Two rejections today: A 181-day form rejection from Indiana Review and a 140-day form rejection from Post Road.
Surprise, surprise! I have more rejections to report. All were form letters, though some of them sounded personal, so I had to look them up. Nope, not personal. One of them was a "submit again," at least. 22-day from The Future Fire, 24-day from Mythaxis, and three more agent rejections. Sooo... that brings me to 101 on the year. And I will repost this meme I made last year to mark the occasion:
my first agent rejection of the year came with pleasant feedback on why it was rejected. Agent rejection: 1 Mag/Journal rejections: 30
More. 17-day from Crimson Quill, 90 days have passed for the Story Unlikely submission (just send a form letter, you guys! Come on!), plus two agent form letter rejections. That's 105 for the year now. Well, best get back to submitting...
I submitted to a romance anthology and have now been told the 2025 one is full but they’ll check back later to see if it’s still free for 2026! I’ll submit it elsewhere in the meantime.
Lots and lots more. Damn. For shorts, form rejections from Mythaxis, Asimov's, and Smokelong. For agents, 7 form letters, and also 7 more were auto-closed for no response after 4 months. Total for the year is now 122. I thought I got a nice personal rejection from one of the agents. They said, "This was an interesting and original premise that was well-written with good character development." But when I checked comments people had left on their QueryTracker page, I was surprised to learn that this is their standard form letter. Can you imagine? It's nice to be encouraging, but this is a bit much. Anyway. Here's an artist's depiction of my submission and query activities over the summer:
Got a few more to report. A 40-day form rejection for an On the Premises contest (they say they received 560 entries), a 176-day form rejection from Riddle Fence (damn!), a 5-day form from Flash Frog (they are always so quick), and a very nice personal rejection from Uncharted after 35 days. Up to 126 now. It was really nice to get another rare personal rejection. Form letter after form letter can wear on you a bit !
A few more rejections trickled in this week. Thought I'd try and mix things up by sending a poem to Prole, but I got a form rejection after 14 days. Also got five more agent rejections. Unusually, one of them remembered me from when they rejected a different novel of mine over 20 months ago. Maybe they have an inbox rule to remind them or something. Anyway, that makes it 132 on the year now. It's looking like I will easily cruise past the 150 mark and probably pass 200 come the end of December. Spoiler And still no sales
All right, it's time to go through my rejections for the week. Let's see here... A 147-day form rejection from Skull and Laurel, 8-day from The Deadlands, and an, "I'm not sure how many days cause they weren't listed on Duotrope" rejection from Unréal. Also, three more agent form letter rejections, six more auto-closed for no response after 4 months, and one rejection from an indie publisher. That's 145 rejections for the year now. Good gravy.
"If you do not hear from us within 2 weeks of submitting your query, regretfully we did not find your project to be a good fit for our current list" i have not heard anything, so I guess this is my 9th query rejection
Time to go through my big bag of rejections for the week. We've got a 59-day rejection from Dark Waters Anthology (really thought this story would be perfect for it), a 33-day personal rejection from Andromeda Spaceways, a 6-day form from Factor Four, a 34-day from High Tower, a 1-day personal from The Colored Lens, and a 33-day from an indie publisher. Along with those, I received 4 more agent rejections. That's 155 now. BUT - I also received an email this morning advising me that one of my stories has made it past the first round of reading and will be reviewed by the editors next. It's nice to be shortlisted. Just a kind reminder that yes, I am good enough, and no, I'm not wasting my time.
I thought I was waiting forever for a response from Fractured Lit, but it's been in my spam folder for four weeks, lol. I hadn't been checking it. It was a rejection, of course, but it was higher tier, at least, so that's something. This is the second time they've advised me to submit something again sometime, but I don't have that many good stories. I'm only shopping around two flash pieces and a poem at the moment. I guess I have a couple more I like, but those first two are better, I think.
