazines that accept all kinds of short stories and have constant open submissions? Or do you need to keep doing research to find places to send them?

Pingle - I don't send them one at a time otherwise it will takes ages (average response are about 3 months but some other places is a lot longer) plus the majority of publications allow simultaneous submissions. For example the flash of mine that was just accepted was submitted to about 10 journals.

The best resources is the Submittable online platform - a lot of magazines, anthologies and competitions uses it for writers to submit stories and also list their submission guidelines + you can track who you've submitted to and which stage it's at. It's free to use for writers. Otherwise the writing community on Twitter is another good resources as well.

How long are your short stories? I'm happy to have a look at one them if you would like some feedback.

Well done everyone. It's amazing! Someone will have to change the name of this thread

Thanks Elle, just had a look at Submittable, looks great!
What about if you're submitting to a competition that has a good prize but requires exclusivity of the story? Would you hold back from sending it elsewhere until the winners are announced? (not that I'm expecting to win anything but I'm curious anyway)

I've got one 2k story, one 3k story, and I wrote a 400 word flash today. That's really nice of you to offer. The flash is a bit rough right now, the 2k one was written for a romantic theme, not very me, so I'm not sure I'll send it out widely, and the 3k one is historical fantasy. But if you don't mind I might send a story over when I try something more contemporary. I feel like contemporary might have the widest appeal?

Pingle - I guess it depends on the competition and how long before you get the results.

Submittable is great, especially the "save" function and the ability to follow journals on there however it's worth keeping an eye on Twitter too as a lot of good journals are not on Submittable. Contemporary would definitely have the most appeal. Anyway once you want me to have a look at something just let me know.

Pingle, I use Submission Grinder to find markets for shorts, then you aren't limited to markets that use Submittable. You can search for markets by all kinds of criteria: genre, word count, payment rate, or response time. You can see average and current response times, too.

Always check submission guidelines from a market before you submit. Many don't want simultaneous submissions (sending to more than one market at a time), or multiple submissions (sending multiple stories to the same market at the same time). I write SFF, and those markets almost always say no sim subs. It's my understanding that literary markets are more lenient on that, but also that they're more likely to never respond, whereas SFF markets almost always do (you can see a market's response rates on SG, too).

About QueryTracker – I do have an account there, but haven't used it much – since I've been querying UK agents I've mostly used the Jericho Writers resources. So my thoughts are based on reports and discussions here and elsewhere, too, not personal experience... I don't mean info from there is worthless, it will give some hints about agents response time etc, surely. But since it's based on self-report from members, it won't give any 'true' statistics. Meaning, I wouldn't assume that because many swift postive responses from one agent is reported on QueryTracker, then that agent's slow response must mean she will say no. Don't give up hope or write anyone off because of QT's statistics, is all I'm saying...

Pingle – glad to hear you get so much writing done, but breaking your toe – oouch! Hope it's healing well and is not too painful!

I'm trying to cut words, meaning, trying to simplify a few things – and that means rewriting. Which does give me headaches and procrastination syndrome galore. Because breaking up this fully polished, beautifully paced/structured (according to the expert=me) manuscript yet AGAIN means a lot of headaches and difficult choices and unforeseen consequences. (If I cut this scene, and instead have these two people discuss those things in that scene instead – but then they can't do whatever they did leading up to that scene, because then they would never stand around having this type discussion, would they – plus if they reveal those things to each other (and the reader) this early, then they won't have any motivation to do what they must do later in the story, plus a lot of tension is gone, so then I need to build tension some other way, and then I may have to …)
Tl;dr:

pingle said:

Congrats Liz, must be so nice to hold your words.

Torill, I've never actually used querytracker (beyond trying it once and getting confused by it all and giving up), I think I'm just remembering some old chat on here from ages ago. Are you cutting words or adding them? Good luck either way, I always struggle with length.

So breaking my toe and not being able to walk all weekend was good for my creativity. I've written, edited and polished two short stories and sent them out to one place each, and have a rough draft of a third, and a good idea for a fourth. No idea if they're any good, this is all new to me, but I'm enjoying it.

A question for those that writes shorts, do you send them to one place at a time and wait for a response before sending to the next? From what I can gather from my initial research, a lot of competitions and anthologies have a theme, so I guess you can't send one story everywhere. Are there any websites/magazines that accept all kinds of short stories and have constant open submissions? Or do you need to keep doing research to find places to send them?

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I have almost never had multiple to send out at once! But yeah as others say most places don't accept multiple or simultaneous subs. I have a submission order, which starts with clarkesworld (the 3 day rejection, hurrah) and works down from there to increasingly larger times. When I run out of pro markets currently open, I start sending to semi pro zines. Most semi pro places allow you to simultaneous sub, which is very handt.

Thanks for the info, JJ and Harlequin, much appreciated. I've got about ten tabs open with short story requests up, and noticed a few mentioned that simultaneous subs were ok, but a lot of them are free and don't pay, so maybe that's why. I'm quite shocked at how much money you could sink into sending shorts out. But I guess they've got to raise the prize money somehow (I'm presuming that's what's going on). It's a whole new literary world! It feels so good to take a proper mental break from novel writing and trying to get an agent though – while still being creative!

Torill, that does sound tough, but if an agent suggested it (and you consider them the kind of agent you'd like to one day have) I'd be inclined to listen. If at the end of it you don't feel the changes are positive then you can always go back to your older version (though I'm sure along the way you'll find things to improve).

pingle - Sympathies on the toe! Most markets for shorts do not allow simultaneous submissions, so yeah, it's send to one and then wait for the response, wash rinse repeat until that response is a yes. There are some that do allow sim subs; check the guidelines.

pingle said:

I'm quite shocked at how much money you could sink into sending shorts out.

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My first reaction is that any place that requires you to pay to sub should be viewed with extreme suspicion -- but I know that varies depending on your genre. In the SF/F world, it's an enormous red flag. I guess it's more of a thing if you're writing litfic? Still... I'd proceed with caution, and take a serious look at whether the potential reward is proportionate to the entry fee.

Torill - Sympathies on the rewriting! On the whole, I think I'd rather break a toe.

pingle said:

I'm quite shocked at how much money you could sink into sending shorts out. But I guess they've got to raise the prize money somehow (I'm presuming that's what's going on).

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Whoa, what are you talking about? You don’t have to pay to sub stories out. I would never sub to a place that charged for it. Money should flow toward the author. Charging fees for subs is a scam. I can’t think of a single reputable market that charges for subs. Seriously, start searching on Submission Grinder, they post warnings on markets that charge fees to sub.

Also, don’t start on the low end, sub to the highest markets first. Personally, I don’t sub to free markets. If I run out of reputable paying markets for a story, I trunk it with the idea of either subbing it to new markets later, or perhaps rewriting/reusing parts of it for another project.

Just curious JJ Litke, but at what point on the available payscale do you trunk a story? After all the semi pros are exhausted? The token payers?

I'm fast facing that question on a story no one is interested in, myself. Wondering at what point to trunk.

Vincent said:

Just curious JJ Litke, but at what point on the available payscale do you trunk a story? After all the semi pros are exhausted? The token payers?

I'm fast facing that question on a story no one is interested in, myself. Wondering at what point to trunk.

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While I may not be JJ (Nature Futures please take my stories), I heard a piece of subbing advice on Writing Excuses from Mary Robinette Kowal a few years ago that's stuck with me. She said that when considering a market, you should look at how prestigious it is, how much it pays, and how "shiny" it is (how much you like it as a market for personal/aesthetic reasons regardless of pay or prestige).

Any of those factors could be a good reason to submit, so when I'm down to token markets it's all about the shininess factor and how long the market has been around.

shortstorymachinist said:

While I may not be JJ (Nature Futures please take my stories), I heard a piece of subbing advice on Writing Excuses from Mary Robinette Kowal a few years ago that's stuck with me. She said that when considering a market, you should look at how prestigious it is, how much it pays, and how "shiny" it is (how much you like it as a market for personal/aesthetic reasons regardless of pay or prestige).

Any of those factors could be a good reason to submit, so when I'm down to token markets it's all about the shininess factor and how long the market has been around.

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Yeah sounds like good advice, thank you. For me personally I'd say a physical copy in my hands would be a big Shiny, but those are getting scarcer.

Vincent said:

Yeah sounds like good advice, thank you. For me personally I'd say a physical copy in my hands would be a big Shiny, but those are getting scarcer.

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For sure, there's something appealing about the idea of holding it in your hands, like a cycle's been completed. It is too bad that's becoming less common :/ But I guess the upside is that digital publishing means more markets can afford to exist in the first place?

JJ Litke said:

Whoa, what are you talking about? You don’t have to pay to sub stories out. I would never sub to a place that charged for it. Money should flow toward the author. Charging fees for subs is a scam. I can’t think of a single reputable market that charges for subs. Seriously, start searching on Submission Grinder, they post warnings on markets that charge fees to sub.

Also, don’t start on the low end, sub to the highest markets first. Personally, I don’t sub to free markets. If I run out of reputable paying markets for a story, I trunk it with the idea of either subbing it to new markets later, or perhaps rewriting/reusing parts of it for another project.

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Maybe it's just competitions that you pay to enter? I was going through this list https://writershq.co.uk/writing-competitions-opportunities-march-2020/ and loads have an entry fee, but also a cash prize. That said, the places that I've heard of, such as the BBC one, don't seem to charge. So would you say the less known ones are scams? (btw I'm not blowing money on loads of competitions, can't afford it )

shortstorymachinist said:

For sure, there's something appealing about the idea of holding it in your hands, like a cycle's been completed. It is too bad that's becoming less common :/ But I guess the upside is that digital publishing means more markets can afford to exist in the first place?

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The more fun unique markets the merrier.

pingle said:

Maybe it's just competitions that you pay to enter? I was going through this list https://writershq.co.uk/writing-competitions-opportunities-march-2020/ and loads have an entry fee, but also a cash prize. That said, the places that I've heard of, such as the BBC one, don't seem to charge. So would you say the less known ones are scams? (btw I'm not blowing money on loads of competitions, can't afford it )

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As far as I know that's how most writing competitions finance their cash prizes and pay their readers if they use any, at least for literary competitions. Most have reasonable entries but some are rather ridiculous (I think the Master Review charges $20 which its crazy) At the end of the day you have to look at how much and if the prize his worthy and if it is a competition that will give you exposure.

BBC competition doesn't charge because they have the money to run such a competition however you can only enter the BBC competition is you have been published (anthologies or magazines with a ISBN number)

EDIT: competitions are nice however only the winning stories or short-listed get printed. If you want your work out there submitting to magazines makes more sense. But it's your choice.

Thank you for your replies Elle and Lakey <3 I mentioned in one of my posts that I thought it must be a way of raising the prize money, so that's great to hear it confirmed. There are a couple that looked quite appealing to me (with low entry costs). My algorithm seems to have changed on twitter and keeps showing me posts from a flash comp (similar to one I'm considering entering) that's just announced its long and then shortlist and there seems a lot of camaraderie and good feeling among those that entered, even those that haven't got through, so I was a bit worried thinking it might have been a scam. Glad to hear it isn't an unusual way to run comps

Elle. said:

BBC competition doesn't charge because they have the money to run such a competition however you can only enter the BBC competition is you have been published (anthologies or magazines with a ISBN number)

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Yeah, I quickly closed that tab £15,000 certainly sounds a nice prize