A Google amble suggests that these fees aren't always charged for snail-mailed submissions, and that they're partly there to avoid shotgun submissions, rather than really being "reading fees". Do the publications that you're submitting to accept snail mail without a fee?
No problem, just sent you a message or conversation, or whatever it is. I`m quite happy to add to your resources as well, providing I know just where to put it. Thanks for you offer, I`m not going to submit to anything before I`ve posted something somewhere so I can get a bit more information on just where I stand. The lady posting the list said she sent out seventy submissions to every one accepted.
A lot of them do, but the cost of mailing it ends up being about the same. And I'm so bad at actually getting things out in the mail, though, I do manage to keep up with it somewhat. But sometimes places seem to respond a lot quicker to submissions made through a submission manager. And since I'm doing some simultaneous submissions I feel like it will be easier to withdraw than through the mail. I recently had to do that and was so lazy about it for way too long. It didn't end up being an issue, but if it had, it would have been completely my fault. I would like to get a batch in the mail sometime soon, but since I've been saying that for about a month, I figured I should give in and pay the reading fees at a few of the places I really wanted to send work to. I think the biggest problem is that this could add up quick.
Since I know you submit a lot too, I was wondering who you think is worth it when it comes to paying reading fees. Maybe we could compare notes a little here?
Thanks for the list. Got it. And I think if you're getting one acceptance for every 70 submissions, you're doing pretty good. That's about where I'm at.
I might find myself experiencing that one day. I was wondering; do you persist in submitting just one story, or do you cycle them? If you have no luck with one thing do you try something else for a while? Just curious is all.
I try to have about 10 to 15 pieces submitted to a total of about 50 markets. That's what I aim for. I've given up on pieces I know longer feel are my best work. Other ones sometimes sell. I'm always adding new stories into the mix. It's hard to get published in these places and I think you really, really have to try and it has to seem harder than it should for awhile. But it can happen, and those who put in more work probably have better luck of it happening. I think the short story is such a beautiful thing when we allow it to be.
Yes, let's send them dominations. They will mumble and faint from how dominated they will be while being flooded with dominant, alpha stories!
15 different stories? How on earth do you keep track of them? And don`t most of them discourage simultaneous submissions?
Websites like duotrope make it very easy to track your submissions. You can also see what you've already sent to who and when you can expect a response. There are free websites that are similar, but I haven't found one that I think does as good of a job or has the majority of markets I'm looking for. Some people use a spreadsheet. I used to do that, but I think it really helps to have more of a system than that. It's definitely a bit of a mix as to who is okay with simultaneous submissions and who's not, but I find that most places are okay with it.
Ok, colour me surprised. After all you wouldn`t want to be sending the same story to two different magazines, would you?
@ChickenFreak is right. That is exactly what a simultaneous submission is. You send the story to multiple magazines at the same time. I've got one story that's on submission at seven magazines, another one at four magazines... it goes like that. If a magazine buys a story from me that I have on submission at other places too, I just have to withdraw it from the other places. It's a very standard practice. That being said there are still places that don't allow or say they don't like simultaneous submissions. I respect that. I think it helps to have a lot of things out there. There is so much rejection involved in publishing short stories. If I send a story out to ten publications at once, I'm not surprised when it's rejected from everywhere. I've sold a story that received upward of 50 rejections before it found a home. I've also sold a story after a handful of rejections. I've never sold a story on its first try out, not even in the first batch out if I'm trying more than one place at a time. The website I've mentioned that I use to track my submissions also gives you your submission stats. It says my acceptance rate for the last year is 2 percent. It also says that is higher than average for the markets I've submitted to. I'm telling you, the short story market is just saturated with submissions. I think often your story has to beat out hundreds if not thousands of other stories. The odds are definitely not in the writer's favor. If I hadn't been so aggressive about submitting, I still might not have sold anything. Plus, when something gets rejected it softens the blow a little if it's still out at other places.
Interesting, didn`t think that any publishing house or magazine would accept SS. I guess if you have the chance of withdrawing then it would work. I honestly didn`t realize they allowed that, that`s why I asked. I also didn`t realize the scale of short story submissions. It is an interesting world, this publishing thing.
I'm curious--is this all nice and automated? Do the other magazines use the submission site to track what they're reading, so that they don't waste their time reading something that's already taken? I imagine that being the ideal thing, but the world often fails to match the ideal.
There are a few submission managers that almost everyplace uses. And to withdraw all you have to do is click a button. That way no one wastes their time reading something or considering something that's already been taken.
I take it that`s all inside of this duotrope? It makes sense to use a service like that if you are dealing with so many stories and submissions.
Duotrope is just for the writers. It's a database, plus does a whole bunch more. But the publications use a different system that allows you to actually submit. The most popular one is Submittable. That's where you would go to submit and/or withdraw something. It also allows you to see when the document with your story has been opened. About half of the places I have submissions out right now use that system.
Forgive me for asking but do you do this for a living or in your spare time? It seems like a lot of work even without the writing.
I'm a full time writer. Once you get a system down and used to how everything works, it's not as complicated as it sounds. I usually submit one day a week. The other days my main focus is on the writing.
Sorry to hear that. At least you got some feedback, that seems to be really lacking with a lot of these establishments.
I didn't receive many actual rejections when querying my manuscript, I got mostly the classic "no response at all". Even after I got picked up, though, I'd find the random rejection response from agents I queried like a year ago and stuff. I have to say, it's nice to get a rejection notification just because at least you absolutely know either way whether you were rejected or not, but what's the point of sending a rejection notice to someone over 200 days after they queried you? At that point it seems to me like generally anyone would've considered you were rejecting them, but oh well, a response is a response I guess.
