With the rejections; are you submitting unsolicited manuscripts to the few publishers who accept, or are you able to send your work to all publishers? I'm nowhere near finishing my book, so my rejections are yet to come - but I have seen that most publishers want solicited, so I was thinking of first submitting work to agents to represent me??
So all publishers accepting short stories submissions accept unsolicited work? You literally just send it over?
In case it's relevant, I think we're talking about magazines and journals, rather than, for example, pitching a whole book of short stories.
I was only able to retrieve some of it. I don't think it was all that great, anyway. Or maybe that's just what I need to think to cope with it. I haven't gone back to work on it. I guess I'm waiting for some magic to happen and the lost pages to reappear or I will instantly remember every word just how I said it before. Thanks for asking.
Yes, the magazines and journals that publish short stories almost all take unsolicited submissions. They usually have some sort of guidelines, but that's not hard to find. But to get in anywhere that will impress your smart friends is extremely difficult.
The vast majority do. You just follow their guidlines, submit, and hope for the best. Of course, the competition at the higher end markets is pretty tough. Targeting pro-rate anthologies might be more productive than the magazines. It's certainly easier to gauge whether the story is a fit.
Just got a SASE back with nothing inside. This really pisses me off. No one on the editorial staff can be bothered to slip in a form rejection and seal up the envelope before mailing it back? Seriously???!!! Unfortunately, this has happened to me before with another publication. Given the postmark, I can figure out where they are from, but this really hurts. I am sending them my very best work and they don't even respect my efforts enough to properly reject me.
Hows about: "This is not what we are looking for." Ok, you said you deal with Sci-fi and Fantasy, so what part did I miss. (sorry to bitch). @deadrats if it makes you feel better I got a prefabbed rejection letter that basically said we didn't even look at more than some point of a percent of the slush pile. So who cares if it got flushed. Though it sounds pretty damn insulting to get an empty envelope back.
I think this and its variations are the most aggravating sorts of rejections, especially if you have read through some of their published work and the stories in question seem similar to yours. And to make matters worse, you can't really ask the follow up question: "Why (isn't it a fit)?" Even something as broad as saying it was the prose, or the plot, or the character can be tremendously helpful. Speaking from experience on that one; I'm almost positive a rejection with reasoning, which I acted on, directly lead to my second story acceptance.
@X Equestris This is a letter I got back, withholding the name of the person who sent it. Thank you for your submission to Red Adept Publishing. Unfortunately, we do not feel your manuscript meets our needs at this time. We do wish you luck with your manuscript and all future endeavors. Sincerely, Out of that, where do I figure out why it doesn't fit? It basically a nice way we think your submission sucked.
Dear Author: Thanks so much for letting us take a look at your materials and please forgive us for responding with a form letter. The volume of submissions we receive, however, makes it impossible to correspond with everyone personally. Unfortunately, the project you describe does not suit our list at this time. We wish you the best of luck in finding an agent and publisher for your work and we thank you, once again, for letting us consider your materials. At least these guys lamp shaded the form letter
Don't apologize for bitching. I started this thread as a place for all of us to bitch about form letters, empty envelopes and everything else that comes with rejection. As writers, we face a lot of rejection and all of us are likely to face even more rejections. The harder I try, the more rejections I get. This is a tough business, that's for sure.
You are totally right. Form rejections are the worst. Actually, I think they're tied with the empty envelope rejections. It's great that you were able to get some useful feedback from somewhere. What did they say that was so helpful? When I get personal rejections they tend to say nice things and nothing about why it was rejected. I've got this one magazine that has rejected my work on a regular basis throughout the year. Each time, the editor has said something nice. Still, I have no idea how much consideration my work is really getting. I would like to think they mean it when they pay me a compliment, but I have no idea how close I am to ever getting an acceptance from them. But congratulation on your second sale. That's awesome!
To quote: "Thanks very much for sending this story to _Beneath Ceaseless Skies_. Unfortunately, it's not quite right for me. I liked the sense of detail and the mood of foreboding in the opening, but the narrator sighting and describing the girl only to reveal a few paragraphs later that she had been her daughter (who has become an Acheri, a sort of plague demon) made the narrative feel to me less authentic to the reactions of a real person than I needed in order for the narrator as a character to seize me. We appreciate your interest in our magazine. Please feel free to submit other work in the future." The bold is my added context. I went back, decided the amount of emotion and order of things was indeed not the best it could be, and revised it accordingly. Then I sent it off to the market I'd originally written it for. It got rejected in the final cut; from that letter, it seems they simply had more good stories than slots. The third time was the charm. And now I've sent it off to a place that pays pro rates, even for reprints. Fingers crossed that one works out.
Personal feedback can be a double-edged sword, when so often you get two editors/agents/whatevers telling you opposite things. I'd still rather have it and hope I get a consensus, but sometimes it leaves you feeling like you can't win. I got one personalised rejection that was so off the mark it was obvious the editor hadn't read any of the manuscript. That's the one and only rejection that annoyed me, because why request a manuscript if you aren't going to read it? Grr. Ooh, and I got an amazingly rude form letter from one agent. It was "I can only take on very few manuscripts, and I see nothing here to suggest yours should be one of them." I laugh every time I think of it.
Wow, that seems like really valuable feedback, to me! I mean, especially since you agreed with it, but the editor taking the time to elucidate reasons for the rejection is great!
OMG. That's awful. I'll take an empty envelope over that any day. Why do these so-called gatekeepers want to be such heartbreakers sometimes?
It was the only rude one I got, and it was so bizarre that I couldn't be offended. Can you imagine working with him as your agent, if he thinks that's a good way to communicate?! I got many more form letters that I could tell were painstakingly crafted to be as kind as possible.
If it were me, I'd write back to them and explain that you received an empty SASE, and are not sure what it might have been meant to contain. That should shame them, if they intentionally sent you the empty envelope. Whatever they think of your work, they need to remember it's people like yourself, submitting manuscripts and queries, that keeps them in business. How far would they get if they had to go knocking on every door, saying, 'Hey, I'm an agent. Does anybody in your house happen to write books? Would you mind if I took a look at your work?' I don't care how busy they claim to be, discourtesy like sending an empty envelope is never okay. Of course it may have been sent that way by mistake, so give them a chance to reply. If they don't bother to reply, then resolve not to bother submitting to them in the future. Getting an agent is only the first step in the process. The agent has to sell your book to a publisher. If they are discourteous people, they won't succeed.
I'm sure it wasn't intentional. Sticking the rejection in the SASE just wasn't a priority that day. Whatever. Writing back wouldn't change anything. I'm just going to direct my efforts elsewhere.
