Poem: Wrote “What You Call for Will Come” – 1 rejection, 1 rejection total.
Short stories:
Wrote:
Blind Spot (SF)
Creators of Small Worlds (H)
In the Groves of Lord Satsuma (F/H)
Published:
The Business that Must Be Conducted in the Dark (SF/H) at Silverthought
Rejections:
13
(Total submissions in last 12 months – 118, acceptances – 3, published – 2. Acceptance rate 2.17%, according to Duotrope)
Novels:
Wrote: No new novels written. Editing Alien Blue again.
Rejections:
13 (including 1 partial)
Novels out on subs: 3
I was just talking to a successful local poet last night, who runs the Poetry Institute – New Haven, and she was telling me about the stats page on Duotrope. She suggested I go for the publications that have an acceptance rate of about 40%; the high acceptance rates belong to newer publications that don’t pay, and the lower ones belong to publications that get a lot of submissions. She also told me to check out a Yahoo group called CWROPPS — http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CRWROPPS-B/ — that emails out lists of contests and stuff. (Yahoo is a pain in the ass, though, so if you don’t already have an account, BEWARE. I just had to change my password twice in a row because none of them would let me log in.)
She also said that when she finds an editor who likes her work, she’ll stick with that editor and submit other things. Even if the editor moves to another publication, she’ll “follow” them over, too, and submit there.
Great job on the submissions! I really need to get my ass in gear and start submitting.
Personally, I would start with the magazines at the top of your field and work your way down, so you start to learn about how well you’re writing. Get accepted by a non-paying place, you’re just going to have to work your courage up to switch to token places, semi-pro, etc.
I’d keep an eye out, when you go to the market to check it out, to make sure they’re advertising more for people to read stuff than for authors to submit, that is, that they have more readers than they have authors trying to spam them with submissions.