Submission Statement: March 2019

March has come and gone, and here’s how I did for the month.

March 2019 Report Card

• Submissions Sent: 12
• Rejections: 7
• Acceptances: 3
• Publications: 2
• Submission Withdrawal: 1

Okay, this was a pretty good month. A dozen submissions is great, three acceptances is even better, and, hey, seven rejections isn’t too bad, especially since a couple of them were “good” rejections. I also had a couple of publications for the month, which I’ll link at the bottom of the post. I did have to withdraw one story after my status queries went unanswered, but that just happens sometimes.

March’s totals (and one in April) give me twenty-nine submissions for the year, which puts me back on pace for one-hundred. I’m also up to five acceptances, which is roughly the same pace I was on last year. Of course, I hope to exceed that.

Rejections

Seven rejections for March.

• Standard Form Rejections: 5
• Upper-Tier Form Rejections: 1
• Personal Rejections: 1

I did receive a nice personal rejection and a very nice upper-tier rejection, which is the spotlight rejection for the month. (As usual, I’ve removed anything that might overtly reveal the publisher, the story, or any personal information).

Dear Aeryn,

Thank you for considering [publisher] for your story, [story title]

Unfortunately we have decided not to accept it.

As much as we wish we could, we can’t publish every good story that comes our way. Truthfully, we’re forced to return a great many stories with merits that make them well worthy of publication, including yours.

Your story did, however, reach the final stage of our selection process–one among an elite group. Less than 5% of stories make it this far. That is no small feat.

We wish you the best of luck finding a home for your story elsewhere, feel confident of your success in doing so, and hope to receive submissions from you in the future.

This is my second close-but-not-cigar rejection in a row from this pro publisher, so as disappointing as it to get this close again and not make it through, I am definitely getting a very good idea of the types of stories I need to send. Hopefully, my next attempt (or the one after that) will end in an acceptance.

So, what should we take away from this rejection? Well, the most obvious thing is what has pretty much become my motto here on the blog: good stories get rejected too. Even though I didn’t get published here, I feel confident I have a good story, so I subbed it to another pro market, and if it’s rejected there, I’ll sub it to another, and another, and another.

Acceptances

Three acceptances this month, one of which is new territory for me. My microfiction story “Treed” was published by 50-Word Stories. I just started writing microfiction, so that’s some nice validation I’m doing something right. If you’d like to take a gander at the microfiction I’ve been writing, I gathered all of March’s micros in this post.

The second acceptance is with Jersey Devil Press for my reprint flash fiction story “Big Problems.” This is a new publisher for me, so it’s great to get an acceptance on my first submission. That story will be out in April, and I’ll point you all to it.

The last acceptance is from my old pals at The Arcanist. My short story “Paint-Eater” took third place in their Magical Short Story contest. That one will be free to read sometime later this month.

Publications

Two publications this month, the aforementioned “Treed” and 50-Word Stories and a flash piece called “Far Shores and Ancient Graves” at NewMyths. Both are free to read by clicking the links below.

“Treed”

Published by 50-Word Stories 

“Far Shores and Ancient Graves”

Published by NewMyths 

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And that was my March. Tell me about yours.