Another week in the querying salt mines. Let’s see how I did and what kind of responses I reeled in.
My overall query stats as of today.
I sent seven new queries this last week, and I think I’m done for the time being. I’m gonna set back and wait for responses to roll in before I send any more. I feel like I’ve hit all the agents that might be a good fit and are currently accepting subs. There are a few likely candidates opening in September I’ll probably query, but until then, I think I’m at a good place to pause.
Two more form rejections last week.
Rejection #1 – 8/21/23
Thanks so much for sharing SECOND DAWN with me. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m the right agent for this project, so I will have to pass.
Please keep in mind that this is a subjective business and mine is only one opinion. I wish you all the best in your search for representation and in your writing career.
Not much to talk about here. This is your typical boilerplate query rejection. The agent did respond very quickly, though. I sent this query on 8/17, and they responded on 8/21. According to QueryTracker, this agent responds to over 98% of queries. That’s impressive. Here’s what the agent wanted in the query package other than the general details like name, email, etc.. (I’m going to start including this for all responses).
Rejection #2 – 8/25/23
Many thanks for reaching out. You have an interesting story to tell and there’s a lot to like about your approach. But, in the end, I’m afraid I didn’t come away fully convinced this was something I could represent successfully for you. I’m sorry not to be more enthusiastic, and best of luck in placing it elsewhere.
Another standard form rejection. The agent does say interesting story and likes the approach, but its hard to tell if that’s indicative of something more than the standard form rejection or not. In the short story world, it’s not uncommon for publishers to have multiple form rejections, some indicating that a story was closer to what they were looking for than others. Do agents do this, too? Maybe, and that could be useful information if I were to query this agent again with another project. Here’s what the agent wanted in the query package.
You’ll notice this agent wanted a lot less info in the query package than the first agent. I find that agents who want queries by email, as this one did, rather than an online form such as QueryTracker’s Query Management tend to ask for fewer materials. Some of that may have to do with the risk associated with attachments and the hassle of pasting huge chunks of text into an email, and some of it might have to do with what the agent believes they need to decide if they want to see more. In this case, I feel like it was the latter. This agent responded to my query in a single day. Love that.
And that’s it for the last week of querying. I was getting about one full request a week there for a bit, so it was only a matter of time until the rejections started rolling in.
Thoughts or questions about queries or these responses? Tell me about it in the comments.
Been a while since I’ve done one of these, mostly because I haven’t been submitting a lot of short stores. What I have been doing, though, is sending out agent queries for my novel SECOND DAWN. Those are submissions, too, right? 🙂
Okay, first up let’s do short story submissions.
I’m not exactly killing it on the short story front in 2023. I’ve sent only 24 total submissions, which has netted me a grand total of 3 acceptances. I’m okay with that, though, as my focus has shifted from short story submissions to query submissions. I’m sure I’ll send more short story subs this year, and if I can get to fifty total subs, that would be fine by me.
This total includes June and July, and as you can see, I’ve been a bit busier here. I’ve sent out eleven queries so far and received a pair of form rejections and closed one query for nonresponse. The big news is I received a full manuscript request from a very good agent, and that’s still pending. However that turns out, though, it was a great boost to my confidence to get an FMR right out of the gate. If you’d like more details on my rejections and other query-related stuff, I’ve been posting about it in a new series called Query Quest. Links below.
Anyway, that was my July. How was yours?
I recently started querying literary agents for my novel SECOND DAWN, and I’m going to start posting about that experience. Now, for those of you who have followed my blog for a while, I should make it clear that unlike submitting short stories to lit magazines and anthologies, I am NOT an expert in this arena. So this post is less advice and more me recounting my experience (which may or may not be useful to you). In other words, don’t judge me too harshly if my experience differs from your own.
In this post, I want to talk about three things I think you should have ready to go before you start querying agents. The first two are absolutes, in my mind, but there’s some wiggle room on the third. Let’s dive in.
1) Finished manuscript. Finished. Complete. Ready to go. Don’t query agents unless you are ready to turn over a complete manuscript. Why? Well, here’s generally how the query process works. You send a query letter and a portion of the manuscript, anywhere from five pages to three whole chapters. If the agent likes what they see, they are going to ask you for MORE of the manuscript, maybe the whole thing. See the problem? Don’t put yourself in a situation where you have to tell an agent who likes your first three chapters that you don’t have a finished manuscript to send them.
Now, what does finished actually mean? Well, it doesn’t mean perfect. In my opinion, it means as close as you can get it to publishable, which is, honestly, not that close for most folks (me included). An agent is certainly going to ask for revisions based on their experience of what sells, and then the publisher is definitely going to ask for further revisions based on their needs and what they think will sell. Ultimately, it needs to be your best effort, but I’m not stressing about typos and dropped words and whatnot. Not that I’m not trying to fix those, just that I think an agent is less worried about that stuff than the story as a whole, my writing style, and whether both are a good fit.
2) Query letter. I’ve yet to see an agent that doesn’t want a query letter. The construction of the query letter is one of those things you’re gonna see a lot of differing advice on, and it seems to vary a little by genre. I’m on the second iteration of my query letter, and the one I’m going with now consists of the following: an introduction with the project details (genre, length, and comps), a short description of the book (this is not a synopsis, but it describes the plot, characters, and themes), and a bio with a little personal info and relevant publication credits. I feel more confident with this one than my first one, which may have been a little short on details. But, again, I’ve seen successful query letters that are similar to both my current one and the one I’ve abandoned.
3) Synopsis. Not every agent asks for a synopsis, but I’ve found more than half of the agents I researched (around 50 at this point) DO ask for one. Like the query letter, there are a lot of opinions on how to write a synopsis, but in general, most folks tend to agree on a few things. It should be in the 500- to 1000-word range (though I’ve seen some folks say as long as two pages) and summarize the whole story, from beginning to end. It’s not back cover text trying to hook a reader with mysterious details; it’s more like Cliffs notes. You want the agent to read about the big twist at the end and that surprise romantic relationship between two of your characters or whatever.
I’m not gonna lie; these are not easy to write, and I struggled with mine. I’m still not in love with it, but I think it works. Mine is a little over 500 words and fits on one page. I think the brevity helps rather than hinders me in this case, but check back in a month. My synopsis will probably have doubled in size. 🙂
You can start querying without a synopsis, as there are a fair amount of agents that don’t ask for one, but you might find yourself having to skip a potentially good agent because you don’t have all the necessary materials. By the time you get back to them, their submission window may have closed. So, yes, you can query without a synopsis, but you close off some of your options if you do.
Now this short list is only the things I think you absolutely need to start querying. It’s NOT the only things an agent might ask for. You might be asked for a one-paragraph pitch or more comps or a separate bio. I’ve even seen agents ask for fairly unique things like why you believe you’re the right person to tell the story. I’ll cover some of these other materials in later posts, as they come up in my own querying journey.
Thoughts on my must-haves? Tell me about it in the comments.
Time for another installment of Paths to Publication, wherein I recount a story’s arduous submission journey, complete with all the gory details and eventual publication triumph. This time, the story is “Hell to Pay – Installment Plans Available!”, which was recently published by Tales to Terrify.
First, let me tell you a little about the story. Years ago, I took a temp job as a collection agent. It was, hands down, the worst job I’ve ever had. I lasted two weeks before turning in my notice. The experience of that awful job has stuck with me, and a few years ago I started wondering what a job in actual hell might look like, and, well, here we are. The concept here is pretty simple. Certain folks consigned to the bad place are chosen for a special assignment, to work forever in an endless call center, collecting on those who have made Faustian deals. The story centers on one brave soul who attempts to subvert the system and offer debt relief to the damned. (I just realized that “Debt Relief for the Damned” might be a better title.)
Okay, now let’s look at the submission data for the story. Below is a table featuring the date, market tier, time on submission, and result for each submission of “Hell to Pay – Installment Plans Available!”
Submission | Sub Tier | Date Sent | Days Out | Result |
Pro | 3/19/2021 | 69 | Form Rejection | |
Pro | 5/27/2021 | 4 | Form Rejection | |
Pro | 5/31/2021 | 15 | Form Rejection | |
Semi Pro | 6/15/2021 | 43 | Form Rejection | |
Semi Pro | 6/21/2021 | 358 | Final Round Personal Rejection | |
Pro | 9/1/2021 | 2 | Form Rejection | |
Semi Pro | 1/23/2022 | 62 | Final Round Personal Rejection | |
Semi Pro | 6/15/2022 | 65 | Short List Personal Rejection | |
Pro | 8/19/2022 | 0 | Form Rejection | |
Semi Pro | 8/27/2022 | 9 | Form Rejection | |
Semi Pro | 9/17/2022 | 3 | Form Rejection | |
Semi Pro | 9/23/2022 | 0 | Form Rejection | |
Semi Pro | 9/26/2022 | 62 | Acceptance | |
Semi Pro | 11/1/2022 | 27 | Withdrawn |
The submission journey for “Hell to Pay – Installment Plans Available!” was a long one, with a lot of ups and downs. I started by sending the story to pro markets that accept horror and, well, I got four form rejections in a row. Then I sent the story to a good semi-pro zine, and after waiting almost a year, got a close-but-no-cigar rejection. That one stung a bit. After that, I fired the story off to mostly semi-pro markets, landed more almost rejections, and then, finally, sold the story to Tales to Terrify in November of last year. The story was sim-subbed at the time, so the withdrawal is simply me informing the other publisher that the story had sold elsewhere.
This story, like a lot of my short fiction, racked up a fair number of close-but-no-cigar rejections. Those rejections are disappointing, but they do let you know that the story is very likely publishable, and that’s why I pushed on. Here’s one of those rejections.
Hello, Aeryn;
We thank you for very much for your submission. This piece did make it through to our final round of reviews, however, competition is especially tight for the larger word count spots. After the final review & rating by our full panel of six readers, it has been decided to pass on this story.
We wish you all the best in finding a suitable home for this piece, and look forward to reading further submissions from you in the future.
This is pretty typical of the close-but-no-cigar rejections I receive. Essentially, there’s no real issue with the story, there were just other stories they liked better. That’s how it goes with these rejections. Many times there’s little feedback, and what feedback there is often praises the story. You have to look at these rejections as a net positive, though. They are generally proof positive that the story is sellable, and only once have I failed to sell a story that received one of these. One thing you should always, always, always do is continue to submit to a market that comes this close to accepting you. Kind of a no-brainer, right? 🙂
So, what can we learn from the submission journey of “Hell to Pay – Installment Plans Available!” Well, it’s my usual advice. One, it’s all about timing and fit. Two, good stories get rejected, too. Three, keep going, keep submitting, especially if you’re getting those close-but-no-cigar rejections. It might take you thirteen submissions, but you’ll get there in the end.
If you’d like to listen to “Hell to Pay – Installment Plans Available!” out at Tales to Terrify, just click the image below.
Yesterday, I celebrated a significant short story milestone. I received my 100th acceptance since I started tracking them through Duotrope. To further celebrate this momentous occasion, I thought I might take a deep dive into the numbers on those one hundred acceptances and see what we can see. Let’s go!
I recorded my first acceptance on May 1st, 2014. Acceptance number one hundred was recorded yesterday, June 27th, 2023. So, a little over nine years to hit triple digits, but let’s take a look at the number of acceptances each year.
It took me a bit to get my first acceptance, though, to be fair, I only sent 22 total submission in 2012 and 2013. After that, I saw a pretty steady increase in both subs and acceptances until the anomalous year of 2017, where I sent the most subs I’d ever sent to that point but couldn’t BUY an acceptance. After that, it’s been double digit yeses every year, though I’m in danger of losing the streak in 2023 to a woeful lack of submissions. I’ve still got time, though. I can get seven acceptances in five months, right? Right?
I write and submit just about every length of story, but what length am I most likely to sell? Let’s take a look.
Well, it’s flash fiction by a mile. I’d say I write five flash pieces for every short story, and I generally find flash much, much easier to sell than longer works. I write a ton of microfiction through the #vss365 tag on Twitter, but I rarely submit it (though I’ve had good luck when I do). I have written exactly one novella, and sold it, so I’m batting .1000 right there. 😉
If you’ve been submitting sort stories for long, then you know there are essentially three levels or tiers of paying publishers. Pro publishers pay between 5 and 8 cents a word depending on genre, semi-pro publisher pay at least 1 cent per word, and token/for the love of it publishers pay less than 1 cent per word or pay nothing at all. So, what tiers do my acceptances fit into?
A fairly even distribution here, though the majority of token acceptances came before 2019. Now, I generally focus on pro and semi-pro. It should be said that five of 31 token submissions are paying contest wins that would be more than 8 cents per word, so you could look at this as 38 pro acceptances. I’m not, but you could. 🙂
My submissions have waned considerably this year as I turn my attention to other writing endeavors, i.e., novels. I still love writing short stories and flash fiction, but it might be time for a break. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop submitting, just that I might not submit as much. I have a feeling this is a temporary state of affairs, and I’ll get the short story submission bug in the near future. Until then, I’m gonna focus on agent queries, novel revisions, novel/novella writing, and a fair amount of freelance work. Don’t worry, though; I’ll be blogging about the trials and tribulations of all those things (especially the queries), so there’ll be plenty of rejectomancy in the future.
Hit any major acceptance milestones of your own? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.