Ten Years of Rejectomancy: Year Two- Maybe I’m Good at This?

My second year as a blogger and serious story submitter gave me legitimate hope that there might actually be a future to this whole writing thing. In addition to short story sales, I also published my first novel with Privateer Press and was doing a lot of freelance writing to boot. Still, this post will focus on the short story stuff, and, well, 2016 was a pretty good year. Let’s take a closer look. 

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Here are my total stats (pulled once again straight from Duotrope) for 2016. 

Fifty-four submissions was my new high, and of those fifty-four, I managed to sell nine, which netted me a very respectable acceptance percentage of 20.8. It goes without saying that 20% is rarified air, and I’ve only managed it three times in the decade-plus I’ve been doing this. I also made over 400 bucks in story sales for the year, though much of that was from a couple of contest cashes with The Molotov Cocktail. Again, all proceeds from story sales very likely went to directly into the coffers of Door Dash or Uber Eats. 🙂

Okay, let’s look at the acceptances.

Despite selling more stories than I’d ever sold before, I didn’t manage a pro sale in 2016. There was some very nice semi-pro sales, though, including two with the now sadly defunct Red Sun Magazine, both stories I’d been shopping for quite some time. I also managed to snag second place in The Molotov Cocktail’s Flash Icon contest and third place in their Flash Fear contest, netting cash prizes for both that essentially amounted to pro-payment or very good semi-pro. The rest of my acceptances were a mix of one-offs, in that I never submitted to those particular markets again, or in the case of Havok, the first of what would be multiple sales. (Havok has completely changed, by the way, and is no longer a semi-pro market).

In addition to the nine acceptances, I had a bunch of close-but-no-cigar rejection in 2016 with various markets, a few of which were pro zines. Those definitely boosted my confidence, and netted me some solid feedback that helped me strengthen my writing for future submissions.

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And there you have it, Rejectomancy Year Two. As I stated in the opening, this year also saw me publish my novel Flashpoint with Privateer Press, the first in an eventual trilogy. I also started writing a novel based on my own IP that I shopped pretty heavily a few years ago with limited success (some full manuscript requests but not offers of representation). I’m still shopping that novel to small publishers, but it might be destined for the trunk.

Thoughts or opinions about Rejectomancy Year Two? Tell me about it in the comments.