whoaaaa that's so cool you're published in magazines!! I have always wanted to do that but find it really intimidating to imagine the inevitable rejections. do you have any tips to share for getting started? and do you mind me asking what your ratio of acceptance to rejection is? I fear that if I did start trying I'd give up before I ever got anywhere.
Thank you!! It is pretty cool! I do have tips, and I am happy to share details about the nitty gritty. In the meantime--DO IT!! It's worth it! Put yourself out there! It might even help your rejection sensitivity!!
I don't have exact statistics (I am pretty disorganized about when I decide to submit stories so I don't have consistent data but one of the resources I'm gonna share with you does!) but I feel like my submissions are 40% acceptances and 60% percent rejections, which is honestly very good. I send a bunch of stuff out every 6-8 months I'd say (unless a submission call I have something perfect for pops up in the interim) and almost always there's an acceptance or a hold in the batch. Most stories I've published were accepted by the first publication I sent them to, with a few notable exceptions (Catch a Hot One, which I just shared, was rejected four times before it was picked up. This is still VERY good, I know people with far more rejection-slanted stats who keep on trucking)!
I think the reason my stats are good are because I stick pretty closely to the following bits of advice I'm about to share, which means I am sending exclusively polished work to markets looking for exactly what I do (I hardly ever reach or submit something if I'm thinking "well...this COULD work..." about the theme. Usually, if you are having to bend the criteria in any way to accommodate your story, you are not going to be accepted).
Ok, tips! These are tailor made for your specific insecurity, which seems to be avoiding rejection burnout (totally fair). I think someone with a different goal might have different tips (ie, send your story to as many places as possible and damn adherence to prompts/ie, sheer quantity over finding a good fit) but for you, this is what I have to offer:
Sounds like a no brainer, but READ THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES VERY CLOSELY AND ADHERE TO THEM WITH PRECISION. Seriously. Most pubs will immediately reject something if it doesn't follow formatting rules or is over the wordcount. They will not even read it. Your wasting everyone's time including your own. Every market wants something different and uses different uploading portals so you will have to make edits accordingly--this is the most time consuming part of the submission world, it's not writing the story lol it's formatting the story to each gateway you send it!
similarly, READ THE SUBMISSION PROMPT CAREFULLY AND MAKE SURE YOUR STORY ACTUALLY HONORS IT! I co-edited and curated an anthology recently with my friend MJ so I have been on both ends of this and lemme tell you--it's very obvious when people don't actually care about being on theme and are sending a story they wrote for SOMETHING ELSE to as many pubs as possible trying to get picked up. It doesn't work. Make sure if you are submitting to a themed publication your work is actually on theme!
when in doubt: familiarize yourself with the publication's work, ethos, and aesthetic. If you are uncertain if your story is a good fit, READ BACK ISSUES so you can get an idea of what they usually publish. Sometimes I'll be about to submit to a mag because it sounds like we're on the same page and then I'll actually open it up and realize we're totally not. It helps you out, and it's respectful.
BE PATIENT!! EVEN if you stick to 1-3, it won't always be what they're looking for when they're looking for it but that does not mean your story is BAD. It just means you haven't found the right home yet. If you get a rejection, don't let it reflect on how you feel about that story, keep submitting that story every time something comes up that the story will work for. I wrote a story two years ago for a free contest for a non-paying magazine, got an honorable mention but was not chosen for publication. Two years later I sold that same story for $350 to one of my favorite dream markets. That never would have happened if I took the first rejection personally.
If you don't have something that fits, use submission call as a prompt and write a brand new story! Worst case it's rejected, but then you have a story to add to the pile. Many stories I ended up publishing were written for sub calls I thought sounded cool. Having an arsenal of short stories you can shoot out whenever you see something they can fit for is the ideal, so it's a win win to see a submission that inspires you enough to write.
DO NOT OBSESS over your submissions or check their status constantly. I think part of how I've gotten a thick skin wrt to rejection is that I simply forget I have submitted things. I focus mostly on writing stories and generating material TO submit, not what happens after the submission itself. Sites like submittable and Moshka make it really easy to track everything you've sent out, but I just don't check them unless I'm like huh I haven't heard back from that market in 6 months I should check back. Then when I do get an acceptance it's a nice treat and usually something I hadn't even remembered sharing!
Some places to look for submission calls:
Get on the Author's Publish mailing list. Every month they send out new open submission calls and themed calls.
If you write horror and or sci-fi, Angelique Fawns is a great resource and she posts her rejection and acceptance statistics in detail which can be encouraging!
There are tons of facebook groups dedicated to open calls. I write spec fic and horror so I use this one but there are genre specific ones everywhere!
Horror Tree is an excellent horror and speculative open subs resource as well.
Contests like Writing Battle, Globe Soup, and Writer's Playground are a great way to generate stories and meet people! They're extremely competitive so I feel like the rejection sensitivity might be easier to stomach since the likelihood of winning is very low, and you can get feedback in exchange for participating, which is helpful. Lots of stories I went on to sell were stories I wrote for these contests.
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