800 Rejections or That Which Does Not Accept You Makes You Stronger
On April 4th of this year, I hit another big submission milestone. I received my 800th rejections since I started recording them on Duotrope back in 2012. As usual, I have some dirty details on my nice round number of noes and not for uses. Let’s get to it!
Rejected Stories
First, let’s talk about the stories that were rejected. I had a total of 171 distinct stories rejected in the thirteen years and change I’ve been submitting. I went on to sell 81 of those rejected stories, which is roughly 47% or within spitting distance of half. That’s not bad, especially when I consider many of the unsold stories come from when I started submitting, and were simply not ready for primetime.
Most Rejected Stories
Below are my top ten most rejections stories.
- Time Has No Memory* (25)
- Set in Stone (25)
- Signs and Wonders (23)
- Trapping Disaster (22)
- Paper Cut* (18)
- The Scars You Keep* (16)
- Caroline* (15)
- The Downer* (15)
- Coffin Shopping (12)
- Bites* (12)
These are the stories that have racked up the most rejections. The ones marked with an asterisk are ones I eventually sold. One thing these stories all have in common is they’re short stories instead of flash. For whatever reason, I sell flash much, much quicker than I do shorts. That likely has to do with the fact that there are fewer slots available for short stories and they represent a larger investment of both money and time for the publisher. The one I’m most proud of here is “Times Has No Memory” which took me almost five years to sell, with final round rejections from a bunch of pro markets. I eventually sold it to Abyss & Apex last year, and you can read it for free right here.
Rejecting Markets
So, who’s responsible for my 800 rejections? Well, a whole bunch of publishers, actually. A full 178 of them, to be exact. These markets range from tiny for-the-love-of-it publishers to the biggest, most recognizable magazines in the SFF industry. I get around when it comes to rejections. One interesting and kind of sad statistic from this list is that a full 70 of these markets have gone defunct or are on indefinite hiatus. It’s a tough gig to run a genre mag, and no mistake.
Most Rejecting Markets
Below are ten markets that have rejected me the most.
- The Molotov Cocktail (54)
- Flash Fiction Online* (44)
- The Arcanist (31)
- Apex Magazine* (28)
- Flame Tree Press (25)
- NewMyths.com (25)
- Daily Science Fiction* (24)
- The Dark Magazine* (24)
- Factor Four Magazine (23)
- The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction* (17)
The markets marked with an asterisk are ones that I have yet to sell a story to. I know; that FFO number is pretty high, but I keep making it to the final round of consideration, so I’m gonna keep on submitting to them. Apex is a tougher nut to crack, but I’ve made it out of the slush pile enough and to the final round of their monthly flash fiction contest, so I think they’re worth keeping after as well. Of course, Daily Science Fiction is sadly on indefinite hiatus, so it’s unlikely I’ll ever get the chance to publish with them. Now, the numbers for The Molotov Cocktail and The Arcanist look pretty high, BUT I’ve published 17 stories with Molotov and 16 with The Arcanist, so my hit to miss ratio was still pretty good.
Lessons Learned
The big question is what have I learned from 800 rejections? Well, a few things that make getting rejected easier and allow me to put it in its proper perspective. If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, then you’ll have heard me say these things before, but they bear repeating for new folks and as a reminder to the veterans.
- A rejection is often more about timing than the quality of the story. I mean, look, most of pieces, even my best pieces, received a bunch of rejections before I sold them. You have to put the right story in front of the right editor at the right time. Sometimes, you get lucky and you do that right out of the gate. Other times, like in the case of “Time Has No Memory” you get rejected 26 times before you finally get that combo correct.
- Don’t dwell on rejections. Move on. This is one of the most important lessons you can learn from rejection. They sting, especially at first, but most of the time, a rejection doesn’t tell you anything other than the publisher is not going to publish your story. There’s no feedback, and even when there is, it’s often highly specific to that market. So, feel your feels, then get that story back out there. You’ll feel better; I promise.
- If you believe in a story, stick with it. If you take away anything from his post, it should be that perseverance does pay off, and good stories do find a home eventually. So keep writing, keep submitting, and keep going.
And there you have it. The crunchy details on 800 rejections. Thoughts and opinions? Tales of your own rejection woes. Tell me about it in the comments.
The Millennial Milestone – 1,000 Submissions!
A few days ago, I hit a submission milestone more than a decade in the making. Yep, 1,000 submissions. It’s been a long road with a lot of ups and downs, but it feels pretty damn good to see that giant round number on Duotrope. I’ve even held off on sending out more subs recently because I just like looking at it. 🙂 Anyway, as I always do when I hit a big submissions milestone, I’ve broken down all the crunchy details for you. So, let’s dive in and see what 1,000 submissions actually looks like.
Basic Stats
Okay, first, here are the basic nuts and bolts.
- Submissions: 1,000
- Acceptance: 120
- Rejections: 797
- Lost/Returned: 3
- Never Responded: 25
- Withdrawn: 32
- Pending: 23
- Acceptance Percentage: 13%
Most of these categories are pretty obvious, and things like acceptances, rejections, and pending don’t need further explanation. Now, I’ll admit, I don’t even remember why I labeled three submissions as lost/returned instead of never responded. I will say, that I use never responded now for markets that a) don’t respond and b) don’t have a notice in their guidelines that says a non-response is basically a rejection. Withdrawn is also pretty obvious, though the vast majority of my withdrawn subs, especially early on, were from markets that didn’t respond after one or multiple submission status queries. Now I use it for the rare occasions I sell a story that’s been sim-subbed or I remove a story for other, miscellaneous reasons. The acceptance percentage is simply the number of acceptances divided by the number submissions minus pending, withdrawn, lost/returned, and never responded. An argument could be made that I should count never responded as rejections, so if you want that number, it drops my acceptance percentage to 12.7 percent.
The Stories
Now let’s look at the stories that made up all those submissions. Below is the number of distinct stories, then those stories broken out by length. The number in parentheses is the number of each type of story I’ve actually sold.
- First Submission: 4/16/12
- Last Submission: 3/20/26
- Distinct Stories: 195
- Flash Fiction: 147 (76)
- Short Stories: 40 (23)
- Microfiction: 4 (3)
- Novels: 3 (0)
- Novellas: 1(1)
Hey, how about that perfect record on novellas? Not bad, huh? 😉 Anyway, 195 stories is a bunch, and one of the things I’m most proud of in this heap of stats is that I’ve sold a bit more than half of the stories I’ve written (103 out of 195). Looking back over my submission history, there are a bunch of stories that simply weren’t good enough to be submitted in the first place, but I think that’s a common issue for most writers when they first start seriously subbing their work. These days, I’m a bit better at only subbing stories that have a chance of selling. Obviously, the bulk of my output has been flash fiction, but my overall acceptance rate is about the same for short stories. It just takes me a lot longer to sell them.
Here are a couple of other numbers I wanted to share about individual stories.
- Most Subbed Story: 28
- Most Subbed Story Before a Sale: 26
My most subbed story period is an urban fantasy piece called “Set in Stone.” I shopped it for years, and though I got a couple of final-round rejections, I never could place it. It now lives in the trunk. On the other hand, “Time Has No Memory” was also subbed for years, but I did manage to sell that one to Abyss & Apex. It comes out next month. 🙂
The Markets
Finally, let’s take a look at the markets whose inboxes I’ve been haunting over that last decade and change. Couple of notes here. At one point I was tracking my novel queries through Duotrope, which was a mistake that just kind of muddied the waters. Those queries are included in my submission total, but I’ve removed them from the distinct markets list because, well, agents aren’t markets. In the case that I sent a novel directly to a publisher, though, I included that publisher in the numbers below. It’s not perfect, but it’s what I got. Also, I’m kinda going off memory for some of these markets as to whether they’re semi-pro or token. That’s primarily because so many of the markets on my list don’t exist anymore, so I have no reliable way to look that up. I think I’m mostly right, though, especially with the pro markets.
- Distinct Markets: 227
- Pro Markets: 92
- Semi-Pro Markets: 127
- Token Markets: 8
As you can see, I generally restrict my submission to pro and semi-pro markets, though some of these markets make semi-pro by the skin of their teeth. Lately, I send to pro markets first, then to semi-pro, and then I usually trunk the story or wait until more pro or semi-pro markets open for subs. I will occasionally send a piece to a token publisher, but it’s usually a reprint.
Couple of other numbers regarding individual markets you might find interesting.
- Most Subs to a Single Market: 72
- Most Subs to a Single Market Without a Sale: 44
The most subs to a single market is to The Molotov Cocktail, mostly on account of their flash fiction contests. I do have 17 acceptances there, though. The other market that I’ve sent a TON of work to where I actually sold them something was The Arcanist, now sadly on hiatus. I sent them 50 submissions and sold them 16 stories. Now for the bad news. The market that I have submitted to most without a single sale to my name is Flash Fiction Online. I’ve made it to the final round of their deliberations enough that I’ll keep trying, but, man, 44 noes in row does sting a bit.
And there you have it. One thousand submissions in all their glory and shame. Let me know what you think about my little milestone, and feel free to share one of your own in the comments.
I’ll see ya at 2,000! 😉
Three Things I Learned from 100 Story Sales
Since I started submitting work seriously in 2013, I’ve sold* 120 short stories. Like the piles of rejections I’ve racked up in that same time, my much smaller heap of acceptances has taught me some valuable lessons about writing and the often arcane process of trying to get other people to publish your work. Let’s talk about three of them.
- Short Sells. In my experience, the shorter the story, the easier it is to sell. I even have stats to back it up. To date, I have sold 85 flash fiction stories and 29 short stories. I’ve also sold a novella and a handful of micros, but, you know, sample size. It generally takes me about three submissions to sell a flash piece, while it takes an average of eight to sell a short story. Part of this might simply be because I’m better at writing flash fiction than I am at writing longer works, but there are definitely other factors at play. One, flash fiction markets tend to publish more often, sometimes once per week, hell, sometimes daily, so they tend to be open to subs more often and they need more subs than other journals. So, basically, your chances of selling a flash piece are just better because there are more open slots. Now, this is not to say you shouldn’t write and submit shorts–I mean, I do–but you should expect it to take a little longer to get stories over 1,000 words accepted. Of course, this could just be a me problem, and the rest of you are selling 5,000-word shorts on the first sub. 🙂
- Dance With the Ones That Brung Ya. Look, I definitely try to sell as many stories to as many markets as possible, but when I find a publisher that likes my work enough to publish it multiple times and pays a pro rate, I’m going back to that well. A LOT. You see, I am convinced that selling a story comes down to right editor, right time, right place, and when I sell multiple pieces to the same market, then I feel I’ve got two of those things in my favor. It’s even better when these markets that get me are pro rate publishers. So, yes, I’m gonna keep chasing acceptances at Flash Fiction Online, Small Wonders, Nightmare, and Apex, but I’m also gonna keep sending stories to Factor Four Magazine, MetaStellar, and The Flame Tree Flash Fiction Newsletter, all of which have published me three or more times. It’s good for my acceptance numbers, good for my confidence, and it puts more of my stories at respected markets for folks to read.
- It’s Okay to Ignore Editorial Feedback. Getting feedback on a rejection is great, and I have nothing but gratitude for editors that take the time to leave a personal note. For one, it tells you a lot about what the editor wants out of a story, and it can tell you when it’s time to revise. That said, a lot of feedback is simply editorial preference, and it’s perfectly okay to ignore it if it doesn’t fit your vision of the story. I’ve received feedback on stories that were rejected, decided not to action that feedback, and then sold the story to a pro market on the next submission. Conversely, I have taken editorial feedback to heart when it resonated with me, made the revisions, and then sold the story likely because of those revisions. This is not to say that the editorial feedback I ignore is wrong. It’s 100% right for that editor and that market, but ultimately not right for my story. It can be tricky to tell which is which of course, and it comes down to a gut feeling borne out of experience and a deep understanding of your specific goals with each story.
So, there you have it. Three lessons learned from 100-plus story sales. Now, admittedly, these are fairly specific to my personal experiences, but I think there’s some universal truths here that are applicable to anyone heading into the submission trenches.
What have you learned from your own story sales? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
*The vast majority of my short story publications are of the paid variety, but for the sake of transparency, there are some “for the love of it” publications in the mix.
2026 Writing Goals Bingo
Last year, I set a number of short fiction writing goals for myself that I represented in a bingo card as a fun bit of motivation and to have a snazzy graphic for blog posts. Though, at the end of the year, I did okay, I may have been a little too ambitious. Anyway, I’m doing the writing goals bingo thing again for 2026, but I’m being a tad more conservative with how high I set the bar in certain areas. So, without further ado, here’s the 2026 goals.
So, the five goals, which are each broken up into five sperate tiers above, are:
- 120 Submissions
- 100 Rejections
- 15 Acceptances
- 12 Pro Sales
- 30 New Stories
Each of the goals is pretty straight forward, but I’ll discuss each one and give you my reasoning for where I set the bar.
120 Submissions – Last year, I set this goal at 150, and I managed 122 submissions. I’m setting it at 120 this year because though it is a very steady pace, it’s not breakneck. That said, this is one of the goals I think I can easily hit or exceed since it’s entirely within my control.
100 Rejections – For me, hitting 100 rejections means I’m a) sending a lot of submissions and b) writing a lot of new material. So, it’s kind of gauge for how I’m doing other goals, and if I hit those, I should hit this one almost by default.
15 Acceptances – In 2025, I set this mark at 25 acceptances, which is, admittedly, bananas. I don’t regret doing it since I have flirted with 20 acceptances in a single year in the past, but in the current literary environment, and since I primarily submit to pro markets, 15 feels a lot more doable, and, hey, I WANT to succeed. 😉
12 Pro Sales – This is probably the most ambitious of my goals, as pro sales are pretty tough to come by. Last year, I had five pro sales, which was half of my ten total. I did, however, have A LOT of final-round rejections from pro markets, so I feel like ten or twelve is possible with a little luck. So, yeah, twelve is ambitious, but I think doable.
30 New Stories – Last year, I set another ambitious writing goal, which was to write a new story every week. I didn’t succeed, but I did manage 35 new stories, which is a good number, I think. I set the bar a little lower this year because I’ve got some other projects I want to work on. But if I can manage 30 new stories, I should have pretty good shot at hitting my other goals.
And those are my short story submission goals for 2026. Although I backed off a bit from last year’s goals, I think these are more than respectable, and if I can hit them all, that’ll be a hell of a good year.
What are your writing goals in 2026? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
What Happens to Rejected Stories?
Recently, it came to my attention that when I say “I have almost 800 rejections”, some folks think YOU’VE HAD 800 STORIES REJECTED?! That’s understandable without context, especially if you’re not in the biz. It did get me thinking, though. Just how many distinct stories have I had rejected? And, further, what happened to those stories? Let’s find out!
To date, I have 773 rejections since I started tracking them back in 2012. I ran a quick report on Dutrope, and those 773 rejections equate to 166 distinct pieces. Most of those pieces are flash fiction and short stories, but there’s a novella and a couple of novels mixed in there, too.
Looking deeper, here’s what happened to those 166 rejected stories.
- Accepted: 87 (418)
- Pending/Potential: 27 (182)
- Trunked: 52 (173)
I’ve broken the rejected stories into three broad categories with the number of stories and the total number of rejections each category is responsible for. Let’s drill down, and I’ll explain what each category means.
Accepted
Pretty straight forward. The stories in this category, despite racking up a ton of rejections, were eventually accepted and published somewhere. They constitute a full 54% of my rejections, which, honestly, makes me feel pretty good and definitely says something about sticking with stories you feel confident about even thought they’re getting rejected. In fact, thirty of these stories received five or more rejections and fourteen of them suffered through double digits. Persistence for the win, huh?
Pending/Potential
The twenty-seven stories in this category are either currently pending with a publisher, or they’re stories I think are good enough to keep sending out. Most are fairly recent pieces, but there’s a couple of veterans in here with over twenty rejections that I keep doggedly submitting. It’s possible and even likely that some of these stories will eventually be relegated to the next category.
Trunked
If you’re unfamiliar with this term, trunked simply means when an author has given up on publishing a story, generally because they’ve decided it’s just not good enough. Most of the fifty-two stories in this category are pretty old, originating in the early 2010s when I first started submitting seriously. There’s not very many recent stories in here, mostly because I’ve gotten better at identifying pieces that are just not gonna sell before I start submitting them. That said, I have on occasion resurrected a trunk story, spruced it up, and sold it. Often times, that’s because the story has a good premise, but I might not have had the chops to make the most out of it ten years ago. Now, with more experience, I can take some of these flawed pieces and polish them into something sellable.
There you have it. The fates of all my rejected stories. I’ll admit, I’m somewhat surprised at how it all shook out. The fact that the bulk of my rejections come from stories I eventually sell is, to be honest, pretty encouraging, and further proof that selling a story is about putting the right piece in front of the right editor at the right time.
Thoughts on all my no’s and not for us’s? Tell me about it in the comments.
2025: A Short Fiction Rearview Review
Welp, 2025 is over, and it’s time to tally up my submissions, rejections, and acceptances and see how I did. I set some lofty goals for the year, and though I fell short of more than one of them, it wasn’t a terrible year, and in fact, in at least one way, it was one of my best years. Lets get into it.
Short Story Submissions
Here are the basic numbers for my short story submissions in 2025.
- Submissions: 122
- Acceptances: 10
- Rejections: 86
- Pending: 20
- No Response/Withdrawn: 6
- Publications: 8
So, 122 submissions is my record for a single year. I’d hoped to get closer to 150, which would have given me 1,000 submissions total since I started tracking them, but that’s gonna have to wait until the end of Q1 this year. Ten acceptances is solid, and once you factor in pending stories, no responses, and withdrawals, I’m sitting at just over a 10% acceptance rate. Not too bad. That number could even go up if some of the pending subs I sent in 2025 come back as acceptances. (Duotrope counts them for the year a sub was sent not when it was accepted.)
The 86 rejections feels a little light for the number of submissions I sent, honestly. The last time I hit 120 subs, I had over 100 rejections (more acceptances, too). I think some of that has to do with the fact that markets are taking longer to respond to submissions, likely due to an increase in the number of submitters, and some of that likely has to do with an increase in the number of AI submissions.
I also got A LOT of close-but-no-cigar and final-round rejections this year. I haven’t yet confirmed, but it feels like more than any other year. Lots of heartbreakers from pro markets, and it feels like I could have easily had another five or so acceptances if I’d had a little better luck/timing, but, you know, c’est la vie.
Publications
Despite getting ten acceptances, I only managed eight short fiction publications in 2025, and a few of those were from sales I made in 2024. Some of this has to do with pro markets having a longer lead times for publications. For example, the stories I sold to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Abyss & Apex were sent in 2024, accepted in 2025, and will publish in 2026.
Anyway, here are some of my 2025 publications that you can read for free online. (The others are behind a paywall.)
- “Care and Fiending” published by Factor Four Magazine
- “Coin Flip” published by Flash Point SF
- “The Other Side of Empty” published by Dream, Theory Media
- “Thicker Than Water” published by Radon Journal
- “What Hope’s Worth” published by MetaStellar
2025 Goals
As I said at the beginning of the post, I set some lofty goals for 2025 for short fiction. I met some of them, and well, others, not so much. I was tracking them in a bingo format (another goals I failed to meet), which I updated for this post.
Damn! Just missed the O!
As you can see , I did okay with submissions, production, and, of course, rejection goals. I struggled with sales goals. Still, there’s more green than white, so not too terrible. I might do something similar to this for 2026, but I’ll likely tone down the new story and sales goals just a tad. 🙂
And that’s my 2025 short fiction review. How was year in the submission trenches? Tell me about it in the comments.
Ten Years of Rejectomancy – ALL the Numbers
So, this is truly the final post in my Ten Years of Rejectomancy series. As promised, I’m gonna give you ALL the numbers for each year and then a total of subs, rejections, and acceptances for the entire decade (plus the years before and this year). It’s been a blast to look back on the highs and lows of ten-plus years in the submission trenches, and I hope the journey has been inspiring, validating, and make a tad reassuring to those of you new to the submission grind. It’s tough, brutal at times, but if you keep at it, the acceptances do start piling up.
Okay, here’s the numbers for fourteen years of submissions. 🙂
So, in the ten official blog years, I managed 789 submissions and 105 acceptances. Not too bad, and good enough for 13.3% acceptance rate. I was over 15%, but 2023 and 2024 brought my career average down, and it looks like 2025 isn’t going to help much in that department either. Still, averaging ten acceptances per year is pretty solid, I think. You can see the pre-blog years and 2025 year-to-date (which may improve or worsen as I hear back on pending submissions), as well as an overall total for the 14 years I’ve been submitting short stories. I’m closing in on 1,000 submissions and 800 rejections, which are big milestones I should be celebrating in the first half of 2026.
I’d very much like to get back to double digit acceptances per year and push that acceptance percentage up to around 15% again. Things have gotten markedly tougher out there for a number of reasons. An inundation of AI subs at certain markets has increased wait times on submissions for one, and, sadly, there are just fewer speculative markets to submit to these days. I’m not complaining, mind you. You have to roll with the punches in this biz, but it is a noticeable downturn over the last couple of years. I guess it could simply be that I’m writing more garbage than I used to, but the number of final-round rejections I’ve been getting has actually increased, so as much as I’d like to believe I’m just getting worse in the ol’ writing department, that’s probably not true. 🙂
And there you have it, the entirety of my submission career and all ten years of the blog laid out in plain numbers. How’s your 2025 shaping up submissions-wise? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Finally, if you’ve missed any of my Ten Years of Rejectomancy posts and want to catch up, here are the links to all the others in the series.
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: The Pre-Blog Years
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year One – To Pro or Not to Pro
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Two- Maybe I’m Good at This?
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Three – Maybe I’m NOT Good at This?
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Four – Back On Track!
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Five – Consistency is Key
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Six – Best Year EVAR!
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Seven – The Whiplash Effect
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Eight – Solid and Serviceable
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Nine – A Question of Querying
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Ten – A Decade of Denial
Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Ten – A Decade of Denial
Welp, here we are. Ten years of Rejectomancy. It’s been a long and bumpy road, and year ten certainly had its ups and downs, but it feels good to say I’ve been doing this for a decade, and I have no plans to stop. Our final year in this series is 2024, which was a definite improvement over 2023, though still short of satisfactory if I’m being honest. Things are getting tougher our there for a lot of reasons, but you gotta keep going, keep writing, and keep submitting.
Let’s have a look at Rejectomancy Year Ten.
Total stats for 2024.
Like I said, an improvement over 2023, but I wasn’t exactly setting the literary world alight with my submission efforts last year. Still, seeing that acceptance percentage crest 10% again certainly makes me feel a bit better. There are no queries in here (I learned my lesson there), and these are all short story subs or direct novel submissions to small publishers, which are close enough to submissions to count in my humble opinion. Sixty-eight subs is decent, though my goal is always to send at least a hundred (I did manage that in 2025, btw). If I’d been a tad more industrious, I might have hit double-digit acceptances, but what are you gonna do. I’d call this a decent enough rebound from a fairly disastrous 2023.
Here are my acceptances for 2024.
Seven acceptances in 2024, and most of them are to markets I’d sold to previously. The new market and one of my biggest short story sales to date is the sale to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. That’s a big one, and I’m looking forward to it coming out in the 2026 March/April issue of EQMM. Another thing you might notice in my sales here are that four of the seven are either crime fiction or crime/sci-fi. I’ve often thought that I might have better luck selling to straight crime/mystery markets, and I have fairly convincing sample size. I’m not ready to make the switch yet, but it’s something I think about.
And that’s Rejectomancy Year Ten, which brings us to a close (almost) in this blog series. It’s been fun looking back over the years and digging in to the highs and lows of my story submission career. I do plan on one more blog post to give you all the numbers for the entire ten years–subs, rejections, acceptances, etc.–so look for that in the coming weeks.
If you’ve missed any of my Ten Years of Rejectomancy posts and want to catch up, here are the links to the others in the series.
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: The Pre-Blog Years
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year One – To Pro or Not to Pro
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Two- Maybe I’m Good at This?
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Three – Maybe I’m NOT Good at This?
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Four – Back On Track!
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Five – Consistency is Key
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Six – Best Year EVAR!
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Seven – The Whiplash Effect
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Eight – Solid and Serviceable
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Nine – A Question of Querying
Thoughts or opinions about Rejectomancy Year Ten? Tell me about it in the comments.
Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Nine – A Question of Querying
Peaks and valleys. That’s the best way to describe the submission experience and my own meandering path as a writer. I’ve had some exceptional years where it felt like every story I submitted had a legit shot at publication, and then I’ve had years like 2023, where I thought, why the hell am I doing this again? Still, appearances can be deceiving, and what looks like one of my worst submission years ever is maybe a little more nuanced than that.
Let’s have a look at Rejectomancy Year Nine.
Total stats for 2023.
Oof, right? A paltry 4.2% acceptance rate is, well, not good. Now, I don’t shy away from owning my failures and terrible numbers, but this one time, I want to offer up an explanation for this massive drop in acceptance percentage. You see, in 2023, I started querying a novel, and I track my queries on another website called QueryTracker. Then I learned that Duotrope also lists agents, and I thought, hey, I should track my queries there, too. Obviously, I didn’t think that through, and well, this is the result.
So, of the 79 submissions I sent in 2023, 41 of them were actually queries for my novel Second Dawn. That means I only sent 38 short story submissions. So, with that number and the 5 acceptances I managed, my actual short story acceptance rate is 13%, which is more in line with my usual numbers. Still, it was my dumb ass that decided to track queries in the same place I track short stories, so I have to wear that 4.2% to some extent. 🙂
Here are my acceptances for 2023.
Just five acceptances in 2023, but they were all good sales. I sold my second story to Radon Journal, my third to Factor Four, and I had acceptances from new-to-me markets, Black Cat Weekly and Thirteen. Not too bad, especially when view through the prism of 38 submissions rather than 79.
And that’s Rejectomancy Year Nine. We’re getting close to the end of this series, so keep an eye out for Rejectomancy Year Ten – A Decade of Dejection. 😉
If you’ve missed any of my Ten Years of Rejectomancy posts and want to catch up, here are the links to the others in the series.
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: The Pre-Blog Years
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year One – To Pro or Not to Pro
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Two- Maybe I’m Good at This?
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Three – Maybe I’m NOT Good at This?
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Four – Back On Track!
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Five – Consistency is Key
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Six – Best Year EVAR!
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Seven – The Whiplash Effect
- Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Eight – Solid and Serviceable
Thoughts or opinions about Rejectomancy Year Nine? Tell me about it in the comments.
The Daily NO – Halloween Special
Today on The Daily NO, we’re celebrating Halloween by looking at all the rejections I’ve received on the spookiest day of the year. However, to my shock and surprise, in over 12 years and nearly 1,000 submissions, I have received exactly ONE rejection on October 31st. The only reason I can come up with for this bizarre anomaly is that I submit to a lot of horror markets, and, well, it makes sense that horror editors are not working on horror’s holiday. 🙂
Anyway, let’s take a look at my Halloween rejection.
Halloween Rejection
- Story: “Things That Grow”
- Length: Flash Fiction
- Genre: Horror
- Publisher: Cemetery Gates
- Publisher Tier: Pro
- Submitted: 8/27/20
- Rejected: 10/31/20
- Type: Personal rejection
Hey Aeryn,
As personal rejections go, this one is short and to the point. It’s almost like a form letter in its brevity, which is fine with me. It simply says they liked the story, but it didn’t make the cut. This was for an anthology called Campfire Macabre, so I’m sure spots were limited. There’s no feedback here, so it’s important not to read into a rejection like this. They could have passed on it for a dozen reasons. They might have accepted another story with a similar theme, they might have needed something longer or shorter to fill out the anthology, or, hell, they might have just liked another story a little better.
This rejection did tell me I had a good story on my hands. This was the fourth personal or close-but-no-cigar rejection “Things That Grow” received, and I sold it on its next submission to The Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter. The takeaway here is if your story is getting rejections like this, it’s probably not a matter of quality; it’s more about putting that story in front of the right editor.
Thoughts on this rejection? Tell me about it in the comments.
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Night Walk & Other Dark Paths
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Acts of War: Aftershock
Acts of War: Stormbreak
Aeryn Rudel's Rejectomancy 