That rocks J.T.! Hope they ask for full soon ! I just got some more rejections. a 2-day and a 45-day form letter from agents. Total is now 27.
I am so tempted to query a few places that have held onto my work for quite a bit longer than expected from what is stated in their writers guidelines or have been out way longer than recorded response times on Duotrope. The only thing is that every time I have done this it has never worked in my favor. My oldest submission is about 450 days. However, I've gotten a personal rejection from this same place that took over 500 days in the past. And this place is one of my dream publications. I've got some other really old submissions too. Not in a hurry to get rejected. And I can only assume that I've got some pieces under serious consideration. How do you guys remain patient with places that seem to take forever?
It's tough to wait. The only thing to do in the meantime is to work on other projects. I rarely query unless something feels off to me. I did query once and it turned out I hadn't clicked the button to pay the reading fee. My story was in the journal's queue forever, but no one was reading it. If you feel the submission process is running normally, I wouldn't bother querying. Of course, it probably doesn't matter one way or the other in terms of how they see your work. Good luck! I hope you get some good news soon.
It's actually become very common for the literary journals and magazines to charge a small fee for submissions. It's usually around $3. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it, but it just is the way it is now.
That's wild that you've received a personalized rejection after more than 500 days. This business can be bananas. For the email queries, they really seem to prefer not to send any rejection at all, so I don't really think on them much. Maybe one day I will get a startling surprise? Probably not, so I just don't worry about them. For the ones submitted via Query Tracker, I have received a 100% response rate, with the longest rejection taking 79 days. There is one that is still open after 197 days, which is strange. Knowing that this one is still out there has sometimes made me cling to some hope of there being interest, but it was also one of the first queries I made (read: not very polished). So now I don't think about it much. I figure they have overlooked it somehow.
Uh, I don’t? I’ve just started submitting again after a long hiatus, and I’m definitely struggling to relearn my old patience. Yesterday, I checked my notes on a submission that feels like it’s been out forever—turns out it’s only been three weeks.
Another reason to avoid any genre that calls itself literary. I'll stick with what was once called pulp fiction, not the movie. This is just one more reason for the rise of self publishing. For me it is not the amount of the fee, but it's existence.
A 9-day form rejection from The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse Anthology. I don't know anything about this publisher, but it sounded like a cool endeavor. And this sort of stuff is the only genre work I tend to write about. They are still taking submissions until the end of the month so I might try them again with something else. 2023 rejection count: 19
I'm up to 29 now. One 5-day form letter from an agent. And this next one stings a bit. I submitted to ECW Press, a Canadian publisher. Thought I might have a decent chance since they only accept submissions from Canadians. On their submission page it says, "if you do not hear from an editor within two months, please assume that your book is not the right fit for our list." I just received a 116-day rejection from one of their editors. "I really appreciated getting to look at a sample of The Souled, but unfortunately.."
A 37-day higher-tier form rejection from One Story. Said they enjoyed my story and wants to see more work from me. 2023 rejection count: 20
