Submission Statement: March 2018

I often start these submission statements with a subtle (or not-so subtle) complaint about my production for the month. Well, not this time. March was a really good month, one of the best of my short story submittin’ career.

March 2018 Report Card

• Submissions Sent: 8
• Rejections: 7
• Acceptances: 3
• Publications: 0
• Withdrawal: 1

Eight submissions is good volume, and that puts me at a total of 35 submissions for the first three months of 2018. I’m also on a good pace for my goal of 100 submission for the year. Of course, the big news for the month is the three acceptances. I think that’s the most I’ve received in a single month.

Rejections

I’d say 7 rejections is about average for me, especially with how many submissions I’ve been sending out lately.

• Standard Form Rejection: 6
• Upper-Tier Form Rejection: 1
• Personal Rejections: 0

All form rejections for the month, and nothing too special. I’ll share a couple from markets that are new to me.

Highlight Rejection 1: Sent 3/13/2018; Rejected 3/25/2018

Thank you so much for sending us [story title]. This time, however, we’re saying no, but we wish you the best of luck with your piece. 

This is a pretty standard form rejection, but I’m highlighting it because it is a) a new market for me and b) it’s a literary market. Yep, I’ve branched out a tad, and I’ve been submitting stories to a couple of lit-fic markets. I’ve even had some success there (more on that below).

Highlight Rejection 2: Sent 1/30/2018; Rejected 3/29/2018

Thanks for giving us the chance to read [story title]. After careful consideration, we are unfortunately going to pass at this time. 

If you have other works that you think might be a good fit for [publisher], we encourage you to submit them through our Google form.

We look forward to reading more of your work in the future and hope that this piece finds a home as well. 

I would call this a higher-tier rejection, and it’s from a market that has accepted three stories of mine in the past (bless them). I include it here to demonstrate simply that even with a market that really likes your stuff, not every story is a good fit.

Acceptances

Well, this was a hell of a month for acceptances. I received three in March, and they all came within the span of about seven days. That’s a pretty good week. 🙂

Acceptance 1: Sent 1/6/2018; Accepted 3/2/2018

Thanks for letting us read [story title]. We would love to publish it in [publisher]!

The first acceptance for March came form a publisher that’s published me twice before. It’s always great when you find a market and an editor that dig your work. This story will go live in a couple of days, and I’ll be sure to post a link to it then.

Acceptance 2: Sent 3/3/2018; Accepted 3/6/2018

The second acceptance for March comes from market I’ve never submitted to before, mostly because they’re primarily a literary market. The story I sent them straddles the line between genre and literary, and they liked it enough to publish it. As you can see, the story will (most likely) be published on May 4th, and I’ll be sure to alert all of you so you can run over to the publisher’s website and read it.

Acceptance 3: Sent 12/30/2017; Accepted 3/8/2018

Loved this story. Buying for [publisher], most likely the online edition. 

There’s more to this acceptance letter, but this is the important bit. The real kicker here is this represents my first sale of a mystery/crime story. That’s pretty cool, and I might have to write a few more. As much as I like being published in print, an online publication allows me to send folks directly to the story to read, which I will most certainly do when this is published.

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And that’s my March. How was yours?