Are the ratios somewhat balanced or do rejections outnumber the acceptances? Lately, I've been submitting a mix of poetry and short stories and I've been rejected left and right with only an acceptance every two months or so. I've managed to get two short stories published but I've written about seven short stories altogether. I guess the waiting has me bummed. How many publications do you get each month? And how much do you aim to have by the end of the year?
I get rejected just about 100 percent of the time, and I average about 100 rejections per year. I will say that every place I've send my work pretty much would be at least somewhat of a big deal if not a huge deal if they took it. I've got about nine stories spread across forty submissions. I feel good about these ones, but I've also been in this position before. If they all get reject, it won't be a shock. So, I continue to write new stories for the markets I want in at and have been responsive to my work. I've probably written over a hundred short stories. But to date I'm pretty much a failure.
I think it was Nancy Huston who said "Every writer gets more rejections than acceptances, more dissapointments than acheivments and more naysayers than fans but if you keep writing, the universe will give you what writers get eventually."
I sent off one story to one publication and got one rejection, so I can say I have a 100% rejection rate. I decided pretty quickly it's not worth my time subbing short stories (since I want to be a novelist) so I put them on my blog for free instead.
Not for short stories, but... I've been querying one manuscript around to a couple of people. I've either gotten outright rejections or haven't heard a peep months later. The second manuscript I only had to query to one agent before she asked to see the full thing. Its been a week, so the jury's still out on whether or not it'll be a rejection in the end.
