The Millennial Milestone – 1,000 Submissions!

A few days ago, I hit a submission milestone more than a decade in the making. Yep, 1,000 submissions. It’s been a long road with a lot of ups and downs, but it feels pretty damn good to see that giant round number on Duotrope. I’ve even held off on sending out more subs recently because I just like looking at it. 🙂 Anyway, as I always do when I hit a big submissions milestone, I’ve broken down all the crunchy details for you. So, let’s dive in and see what 1,000 submissions actually looks like.

Basic Stats

Okay, first, here are the basic nuts and bolts.

• Submissions: 1,000
• Acceptance: 120
• Rejections: 797
• Lost/Returned: 3
• Never Responded: 25
• Withdrawn: 32
• Pending: 23
• Acceptance Percentage: 13%

Most of these categories are pretty obvious, and things like acceptances, rejections, and pending don’t need further explanation. Now, I’ll admit, I don’t even remember why I labeled three submissions as lost/returned instead of never responded. I will say, that I use never responded now for markets that a) don’t respond and b) don’t have a notice in their guidelines that says a non-response is basically a rejection. Withdrawn is also pretty obvious, though the vast majority of my withdrawn subs, especially early on, were from markets that didn’t respond after one or multiple submission status queries. Now I use it for the rare occasions I sell a story that’s been sim-subbed or I remove a story for other, miscellaneous reasons. The acceptance percentage is simply the number of acceptances divided by the number submissions minus pending, withdrawn, lost/returned, and never responded. An argument could be made that I should count never responded as rejections, so if you want that number, it drops my acceptance percentage to 12.7 percent.

The Stories

Now let’s look at the stories that made up all those submissions. Below is the number of distinct stories, then those stories broken out by length. The number in parentheses is the number of each type of story I’ve actually sold.

• First Submission: 4/16/12
• Last Submission: 3/20/26
• Distinct Stories: 195
• Flash Fiction: 147 (76)
• Short Stories: 40 (23)
• Microfiction: 4 (3)
• Novels: 3 (0)
• Novellas: 1(1)

Hey, how about that perfect record on novellas? Not bad, huh? 😉 Anyway, 195 stories is a bunch, and one of the things I’m most proud of in this heap of stats is that I’ve sold a bit more than half of the stories I’ve written (103 out of 195). Looking back over my submission history, there are a bunch of stories that simply weren’t good enough to be submitted in the first place, but I think that’s a common issue for most writers when they first start seriously subbing their work. These days, I’m a bit better at only subbing stories that have a chance of selling. Obviously, the bulk of my output has been flash fiction, but my overall acceptance rate is about the same for short stories. It just takes me a lot longer to sell them.

Here are a couple of other numbers I wanted to share about individual stories.

• Most Subbed Story: 28
• Most Subbed Story Before a Sale: 26

My most subbed story period is an urban fantasy piece called “Set in Stone.” I shopped it for years, and though I got a couple of final-round rejections, I never could place it. It now lives in the trunk. On the other hand, “Time Has No Memory” was also subbed for years, but I did manage to sell that one to Abyss & Apex. It comes out next month. 🙂

The Markets

Finally, let’s take a look at the markets whose inboxes I’ve been haunting over that last decade and change. Couple of notes here. At one point I was tracking my novel queries through Duotrope, which was a mistake that just kind of muddied the waters. Those queries are included in my submission total, but I’ve removed them from the distinct markets list because, well, agents aren’t markets. In the case that I sent a novel directly to a publisher, though, I included that publisher in the numbers below. It’s not perfect, but it’s what I got. Also, I’m kinda going off memory for some of these markets as to whether they’re semi-pro or token. That’s primarily because so many of the markets on my list don’t exist anymore, so I have no reliable way to look that up. I think I’m mostly right, though, especially with the pro markets.

• Distinct Markets: 227
• Pro Markets: 92
• Semi-Pro Markets: 127
• Token Markets: 8

As you can see, I generally restrict my submission to pro and semi-pro markets, though some of these markets make semi-pro by the skin of their teeth. Lately, I send to pro markets first, then to semi-pro, and then I usually trunk the story or wait until more pro or semi-pro markets open for subs. I will occasionally send a piece to a token publisher, but it’s usually a reprint.

Couple of other numbers regarding individual markets you might find interesting.

• Most Subs to a Single Market: 72
• Most Subs to a Single Market Without a Sale: 44

The most subs to a single market is to The Molotov Cocktail, mostly on account of their flash fiction contests. I do have 17 acceptances there, though. The other market that I’ve sent a TON of work to where I actually sold them something was The Arcanist, now sadly on hiatus. I sent them 50 submissions and sold them 16 stories. Now for the bad news. The market that I have submitted to most without a single sale to my name is Flash Fiction Online. I’ve made it to the final round of their deliberations enough that I’ll keep trying, but, man, 44 noes in row does sting a bit.

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And there you have it. One thousand submissions in all their glory and shame. Let me know what you think about my little milestone, and feel free to share one of your own in the comments.

I’ll see ya at 2,000! 😉