Overanalyzing Story Acceptance Rates Part 271 – Rates By Market Tier

One of my favorite rejectomantic topics is acceptance rates. I’ve picked apart my own for nearly a decade, overanalyzing them in an attempt to understand the whims and vagaries of the publishing industry. What have I learned? Not much, honestly, but, fuck it, let’s take an even deeper dive into my acceptance percentages and look at them by market payment tier! I mean, that’ll teach us something, right? RIGHT? 🙂

Okay, so if you’re new to this whole story submission nonsense, what do I mean by market payment tier? Simply put, in genre fiction, markets are broken into broad categories based on how much they pay. The three categories are pro, semi-pro, and token. There are also markets that pay nothing, the so-called for-the-love-of-it markets, but I tend to lump them in with token. YMMV there. Now, as to what constitutes pro payment, it varies by genre and is set by the various genre writing organizations like the SFWA, HWA, and MWA. For sci-fi and fantasy, the pro rate is generally considered to be at least 8 cents per word. For horror it’s 5 cents per word. I think it might be 5 cents per word for mystery and crime, too, but don’t quote me on that. Semi-pro markets pay a wide range that works out to just under pro rates to a bottom floor of one cent per word. Finally, token markets pay under one cent a word (usually flat fee).

So, how have I fared in each market tier? First, let’s get some baseline numbers.

Not including pending responses, withdrawals, non-responses, and submissions of things that are not short stories (novels), I have sent 739 submissions since I started tracking them on Duotrope way back in 2012. Of those 739 submissions, 105 have come back as acceptances. That works out to an overall acceptance rate of 14%. That’s not too shabby, but now lets break it out by market tier.

Pro Markets

To date, I have sent 379 submissions to pro markets, and I have received 32 acceptances from those markets. That’s an 8% acceptance rate. I knew it was gonna be not great, but ouch. Letting the single-digit sting wear off a bit and looking at the numbers closer, turns out that 8% isn’t that bad when you look at the acceptance rates of the markets I’m submitting to. They generally hover in the 1% or LESS range, so it could be a lot worse. Of course, I’d like to do better, but competition is fierce at pro markets, so lots of rejections is just part of the game.

Semi-Pro Markets 

As of today, i have sent 296 submissions to semi-pro markets, but I’ve been A LOT more successful with them than I have with pro markets. Twice as successful, in fact. I have, currently, 49 acceptances from semi-pro journals and zines, which works out to a 17% acceptance rate. That’s solid. Hell, that’s good. Now, of course, the question is why am I so much more successful at these markets than the pro markets? Well, with a few exceptions, there’s just not as much competition. Though semi-pro markets can and do receive a lot of submissions, they’re generally not getting the absolute bonkers numbers that a market like Clarkesworld is pulling down. So, if you write a good story, you have a better shot at standing out, and therefore a better shot of getting published. That same story might get a close-but-no-cigar rejection at a pro market (or even a form rejection). It’s honestly just a numbers games. If you’ve been writing successfully for a while, i.e., you’re what some folks might consider good, you’re chances are just better at a semi-pro zine. I want to point out, however, that this absolutely does not mean that semi-pro markets don’t have high standards when it comes to the stories they publish. They definitely do, and most have standards as high as any pro market.

Token and Free Markets*

Though I sent a fair number of submissions to token and free markets when I first started out, I don’t generally submit to them anymore. This is not because there aren’t some very good markets in this tier. I just want to get paid something for my work. So, I’ve only sent a total of 64 submissions to token and free markets, and of those 64 submissions, a whopping 24 were accepted. That’s a 38% acceptance rate. Pretty damn good. Now, in my case, this inflated rate is mostly due to the fact that early on, I found a wonderful market that really liked my work, and they’ve published me a lot. I’d guess even without that market, my acceptance rate at this tier would be pretty solid, but not, you know, 38%.

*You might have noticed the asterisk in this section header. Well, that’s because one of the token markets I submitted to a lot also runs contests that offer cash prizes. I made the command decision to lump those contests in with semi-pro markets (because they technically pay), but I would understand if some folks considered that dirty pool. So, my revised acceptance rates if you count the contests as token are 14% at semi-pro markets and 43% at token markets. Not a massive change, but significant enough that I thought I should point it out.

Conclusion

Not that it’s any great surprise, but the more a market pays, the tougher it is to get published by them. That said, I don’t think we should chalk that up to quality necessarily. I’ve seen markets that pay nothing that are incredibly professional and publish only high quality work. On the flip side, I’ve seen markets that pay a pro rate, are run in a, uh, less than professional manner, and then fold after a couple of issues. I think my personal acceptance rates at each tier comes down to simple math. The more submissions a market receives, the tougher it is to get published, and, in general, pro markets receive the most submissions, then semi-pro, then token/free. But, you know, I also have to face facts. It’s entirely possible (even probable) that I’m simply not writing the kind of fiction some of the big markets want to publish. I’ve gotten close, of course, but I’ve never managed to cross the threshold at a lot of the big names. Don’t get me wrong; I see that entirely as a me problem, not a them problem, and all I can do is keep writing the kind of fiction I love and hope that some day I can stick the landing at one of my dream markets. 🙂

To sum up, here are my quick and dirty numbers at each tier.

• Pro – 379 subs, 32 acceptances, 8% acceptance rate
• Semi-Pro – 296 subs, 49 acceptances, 17% acceptance rate
• Token/Free – 64 subs, 24 acceptances, 38% acceptance rate
• Total – 739 subs, 105 acceptances, 14% acceptance rate

---

Thoughts on these acceptance rates? Care to share your own? I’d love to hear it in the comments.