Ranks of the Rejected: Avily Jerome (Havok Magazine)
Today it is my privilege to present an interview with Avily Jerome, the editor for Havok magazine. Avily is an accomplished editor and writer, and she has great advice for authors who want to publish in Havok (or publish in general). She also knows a thing or two about rejection and how to deal with the inevitable reality of “not for us.” My own association with Havok is pretty simple. They’ve published two of my stories, including one in the issue releasing today, which means I’ve twice had the pleasure of working directly with Avily and the rest of the Havok team.
Make sure to check out the latest from Havok, including the April issue, and the guidelines for the annual contest issue Rampage! Monsters vs. Robots, coming in July (more info on that below).
1) Tell us what Havok Magazine publishes in 50 words or less.
Havok publishes speculative flash fiction. 1000 words or fewer, in a variety of speculative genres. We’ve done everything from steampunk to dinosaurs to straight sci-fi, and everything in between, including some pretty spectacular mash-ups. Content-wise, we’re family-friendly, so no excessive violence, language, or sensuality.
2) How do you come up with Havok’s themes? What are some of your favorite past themes?
Every year we have a brainstorming session with Splickety (our parent company) staff members and throw around ideas until we find the ones we like. We try not to do anything too similar to something we’ve done in the recent past, and we try to make the themes broad enough that multiple genres can fit within the same theme.
Favorite themes… that’s a tough one. I love our Halloween horror issues. Some of my personal favorite stories have been in the horror issues. The Dinosaurs issue was a lot of fun. Probably one of my top picks is our Literary Mutations issue, where we made classic stories into speculative stories.
3) Since Havok publishes flash fiction, in your opinion, what are the benefits and challenges of writing at 1,000 words or fewer?
One of the best benefits for writers is that it really tightens your writing. You have to decide which information is vital and which is extraneous. You have to cut out every bit of fluff and every unnecessary word.
One of the biggest challenges is fitting a full story arc and creating compelling characters in such a short amount of space.
4) What advice can you give writers submitting to Havok? Which stories have the best chance at publication?
We accept stories up to 1000 words, but I only have room for two or maybe three 1000-words stories per issue. Most of the stories I publish are about 700 words, so if you can stick to 700 words or fewer, your odds are better.
As for story itself, if you can make me feel, whether it’s humor, sadness, love, nostalgia—you have a higher probability of catching my attention. I also love twist endings, complex world building (although again, this is hard to do in a flash story), and hard choices.
5) Take us behind the scenes. Describe Havok’s evaluation process for a story.
I have a pretty multi-faceted process for choosing stories. First, of course, I look for writing quality and story arc. Even if the story is one I like, if the writing is poor, or if it’s going to take too much effort on my part to edit it and get it ready for publication, then I’m probably going to pass on it. Conversely, if the writing is clean and flows but the story isn’t engaging, then I’m not going to try to work with it.
Most of the submissions I receive fit these criteria, so after I’ve narrowed it down a bit, I look for several different components. Story arc is a big one for me. I’m okay with open endings, as long as there is some resolution and some emotional satisfaction for the reader. Too often, I read stories that feel like prologues. It’s okay if it’s part of a bigger world, but the story has to be self-contained. Along the same lines, the world can’t be too big or require too much explanation, and there can’t be too many or too complex of characters. I don’t want to be pulled out of the story or feel like it ended too soon because there were too many unanswered questions or because I couldn’t keep track of all the characters.
Beyond that, there’s some personal preference involved, and there’s also what does or doesn’t fit within the rest of the issue. If a story is too similar to either the staff feature or the featured author, I’ll pass on it because I want to have a variety. I also try to have a mix of dark and light, so if I have a really good story that’s tragic or violent, I’ll try to balance with one that’s humorous, and so on.
6) Well, this blog is called Rejectomancy, so I gotta ask. What are the top three reasons Havok rejects a story?
Top reason—I just don’t have room to publish all the fantastic stories I receive. #2, it doesn’t fit with our submission guidelines for either word count, theme, or content, and #3, the story is flat and doesn’t hold my interest.
7) You’re an accomplished writer as well as an editor, so you understand rejection comes with the territory. Any pro tips for dealing with it?
Don’t take it personally. Just because you receive a rejection doesn’t mean I (or any other editor) didn’t like it. I try to offer at least a little feedback on every story that makes it through the initial screening, with something I like and something to work on, so take that for what it’s worth—one editor’s opinion—and keep writing, keep submitting, and keep going.
8) Last question: what new and exciting things are headed our way from Havok magazine?
The single most exciting thing coming is our annual contest issue, coming in July. The theme this year is Rampage! Monsters vs. Robots. The theme description is on our website. The Grand Prize includes an Amazon gift card and a bunch of ebooks and other goodies. And don’t forget to check out all the other themes from Havok and from Splickety’s other imprints for this year.
Avily Jerome is a writer, the editor of Havok Magazine, an imprint of Splickety Publishing Group, and a book reviewer for Lorehaven Magazine. Her short stories have been published in multiple magazines, both print and digital. She has judged several writing contests, both for short stories and novels. She is a writing conference teacher and presenter, a new-author mentor, and a freelance editor. In addition, she enjoys speaking to local writers’ groups.
Her fantasy short story serials, The Heir, and the sequel, The Defector, are available on Amazon, and book three, The Silver Shores, is coming soon.
She loves all things SpecFic, and writes across multiple genres. Her writing heroes include Joss Whedon, Robert Jordan, and J.K. Rowling, among others. She is a wife and the mom of five kids. She loves living in the desert in Phoenix, AZ, and when she’s not writing, she loves reading, spending time with friends, and experimenting with different art forms.
To contact Avily or to find out more about her mentoring and editing services, please visit her website at www.avilyjerome.com
Back to Basics: The Cover Letter
Hey, let’s talk about cover letters again. I see this subject pop up a lot when it comes to submissions. There are a lot of opinions, and my opinion goes something like this: keep it short, keep it simple, and follow the guidelines. Let me show you what I mean.
The Basic Cover Letter
If the publisher doesn’t ask for anything specific in the cover letter, I generally go with the basic letter below. It ticks all the boxes I think editors generally want in a cover letter, and it’s easy to add (or subtract) content if a publisher wants something specific.
Dear Fiction Editors1,
Please consider my short story [Story Name]2 for publication at [Publisher Name]3. The story is approximately [# of words]4 words in length. My short fiction has recently appeared in [Market 1], [Market 2], and [Market 3]5.
Best6,
Name (byline)7
Address
Email
Okay, so let’s break this sucker down.
- The salutation. If you are absolutely, one-hundred percent sure of the editor’s name and that person will in fact be reading your story, then, sure, go ahead and address the cover letter to that person. If you have any doubt whatsoever, then use fiction editor(s) or editor(s). It’s safe, technically correct, and I can’t imagine an editor would get offended at being called, uh, an editor.
- Story name. Pretty self-explanatory here, just make sure you put the story name in quotation marks. I’d treat novelettes the same way, with quotes, as they are essentially long stories. Novellas can be tricky, though. The research I’ve done says a standalone novella (one not part of anthology) should be italicized*. If you’re submitting a novella to a short story market, it would generally be standalone, so I’d go with italics there.
- Publisher name. Again, self-explanatory, but make double, extra sure you spell the publisher’s name right and use the full name of the market as it’s listed on the masthead. The titles of both print and online magazine are italicized (according to CMS).
- Word count. If the market doesn’t ask for an exact word count (if they do, then just drop the approximately), I round up or down to the nearest fifty. For example, if my story is 4,359 words, I’d round it to 4,350. If it’s 4,187, I’d round to 4,200. If rounding puts you over the word count maximum for the market, then I think it’s perfectly acceptable to list the exact word count.
- Previous publications. A lot of markets ask for previous credits in cover letters, so I generally include them even if the publisher has no specific guidelines. Include no more than three and go with recent, best, or a little of both. I generally go with recent, but if you’ve got a big market or two under your belt, go with best. In that case, just drop the word recently, and you’re good to go. Remember to italicize the titles of print and online magazines. All that said, if the publisher doesn’t ask for previous credits, you could drop this entire section and have a perfectly serviceable cover letter.
- Closing. Use your favorite here, but I’d avoid anything too informal. I like best and regards, but sincerely works too.
- Signature. I like to put all my relevant contact info here (many publishers even ask for it), which is usually name, address, and email. I usually put “(byline)” next to my name so there can be no confusion on how I would like to be credited if my story is accepted. That’s entirely optional, of course. You could add your phone number, but I don’t think it’s really necessary unless the publisher asks for it (some do).
*Some submission software doesn’t allow italics, and in that case there’s no need to worry about it. Some software allows html tags, though, so you can italicize by bracketing the title likes this: <i>Awesome Spec-Fic Journal</i>.
And that’s the basic cover letter when the publisher doesn’t ask for something specific. (So far I’ve had no complaints) Of course, publishers DO sometimes ask for other things, but any of those elements should be easy to add to this letter.
At the end of the day, my advice with cover letters is to keep it simple, give the editor the important details, and, above all, follow the guidelines. If you make a mistake on your cover letter, like forget to italicize the name of the market or something, it’s not the end of the world. The chances of something like that affecting an editor’s decision on your story are pretty minuscule, really. That said, the cover letter is your shot to make a first impression on the editor. So, you know, try to make it a good one.
Would you add something to this basic cover letter? Tell me about it in the comments.
A Week of Writing: 4/2/18 to 4/8/18
Another week has come and gone, and here are my writing triumphs and failures laid bare for your amusement and edification.
The Novel
So, uh, yeah, I’m like writing this horror novel with a desired goal of 15,000 words a week and a minimum goal of 10,000 words. Well, friends, I didn’t hit either of those numbers, and this week was, to put it bluntly, pretty much shit for novel production. Behold my shame.
| Date | Day | Words Written |
| 4/2/2018 | Monday | 0 |
| 4/3/2018 | Tuesday | 0 |
| 4/4/2018 | Wednesday | 0 |
| 4/5/2018 | Thursday | 2519 |
| 4/6/2018 | Friday | 0 |
| 4/7/2018 | Saturday | 0 |
| 4/8/2018 | Sunday | 577 |
Yep, I managed only 3,096 words on the novel this week. Not great, but still positive yardage, and I did figure out a few tangled plot points that’ll make the writing easier from here on out. I shall do better this week.
Short Stories
Okay, kind of got my shit together here, especially compared to my epic failure on the novel. I finished the revisions on three stories, one of which is a tale called “Teeth of the Lion Man.” I’m pretty excited about that one because I’ve been laboring on the damn thing for like four years. I spruced up a few other stories that had been hanging around, and I’m generally happy with the results.
Submissions
Last week was a very good week for submissions, both in volume and responses.
- Submissions Sent: 6
- Rejections: 2
- Acceptances: 1
I currently have fourteen submissions under consideration.
| Story | Date Sent | Days Out | Avg Response |
| Caroline1 | 6/24/2017 | 289 | 263 |
| A Small Evil | 11/9/2017 | 151 | 72 |
| The Scars You Keep | 1/7/2018 | 92 | 123 |
| When the Lights Go On2 | 1/25/2018 | 74 | 45 |
| Bites | 2/8/2018 | 60 | |
| Old as the Trees | 2/28/2018 | 40 | 24 |
| What Kind of Hero | 3/24/2018 | 16 | 105 |
| Two Legs | 3/26/2018 | 14 | 32 |
| Scar | 3/29/2018 | 11 | 40 |
| Burning Man | 4/3/2018 | 6 | |
| Red Season | 4/3/2018 | 6 | |
| Teeth of the Lion Man | 4/8/2018 | 1 | 5 |
| The Inside People | 4/8/2018 | 1 | 10 |
| A Point of Honor | 4/8/2018 | 1 | 15 |
- Reprint
- Shortlisted
I received responses on two of the stories that had been in that 45- to 75-day range: one rejection and one acceptance. I can’t talk about the acceptance just yet, but it’s a good one (I mean, they’re all good), and I’m pretty excited about it. Some of the new submissions I sent out are to markets that are generally speedy, so I would expect to heat back from them this week.
Goals
This week I aim to get back on track with the novel, but I’m not gonna set some lofty goal of 15,000 words or more to catch up. Instead, I’ll set my sights on a humble 10,000 words and get delusional about my production again on the following week. I do have one deadline looming I need to hit, an outline for a game design project. Since I never miss deadlines (true story), I’ll be knocking that out this week.
Story Spotlight
This week, I’d like you to head on out to The Arcanist, and check out my latest story, “The Food Bank,” published on on 4/6. It’s your typical post-apocalyptic horror flash fiction about giant bugs. 🙂
Read “The Food Bank“
“The Food Bank” & The Arcanist Trio
The Arcanist just published my flash fiction piece “The Food Bank,” and it’s free to read on their site. This is a post-apocalyptic horror story with a dash of sci-fi for seasoning. It’s also got giant bugs in it. Simply click the big bug below to read.
This is my third publication with The Arcanist, and if you write or read speculative flash fiction, you should definitely give them a look. If you’re so inclined, you can check out my previous two stories, “Cowtown” and “Reunion,” by clicking on the cow or the seashell below.
Submission Statement: March 2018
I often start these submission statements with a subtle (or not-so subtle) complaint about my production for the month. Well, not this time. March was a really good month, one of the best of my short story submittin’ career.
March 2018 Report Card
- Submissions Sent: 8
- Rejections: 7
- Acceptances: 3
- Publications: 0
- Withdrawal: 1
Eight submissions is good volume, and that puts me at a total of 35 submissions for the first three months of 2018. I’m also on a good pace for my goal of 100 submission for the year. Of course, the big news for the month is the three acceptances. I think that’s the most I’ve received in a single month.
Rejections
I’d say 7 rejections is about average for me, especially with how many submissions I’ve been sending out lately.
- Standard Form Rejection: 6
- Upper-Tier Form Rejection: 1
- Personal Rejections: 0
All form rejections for the month, and nothing too special. I’ll share a couple from markets that are new to me.
Highlight Rejection 1: Sent 3/13/2018; Rejected 3/25/2018
Thank you so much for sending us [story title]. This time, however, we’re saying no, but we wish you the best of luck with your piece.
This is a pretty standard form rejection, but I’m highlighting it because it is a) a new market for me and b) it’s a literary market. Yep, I’ve branched out a tad, and I’ve been submitting stories to a couple of lit-fic markets. I’ve even had some success there (more on that below).
Highlight Rejection 2: Sent 1/30/2018; Rejected 3/29/2018
Thanks for giving us the chance to read [story title]. After careful consideration, we are unfortunately going to pass at this time.
If you have other works that you think might be a good fit for [publisher], we encourage you to submit them through our Google form.
We look forward to reading more of your work in the future and hope that this piece finds a home as well.
I would call this a higher-tier rejection, and it’s from a market that has accepted three stories of mine in the past (bless them). I include it here to demonstrate simply that even with a market that really likes your stuff, not every story is a good fit.
Acceptances
Well, this was a hell of a month for acceptances. I received three in March, and they all came within the span of about seven days. That’s a pretty good week. 🙂
Acceptance 1: Sent 1/6/2018; Accepted 3/2/2018
Thanks for letting us read [story title]. We would love to publish it in [publisher]!
The first acceptance for March came form a publisher that’s published me twice before. It’s always great when you find a market and an editor that dig your work. This story will go live in a couple of days, and I’ll be sure to post a link to it then.
Acceptance 2: Sent 3/3/2018; Accepted 3/6/2018
Thank you for taking the time to submit your story [story title]. I’d be delighted to publish it on [publisher].
I’ve scheduled it for publication on 4 May. If this date changes, I will let you know.
Thanks again for submitting your work.
The second acceptance for March comes from market I’ve never submitted to before, mostly because they’re primarily a literary market. The story I sent them straddles the line between genre and literary, and they liked it enough to publish it. As you can see, the story will (most likely) be published on May 4th, and I’ll be sure to alert all of you so you can run over to the publisher’s website and read it.
Acceptance 3: Sent 12/30/2017; Accepted 3/8/2018
Loved this story. Buying for [publisher], most likely the online edition.
There’s more to this acceptance letter, but this is the important bit. The real kicker here is this represents my first sale of a mystery/crime story. That’s pretty cool, and I might have to write a few more. As much as I like being published in print, an online publication allows me to send folks directly to the story to read, which I will most certainly do when this is published.
And that’s my March. How was yours?
A Week of Writing: 3/26/18 to 4/1/18
One more week in the trenches working on various writing projects. Here’s how it all shook out, complete with word count goals, short story sundries, and submission shenanigans.
The Novel
As I said last week, my big project for the moment is a horror novel called “Late Risers.” I’m making pretty good progress, with a weekly goal of 15,000 words, which I often fall short of. Still, I have a minimum do-or-die goal of 10,000 words I can hit pretty routinely. Here’s how I did this week.
| Date | Day | Words Written |
| 3/26/2018 | Monday | 0 |
| 3/27/2018 | Tuesday | 2516 |
| 3/28/2018 | Wednesday | 0 |
| 3/29/2018 | Thursday | 0 |
| 3/30/2018 | Friday | 2553 |
| 3/31/2018 | Saturday | 2091 |
| 4/1/2018 | Sunday | 2852 |
As you can see, I struggled early in the week to get going but managed to turn it on for the weekend. I ended up with 10,012 words for the week, which put me at 53,500 words in total. That’s a bit over half-way to a first draft, so I’m pretty happy with that. If I can keep this up, I expect to have a first draft by the end of the month.
Short Stories
No new short stories this week, but I did outline an urban fantasy story tentatively called “Deep Water.” I like the idea, and we’ll see if I can get some real work done on it this week.
Submissions
An average week for submission volume.
- Submissions Sent: 2
- Rejections: 1
- Submission Status Query: 1
- Shortlist: 0
- Withdrawal: 0
I currently have eleven submissions in rotation at the moment.
| Story | Date Sent | Days Out | Avg Response |
| Caroline1 | 6/24/2017 | 282 | 261 |
| A Small Evil | 11/9/2017 | 144 | 65 |
| The Scars You Keep | 1/7/2018 | 85 | 123 |
| Scare Tactics1 | 1/18/2018 | 74 | |
| When the Lights Go On2 | 1/25/2018 | 67 | 40 |
| Bites | 2/8/2018 | 53 | |
| A Point of Honor | 2/18/2018 | 43 | 10 |
| Old as the Trees | 2/28/2018 | 33 | 24 |
| What Kind of Hero | 3/24/2018 | 9 | 119 |
| Two Legs | 3/26/2018 | 7 | 32 |
| Scar | 3/29/2018 | 4 | 40 |
- Reprint
- Shortlisted
As I said last time, a few of these stories are beyond the average response time, so I should hear back soon. I did send a submission status query to one of these publishers, mostly because the wait time is much longer than what I’ve previously experienced with the market. That could simply mean they’ve had a lot more submission than usual, or it could mean a lost submission. I sent a polite query letter basically to rule out the latter.
Goals
Again, I’d very much like to hit 15,000 words on the novel this week, but, as usual, I’ll settle for 10,000. I accepted a contract for game design project, and I need to get the outline for that going. It’s not due for a couple of weeks, but I’d like to get ahead of the deadline. As always, I have a whole bunch of short stories just crying out to be finished, revised, submitted, and so on, and I’ll try to get to a few of those as well.
Story Spotlight
This week, since baseball season is in full swing, I’ll ask you to head on over to Pseudopod and listen to my vampire baseball story “Night Games.” The narration by Rish Outfield is simply superb, and I think the story is pretty okay too. 🙂
Listen to “Night Games“
And that was my week. Tell me about yours in the comments.
A Week of Writing: 3/19/18 to 3/25/18
Starting a new feature here on the ol’ blog. Every Monday or thereabouts, I’ll update you on the writing I did for the week prior. How many words I wrote on which projects, how many stories I competed, how many I submitted, and so on. The purpose of this is partly to keep myself on track and also to explore my, uh, “process.” So, without further ado, here’s my writing week from Monday, March 19th to Sunday, March 25th.
The Novel
My big project is a horror novel I’ve been working on for a couple of months. The working title is Late Risers, and when it’s a little further along I’ll tell you all about it and maybe share a snippet or two in these updates. For now, I’ll just talk about getting the damn thing on the page.
With big projects I like to get at least 10,000 words a week. I generally set a loftier goal of 15,000 words, and if I hit that, awesome, but I feel like I’ve accomplished something if I can get my 10K. So, here’s the week:
| Date | Day | Words Written |
| 3/19/2018 | Monday | 2576 |
| 3/20/2018 | Tuesday | 2505 |
| 3/21/2018 | Wednesday | 2500 |
| 3/22/2018 | Thursday | 0 |
| 3/23/2018 | Friday | 0 |
| 3/24/2018 | Saturday | 0 |
| 3/25/2018 | Sunday | 2514 |
I had a pretty good head of steam going early in the week, knocking out 2,500 words three days in a row. Obviously, Thursday through Saturday were a little rough, mostly because of some plain ol’ life stuff that couldn’t be avoided. I got back on track Sunday and ended my week with 10,095 words. That’s not too shabby. The book now sits at 43,500 words, and I’m in the middle of the second act.
I’m gonna set my sights on 15,000 words again this week, which should put me toward the end of the second act and heading into the home stretch.
Short Stories
I’m always working on short stories, and as I sit here and write this blog post, I have seven of them open on my desktop in various stages of completion. I did finish one piece of flash fiction this week as part of a one-hour flash challenge contest. The story is called “It Makes the Trees Grow,” and it’s a neat little supernatural crime piece. It needs some spit and polish, but it’ll go out for submission this week.
Submissions
A slightly below-average week for submission volume.
- Submissions Sent: 1
- Rejections: 3
- Shortlist: 1
- Withdrawal: 1
The shortlist and withdrawal are kind of rare. For some reason, I don’t get a lot of shortlist letters. That may be because I don’t submit to anthologies much, where they’re seem to be more common. Or it might just be editors either like my story enough to accept it or dislike it enough to simply reject it. No middle ground. I sent the withdrawal letter after I sent a submission status query and didn’t hear back for quite some time. That’s usually a clear indicator it’s time to withdraw the story.
I still have ten submissions in rotation at the moment, and a few of them are getting pretty long in the tooth. Here’s the list if you’re into analyzing wait times like me.
| Story | Date Sent | Days Out | Avg Response |
| Caroline1 | 6/24/17 | 275 | 261 |
| A Small Evil | 11/9/17 | 137 | 65 |
| The Scars You Keep | 1/7/18 | 78 | 123 |
| Scare Tactics1 | 1/18/18 | 67 | |
| When the Lights Go On2 | 1/25/18 | 60 | 40 |
| Big Changes | 1/30/18 | 55 | 39 |
| Bites | 2/8/18 | 46 | |
| A Point of Honor | 2/18/18 | 36 | 10 |
| Old as the Trees | 2/28/18 | 26 | 24 |
| What Kind of Hero | 3/24/18 | 2 | 119 |
- Reprint
- Shortlisted
As you can see, I should probably hear back on a few of these soon. You always hope that the longer a story goes beyond the average response time, the more chance it has at being accepted, but, in my experience, that’s not always the case. Sometimes editors just fall behind or get more submissions than they expected for a submission window. Still, I feel pretty good about a couple of these.
Goals
This week, I’d like to ad another 15,000 words to the novel first and foremost. Then I’d like to finish revising a short story called “Teeth of the Lion Man,” which I’m pretty excited about. I think it’s one of the better shorts I’ve written in some time. If I pull those two things off, everything else–submissions, other shorts, etc.–will just be gravy.
Story Spotlight
This is the part of the post where I ask you to read a thing I wrote. This week, check out a flash fiction story I published with Evil Girlfriend Media a few years ago called “The Rarest Cut.” It’s, uh, a horror story with a culinary theme. 🙂
Read “The Rarest Cut”
And that was my week. Tell me about yours in the comments.
Even Good Stories Get Rejected
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. You finish a story, and you know it’s just the best damn thing you’ve ever written. Proud of your shiny new word baby, you send it out to a publisher you’re pretty sure will dig it. You wait with breathless anticipation for a few weeks, and then, BAM! The form rejection drops like a ten-ton weight into your inbox. Now what?
Well, sometimes I see authors want to overhaul a story based on that single rejection. A lot of the time, I think that’s a mistake. In my experience, most stories rack up at least one rejection before they sell. To illustrate this point, here are ten of my acceptances and the number of rejections they received before the blessed event.
| Story | Rejections |
| Paper Cut | 16 |
| Caroline | 7 |
| Scare Tactics | 7 |
| Night Games | 6 |
| Reunion | 3 |
| Little Sister | 2 |
| Luck Be a Bullet | 2 |
| New Arrivals | 2 |
| The Food Bank | 2 |
| Where They Belong | 0 |
This list includes my story with the most rejections before publication and one of my few stories I sold on the first try. The only story on the list I revised was “Paper Cut” after about nine rejections. It still went on to collect seven more before I sold it. The rest of these stories I kept sending out until they found an editor that liked them.
Two of the stories on this list, “Night Games” and “Scare Tactics,” I’ve sold again to audio markets. I consider “Night Games” the best story I’ve published to date (YMMV), and it still racked up six rejections before someone liked it as much I do.
What am I trying to say with all this? It’s all in the title of the post. Even good stories get rejected. One, or two, or hell, half a dozen rejections doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve written a bad story or even a story that needs (major) revision. It can mean you’ve written a story that doesn’t quite fit the market you sent it to (might be time to dial in your submission targeting). It can mean you wrote a story about ghosts and sent it to an editor who just doesn’t like ghost stories that much. It can mean you wrote a story that’s very similar to a story the market just published or is planning to publish. In other words, it can mean a lot of things that have nothing to do with the quality of your story. Some editors are even good enough to tell you these things in the rejection letter.
This all leads to the next question. How many rejections should a story receive before you revise it or even scrap it? That’s gonna come down to a gut check. Obviously, I fall into the “keep sending it out until it finds a home” camp, but I generally start thinking about revision after six or seven rejections, especially if I’m only getting form rejections. Now, all this “advice” doesn’t mean squat if you get a rejection with specific feedback that resonates with you. In that case, revise away and thank your lucky stars you received such useful feedback right off the bat.
To sum up, consider letting your submissions stretch their legs a bit before you drag them back into the shop for an overhaul. A couple of rejections probably doesn’t mean much.
How many rejection do you let a story rack up before you think about revision? Tell me about it in the comments.
Story Acceptance Prep Kit
Hey, you got an acceptance letter. Awesome. Now what? Well, the editor is likely going to ask you for a few things, and I think it’s a great idea to have these items ready to go and at your fingertips. So consider the following like a story acceptance prep kit and get busy.
1) Short Author Bio. Most markets will ask you for a short bio of around 50 words to run alongside your story. Here’s my current bio to give you an idea of what’s usually expected.
Aeryn Rudel is a freelance writer from Seattle, Washington. His second novel, Aftershock, was recently published by Privateer Press. Aeryn occasionally offers dubious advice on the subjects of writing and rejection (mostly rejection) on his blog at www.rejectomancy.com or on Twitter @Aeryn_Rudel.
That bio is right around 40 words and tells folks who I am, what I do, and where they can learn more about me and my writing. I’ve written two blog posts about creating author bios, which you can find here: Submission Protocol: Short Author Bio and Evolution of a Short Author Bio.
2) PayPal Account. One of the best parts of getting published is getting paid for getting published. The vast majority of publishers I’ve worked with prefer to pay via PayPal and some won’t pay any other way. So set up an account if you haven’t already.
3) Author Photo. This one is sometimes optional, and some publishers will also give you the option of not using one. That said, if you don’t mind having your picture appear on the web or in print, then have one ready to go. Here’s my mug shot as an example:
I like black and white, but color is usually fine too. Generally, an author photo should be a head-shot, high resolution (at least 300 dpi), and a JPEG or TIF file. If you’d like more info about creating an author photo, I wrote a blog post about that too, which you can find right here: Picture Me: Some Thoughts/Advice on Author Photos.
These are three things I find editors commonly ask for after an acceptance, and as I stated earlier, I recommend having them ready to go. This is not to say an editor won’t give you time to put these together–editors are generally reasonable folks–but if you can provide them quickly, you look like a professional and prepared author. That’s always a good look. 🙂
Anything else that should be included in the story acceptance prep kit? Let me know in the comments.
Submission Statement: February 2018
February is in the rearview, and despite a significant drop in the number of submissions sent, it was a pretty good month. I broke the longest rejections streak of my career at 27, so that alone makes February a-okay in my book.
February 2018 Report Card
- Submissions Sent: 5
- Rejections: 7
- Acceptances: 1
- Publications: 0
I sent only a quarter of the submissions I sent in January, but I’m still on pace to hit 100 submissions for the year, with an average of 12.5 per month for the first two months. The main culprits for the lower submission count are a lack of new stories and some markets taking a little longer than usual to get back to me (keeping me from submitting the story elsewhere). Both of those factors should change in March.
Rejections
A fair amount of rejections this month, mostly from older submissions sent in January.
- Standard Form Rejection: 7
- Upper-Tier Form Rejection: 0
- Personal Rejections: 0
All the rejections I received were garden-variety form rejections, but I’ll show you a couple just because I think they contain some solid advice.
Highlight Rejection 1: Sent 1/31/2017; Rejected 2/5/2018
We appreciate you taking the time to send us your story, [story title]. After careful consideration we’ve decided to pass on this story. There are many reasons a story is not accepted, most of which are subjective in nature, so don’t let our denial deter your from sending your story to other publications. We wish you the best of luck on finding a publication for this story.
This is a standard form rejection from a new pro-paying market. I like this rejection because it mentions the subjective nature of getting a story published. Good stories are rejected all the time for all kinds of reasons. The editor’s reminder not to let that deter you from sending the story elsewhere is good advice and appreciated, even in a form letter.
Highlight Rejection 2: Sent 1/25/2018; Rejected 2/9/2018
Thank you for submitting your story, [story title], to [publisher]. Unfortunately, we have decided not to publish it. To date, we have reviewed many strong stories that we did not take. Either the fit was wrong or we’d just taken tales with a similar theme or any of a half dozen other reasons.
Best success selling this story elsewhere.
You’ve certainly seen this rejection on my blog before (I’ll crack this market one of these days), but I’m including it here because of this sentence: To date, we have reviewed many strong stories that we did not take. I don’t believe this is a hollow platitude, and, as the letter says, I’m sure this publisher has turned down strong stories for fit or similar themes or many other reasons.
I’ve published four stories this market rejected, and I don’t bring that up because this market was wrong for rejecting my work (they were right to do so for the reasons they listed and probably a few they didn’t). I bring it up to demonstrate those stories were simply a better fit for another market, and continuing to submit them was the right move. So, when you get a rejection, don’t jump to “I wrote a bad story.” Instead, remember, “To date, we have reviewed many strong stories that we did not take.”
Acceptances
Stop the presses; I get to talk about an acceptance this month. 🙂
Acceptance: Sent 1/4/2018; Rejected 2/20/2018
Thanks for your submission, [story title]. I’m happy to say that I’ve acquired it for [publisher] [themed] issue!
There’s more to this letter, of course, but it’s all the usual stuff about contracts and edits and whatnot. I’ll announce the market and the story soon. This will be my second publication with this market, and I’m thrilled to add another repeat customer to my resume.
That’s it for my February. How was your month?
Effectively Wild – A Baseball Horror Story
Night Walk & Other Dark Paths
Acts of War: Flashpoint
Acts of War: Aftershock
Acts of War: Stormbreak
Aeryn Rudel's Rejectomancy 