900 Submissions: An Analysis

I recently hit another big story submission milestone. I sent my 900th submission since I started tracking them on Duotrope back in 2012. Like I usually do with this big round numbers, I’ll break down my overall stats, but this time, since 800 subs was almost exactly one year ago, we’ll do a little side-by-side comparison, too. 

First, the basic numbers.

	800 Subs	900 Subs*
Rejections	642	718
Acceptances	104	112
Withdrawals	26	29
Lost/Never Responded	22	22
Pending	6	21

So, I’ve definitely been more active in the last year than I have in a long time. In fact, the time it took me to get from 700 subs to 800 subs was almost two years, as opposed to the one year it took to go from 800 to 900. But how did these most recent 100 subs treat me? I’d say fair to middling.  

I gained 76 rejections along with 8 new acceptances. That’s not terrible, especially since I still have 21 stories pending, and a few of those might turn into acceptances. As it is right now, I’m looking at about a 10% acceptance rate, which is lower than my historical average of about 15%. Still, I can live with one acceptance out of every ten subs.

*It was actually 902 submissions by the time I got around to running the report off Duotrope.

---

Okay, now lets look at distinct pieces and distinct publishers. 

	800 Subs	900 Subs
Total Distinct Stories	164	183
Microfiction	4	4
Flash Fiction	127	136
Short Stories	29	39
Novellas	1	1
Novels	3	3
Total Distinct Markets	228	240

I’ve been writing a lot of new stories, which is evident in the chart above. In the past year, I’ve added nineteen new distinct stories, ten short stories and nine flash fiction pieces. Those stories also make up the bulk of the 21 pieces I currently have pending. Not bad.

I also added twelve new markets to my database, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that a bunch of brand-spanking-new, pro-paying zines have sprung up in the last twelve months or so. I’ve sent submissions to most of them, and it’s great to have more markets for flash fiction and shorts, seeing that we tend to lose a half dozen good ones every year.

---

Although 900 submissions is a big milestone, I’m really hoping I can hit 1,000 by year’s end. Hard to believe I’ve sent that many unsuspecting stories out into the cold, cold dark of submission land, but here were are.

Hit a submission milestone of your own lately? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

---