About a month or so ago, a young writer dropped me a note letting me know she was about to kick her first story out of the nest to let it find its home out in the wilds we call publishing. Being the brother of encouragement that I am, I wished her well with her rejections. It’s not that I thought her story was bad, but rejections are a part of a writer’s life.
Number of short stories I have written 59 + 3 WIP + 15 trunked
Number of times I’ve sent stories out 516
Number of acceptances 56
Number of rejections 460
By my meager calculations, I have about a 12% acceptance rate over the history of my career. I have no idea where this ranks in terms of being typical. I’m no Jim C. Hines or Tobias Buckell or else I’d crunch these numbers to death. For example, see how my acceptance rate has changed over time. The acceptance rate in my first five years is quite different from my most recent five years (getting invited into anthologies, for example, skews the percentage).
There can be a difficult learning curve to rejections. The time spent realizing that the rejection is of the story, not of you varies with each writer. Different kinds of rejections tell you different things. A lot of quick arriving form rejections may be telling you that the story’s not ready. I have sold every story that I wrote in college. The last one sold two years ago (well over a decade since I first wrote it). They’ve gone through maybe ten drafts each. I stuck with them because I believed in them and because the rejections went from forms to personal comments. Those stories which never moved past the form rejection stage, after a dozen send outs, I took a hard look at. Some simply weren’t good and have been trunked.* (These days I typically do three drafts of a story before sending it out and let the rejections tell me if I need to do another one.)
Over the last couple weeks I’ve had one rejection and two acceptances. I’ve sent out rejections to all but 25 or so authors for Dark Faith 2, some of whom are great writers and close friends whose stories simply didn’t work with what we were looking for.
You will be rejected. It’s part of the writing life. It feels personal (especially when you’ve poured your soul into it, bleeding over each page), but it’s not personal. It’s about the work. Not every rejection means the same thing. Before you reach to drown the grief of your baby being rejected, parse it for what it means to you and where you are. Rejection can refine us, letting us know when a story is not ready. But rejection could just mean not for us. Or we ran out of room. Rejection can teach us things, but sometimes the biggest lesson is getting up, dusting yourself off, and sending your story out again. Like much of life, a successful writing career is about perseverance.
*I’m sure I could find the trunked stories a home, but since each story is part of my resume, I don’t want too many stories out there that shouldn’t be. They’d only be part of my “porn past”: they’re out there, I did them, but I’m not going to bring them to anyone’s attention.
But – is a story rejected more often because it needs revising/rewriting – or is it because the submitter is *new*, and despite however many “publishing guides”/writersandartistsyearbooks or whatever you call them over there, she tries to peruse through, s/he simply does not know and cannot easily ascertain the best market/magazine to which to submit her work?! *and are you prepared to give pointers, in such a situation?* That’s what I for one would like to know!
& don’t you think that somehow it was easier for writers in the old days – of Amazing Stories, Weird Tales etc? They published the lately late Ray Bradbury when he was only, what, 21? And as he always admitted, he never even went to college!
And that Amazing Stories editor, in the late 40s he published some total, albeit engaging rubbish by someone whose name I have forgotten but who I’m sure can be Googled – Frank something or s like that – purporting to be true – about an underground race of aliens, zombies or s called “deros”! & once it was..
..published, quite a few people wrote into the letters page and said they had seen them too, which must have delighted the editor! Obviously he knew his market, however!
But – I mean – if THAT got published, anything relatively engaging (and probably not too controversial on racial or sexual matters) must have gotten published at one time!
Whereas nowadays, it would probably get buried on a blog! Unloved & unremunerated!
So – Maurice – tell me – how does one submit for publication the new “I Remember Lemuria” – or anything *I* would find remotely original?! :
Are “they” – companies – even looking for something new – or is it – as Alan Moore has said – all about celebrity names & cushy deals for the friends of the rich?!
a good chunk of the times, stories are rejected for either not being ready or not simply being what the editor is looking for. they could be great stories, just not in line with what the editor wants.
we publish(ed) several “unknown” writers in our Dark Faith anthologies for example. as with any anthology, you have a few “NAMES” to sell the antho, but there are plenty of slots for new/unknown writers.
so yes, a good way to increase your odds for publication is to research your markets carefully to figure out which ones are looking for stories like the one you wish to send.
Of course! But a new writer cannot afford to buy all the magazines out there – not even on a Kindle I daresay – if they are available on a Kindle, and I bet smaller press ones aren’t – unless they’re Internet only – and in that case, do they pay?
So on to press and publishing company guides – like yearbooks. *Which* ones is it you used to have like that over there? I think I used to know the titles of a couple, but I’ve forgotten.
Over here we have The Writers’ And Artist’s Yearbook. It is – or was – fairly comprehensive, but not as helpful as it might be, because the entries were never that detailed. I believe that they were either written/approved by the publishing companies themselves, & therein lies another problem – PR statements. I think it’d be better to have lowdowns written by experienced authors themselves, saying stuff like: “what they really publish is” and “don’t bother submitting X” – even “the editor of Z is a sexist twit” – that’s the sort of guide I’d like to read!
Mmhmm!
(Anyway, you’re right about people wanting at least one or two – I don’t think it has to be 50% or anything – KNOWN names in the mix. Unless the genre is new to them, in which case they won’t know any!)
So – what about the sort of “yearbooks” you have over there?! Don’t be stingy on the info, o brother of encouragement!
Nope! He hasn’t put up the answer – even though a fair proportion of his readership would probably be interested in it! He’s being stingy again!
Definitely being stingy!
[...] other day I read a post by Maurice Broaddus about learning from rejection letters. He shows a few of his personal stats when it comes to [...]