Sold my first story--waiting for contract?

audibob1

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I just sold my very first story to DSF. (Yay! :partyguy:)

But It's been about a week now and I haven't gotten anything except the acceptance letter. They said they'd send a contract soon but I wasn't sure how soon "soon" really means since it's been a week with no word. Since I haven't done this before... is it common to get the acceptance letter and then not hear back for several weeks? And for those previously published by DSF, how long did you wait before they emailed your contract?
 
Maggie Maxwell

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Hey, congrats! I also just got my acceptance from DSF, and I can tell you from my experience of one week ago, it was exactly a week between acceptance letter and contract with no edits (May 9th to May 16th). It may be a little longer if yours requires edits, but you'll probably get it in the next day or two.
 

audibob1

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This is so helpful! Thank you, Maggie, and congrats to you as well!

Thank you, Denevius!
 

Aphotic Ink

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Just chiming in to add congratulations! That's awesome. :)
 
Harlequin

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Congrats!

It varies massively from zine to zine, as far as I can tell. For Aurealis it took me months to see a contract, and several months later I'm still not published either :p

For Flash Fiction Online they wanted edits first, and then a couple weeks after the final edits the contract came through.

Andromeda do their contracts once a month (or something like that) to minimise admin for themselves.

Sub Q... not seen a contract yet, lol.

In short it seems to take awhile? But most of these places are staffed by unpaid volunteer editors so real life probably take priority.
 
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