Submission Statement: October 2024

Another month in the books; let’s see how I did with submissions, acceptances, and, of course, rejections.

October 2024 Short Story Submissions

• Submissions Sent: 6
• Rejections: 7
• No Response: 0
• Acceptances: 0
• Further Consideration/Shortlist: 1
• Withdrawals: 0
• Pending: 9

I only managed 6 submissions in October, partly because I’ve been so focused on revising my novel and partly because I’m trying to take a bit of a hiatus from writing to let my creative batteries recharge. Turns out, you can’t go 24-7, seven days a week for years without running smack-dab into a big ol’ wall of burnout. I mean, who knew? 😉

Anyway, six subs isn’t too bad, and it brings me up to 55 for the year. Of course, I always want to hit 100, but unless I suddenly become three times as productive as I’ve been for the entire year, I’m probably gonna end up a bit south of seventy. I’m fine with that, and if I can land another three or four acceptances, I’d call it a good year.

Rejections

Seven rejections in October.

• Form Rejections: 7
• Personal Rejections: 0
• Close-But-No-Cigar Rejections: 2

Although all seven rejections in October were of the form variety, two of them were close-but-no-cigar, final-round rejections. One of them was a real heartbreaker, as it was for a long-suffering story that has racked up more not-quite rejections than any story I’ve written. And, of course, that story is currently pending at another market after yet another further consideration letter. 🙂

The other final-round rejection is interesting enough that’ll show it to you below. It’s a good example of how you might think you know what a market prefers and can be 100% wrong. Here’s the rejection.

Dear Aeryn Rudel, 

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to submit to [market] and for your patience as we review our submissions. We appreciated the opportunity to experience your stories. We wanted to let you know that your story, ‘Care and Fiending’ made it to our final round of considerations. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right fit for us this time. 

 

We received over 250 submissions and we had a difficult time selecting the pieces we chose to publish. We wish you best of luck in your writing and we hope you will submit to us during a future submission period.

I left out parts of this rejection that don’t really pertain to anything important, but this one is interesting in that I sent them two stories (bless them for taking multi-subs), “Care and Fiending”, which, as you can see, made it to the final round of consideration, and another story called “The Other Side of Empty”, which, uh, didn’t. Now, when I sent those stories I would have bet real cash money that if either of them got accepted or were seriously considered for publication, it would have been “The Other Side of Empty.” Shows you what I know, huh? That’s an important lesson, I think. You can study up on a market and read pieces they’ve published to get a sense of what kinds of stories they like, but at the end of the day, you have to roll the dice and just send the story in. Don’t self-reject, and, well, don’t self-accept either. Editorial tastes are wide and varied, and you never know what’s going to click with an editor or what isn’t.

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And that was October. No real goals in November other than resting up a bit and coming back strong in the second half of the month to finish revising my novel and get it out the door for querying. I’m sure I’ll sneak a story submission or two in there as well, but I’m not setting any real deadlines or goals for the month. That’s a first, and I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself without the ever-present deadline doom hanging over me. 🙂

That was my month. How was yours?