How many things do you have on submission?

gettingby

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How many things do you guys have on submission or how many submissions do you have out? I've got 25 out right now. I am trying to maintain that as my minimum. It goes up and down a little. And sometimes a bunch of rejections come at once, and that makes it hard. But I am dedicated to short story writing. And, for some reason, I think I will eventually write something that someone will want. I will admit that not every story I have ever written is on submission. They all have been at some point, but some of them I just don't think are worth it. I can do better now. Just curious, how many things you try keep on submission? We're all producing new work on a regular basis. Do you keep all of your stories of submission? How many places do you typically send a story to at the same time? Do you have a minimum number of submissions you try to keep out there?
 
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JRTroughton

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5.

Um.

Should probably start writing some more. I've killed 2-3 stories but have everything else on submission.
 

AbsintheWhisper

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Currently, I have 8 out. I try to keep between 10 and 12 out, but I have a novella that's been eating up my time. I generally go through my stories when they come back from a couple of places to see if I can improve them before I send them back out. I also have a new one I wrote that I haven't had time to do a second draft of because of said novella. I've had as many as 14 out at one time. I'll get up that high again once the novella is done. I don't have all of my stories out at once. I have about 20 that I can submit if I really wanted to. I never totally trunk a story. I'll use it for something else. Some of my stories aren't clear cut one genre or another so they're hard to place. When I see a place they might fit I send them. Other than that they're on the back burner.
 

DetectiveFork

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That's so prolific, gettingby! Wow! I had about a dozen out at once, but trunked most of them as the year began. The feedback I managed to collect convinced me that a lot of the stories could use some work, and I didn't want to waste any more opportunities for them. Currently I have three stories out for consideration. I have another I'm about to ready to workshop and hope to send out soon after (unless it totally sucks lol).
 

gettingby

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Hey, it only takes one story to publish someplace great. I think I am really pushing myself to submit and keep stuff on submission. I've had a lot out before and everything was rejected. The same thing could happen again. That's why I want to keep a large number of things on submission. For me, it's too depressing if I get a bunch of rejections around the same time and find myself with nothing left on submission. I don't want to feel that way again. But I know a lot of folks around here get things accepted. Maybe if any of these publications took my work, I wouldn't have so many stories to send out. One can dream...
 

DragonHeart

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At the moment, none, but if all goes well I've have something to start sending out at the end of the month. I'm slowly digging older works out of my archives to clean up and get them out there; I tend to finish first drafts and then never go back and revise. One of my plans for this year is to kind of play catch up on that front, and get back in the game.

I'll keep out as many things on submission as I have available for submitting, and keep them out until I've gone through all the markets appropriate for the work. If I get to a point where I can look back on the piece and see where it's going 'wrong', then I'll pull it, fix it, and get it back out there. If it doesn't sell, I'll archive it until I find new places to submit it to.

That's the current plan, anyway.
 

pdichellis

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Right now, 12. That's the high end of the range for me, 8-10 is more usual, depending on how many stories I have available.

FYI, a rule of thumb I've heard is to use the formula '1 divided by your acceptance rate' to estimate how many submissions to have out. So if your average, long run acceptance rate were 5% for example (that's the average fiction acceptance rate on Duo) you'd want to keep 1/.05 = 20 submissions out. The theory is you'd typically have an acceptance in the pipeline, because 5% of 20 = 1, and so forth for other acceptance rates.

Maybe more psychological than mathematical, but:

10% acceptance rate = 1/.10 = average one acceptance for every 10 subs.
5% acceptance rate = 1/.05 = average one acceptance for every 20 subs.
2% acceptance rate = 1/.02 = average one acceptance for every 50 subs.

Good luck!
 

TravelHat

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In terms of fiction --- Two

And I have never had a rejection!!!!!!

(and I have never had an acceptance either, as these are the first two that I have submitted)

I am also working on 2 - 3 more as I am awaiting my rejections. :)
 

mistri

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I have 11 out.

Gosh, if I were to go by my acceptance rate, I'd need to have waaaaayyyyy more out, I've had two acceptances in two years and over 100 rejections.

I don't think I'm ever going to get 50 stories in the submission queue. However I am improving my writing as I'm going, so hopefully I will eventually get some more acceptances and improve that awful acceptance rate.

Ideally I'd like to have about 15 out there I think. I do trunk stories when I begin to feel they're justifiably getting rejected and they're not easily rewritten/revised.
 

Ty Schalter

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I've got two out right now; my grinding rate is very low since I've trunked a few stories, self-pubbed one and now only have about three pieces I'm comfortable submitting.

One is a flash piece at Gamut that's been "in progress" for a while and seems to be outlasting its peers; it's a good fit for that market and I'm starting to get hopeful.

The other's been with The Book Smugglers for 142 days, but looking at The Grinder it seems like they've been doing a 50/50 first pass on everything submitted during the window, in order. I submitted a few days after the window opened in August and it just closed with the new year, and it looks like they're still first-passing the December stories.

Peace
Ty
 

Joseph Schmol

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I have yet to submit to any magazines. I have written many stories but always felt they were incomplete. So I couldn't ever reconcile sending a story to another to accept, when I, myself, was displeased with it. It seems akin to serving a spoiled meal to dinner guests, and then while refraining from eating myself.

But I have almost finished a couple of stories. They will go out this year. And I expect I'll write some more as well. Maybe it'll be like losing my virginity, I'll want to send more and more and more?