Almost Success - The "Mixed Feelings" Thread

I received a notice that I'm on hold for Futuristica I anthology - for a moment I actually thought it was my first "hold" at a pro market, but then I remembered my WOTF semi-finalist and then my Penumbra shortlists... oh well, it seems that being on hold is no guarantee for success.

Anyway, how about you? Are there any other forumites on hold or waiting for results on Futuristica I?

Yeah, I'm on hold too, after a minor re-write request. Good luck, George. I hope we get to be TOC-mates!

Alas no, George. I received two personals but no cigar...

However I am on hold for Myriad Lands anthology and received a very nice comment on my story already.

Great! Good luck on that!

I have a story for them also, unless it fails to get rejected by another pro market in the meantime...

Unfortunately I had nothing available to send Furturistica before the deadline. But it is I so that implies there will be a II?

Anyway, I do have a story that has survived for over 30 days at Strange Horizons. I've checked and it's status is "Under consideration" so I take that as promising.

I also have a story in at Nature Futures that survived the latest round of rejections, but I worry because they do not send receipt confirmations, nor do they have a place to check status. Their guidelines do not indicate how long one should wait before querying. Any thoughts? How long should I wait before querying in this situation?

Well, it probably implies that. But then again, who knows?

I've no idea about Nature's Futures. I've never managed to send them anything -- I don't think I have anything resembling hard SF at their required length.

30 days at Strange Horizons is great! You're certainly at a higher round than I've ever been with them, and believe me I've sent them a lot!

Had one go to round 2 at Futuristica. That was eventually rejected, so I sent a 2nd one. Rejected at the first tier. Oh well.

Sorry to hear that. But you got the higher tier from Asimovs, so you've got something going on as well.

I received a notice that I'm on hold for Futuristica I anthology - for a moment I actually thought it was my first "hold" at a pro market, but then I remembered my WOTF semi-finalist and then my Penumbra shortlists... oh well, it seems that being on hold is no guarantee for success.

Anyway, how about you? Are there any other forumites on hold or waiting for results on Futuristica I?

Yeah, I'm on hold too, after a minor re-write request. Good luck, George. I hope we get to be TOC-mates!

Good luck to you too, Preston. That would be great!

Sounds like several of us sitting on the cusp of making some good sales. Good luck all! What do you say we all go ahead and break through and do a forum sweep of the publishing world?

Sounds like several of us sitting on the cusp of making some good sales. Good luck all! What do you say we all go ahead and break through and do a forum sweep of the publishing world?

My thoughts exactly. Many of us are almost there. We are the Writers of the Future, right? Now we just have to become the Writers of the Present!

Seven days to get a form R from Clarkesworld! I would have put that in for the world record had I not seen a 20 day form R go through yesterday. I am usually dispatched in one or two days at most.

This is the same story that went 107 days at ASIM and 189 days at Abyss and Apex. Oh, and 93 days at Tor. Publishers take longer to reject this one than is proper and decent!

So since I can't tell what I have to do to inch it over the finishing line, I have posted it for discussion in Baen's Bar. If anyone here is a member and would care to take a look I should appreciate it, because right now it beats me.

Well I got this from a Horror mag:

"So you're story made the shortlist and that is awesome. We get a ton of submissions every day, and making it to the shortlist means you impressed three different editors.

This time, it wasn't in the cards for this particular story. BUT, it doesn't mean that your story sucked. It obviously had to be good enough to get this far. I urge you to resubmit. I actually demand that you resubmit. Okay, I don't demand anything, but I would love to see more of your writing. "

I made sure to get that story back into the world. What's the rejection/acceptance rate? I figure I should expect like 18 rejections before someone bites.

I also got a nice letter from a Sci Fi editor...he said my writing was quality and I won't be unpublished long. I'd like it if that was TRUE!

Well I got this from a Horror mag:

"So you're story made the shortlist and that is awesome. We get a ton of submissions every day, and making it to the shortlist means you impressed three different editors.

I would love to be able to publish all the stories that get shortlisted, but unfortunately, I can't. There's this space constraint thing I have to deal with. Think about it, out of all the hundreds of stories we get, I can only take 12 every three months. That's like only accepting four stories out of 100 each month.

This time, it wasn't in the cards for this particular story. BUT, it doesn't mean that your story sucked. It obviously had to be good enough to get this far. I urge you to resubmit. I actually demand that you resubmit. Okay, I don't demand anything, but I would love to see more of your writing. "

I made sure to get that story back into the world. What's the rejection/acceptance rate? I figure I should expect like 18 rejections before someone bites.

I also got a nice letter from a Sci Fi editor...he said my writing was quality and I won't be unpublished long. I'd like it if that was TRUE!

It sounds like you are very close. Keep submitting. Keep writing.

But don't tell the editor that he can't spell your story.

But don't tell the editor that he can't spell your story.

I know, right?

But don't tell the editor that he can't spell your story.

too true.
I was once told I didn't get a job because in the interview I corrected the interviewer's pronunciation of my former firm.

Well, got a personalized R from Mr. Finlay at F&SF. I feel pretty good about that, I guess. I don't know about you, but I'm really ready to break out of this "almost there" spot I feel like I'm in.

Well, got a personalized R from Mr. Finlay at F&SF. I feel pretty good about that, I guess. I don't know about you, but I'm really ready to break out of this "almost there" spot I feel like I'm in.

That's good--and from what I have heard from other writers you will go to the next level soon.

And it's good to know that he is still doing some after he said he cut back.

Aargh! 75 day personal (just) from Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. My previous best from them was 21 and the next best was 9.

This story deserves to catch a break in my (humble) opinion. 135 at AE, 95 at ASIM, 44 at Grimdark. Now 75 at FSI!

As I remarked in the 32/4 thread, this is another example of what we in Yorkshire call very adjacent.

I want to read it.

I want to read it.

More than likely old chap it is good.

Got my first personal rejection from Liminal Stories, in the second try -- incidentally, this was for my last week's HM, so it's the second "close but not that close" for this story in a week. They said that the worldbuilding was "wonderfully done" and they look forward to my next submission. So I'll send them my last year's HM, though I doubt they'll like it as much, as it's a more classic / straightforward adventure. Then again, I've no idea what they actually like, so why not try?

So that's about my 40th personal rejection this year, and I've had enough. Someone give me a form acceptance, please.

Also, now that I'm on the mixed feelings thread, I was quite happy with the emergence of Liminal Stories and Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores. We've had too many markets closing down recently and two new pro ones are a great addition. However, how on Earth can someone submit to Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores? I've been trying to register for a whole day and they keep saying "Sorry, there is a problem sending an email this time please try to signup again". Has anybody else experienced any problems with their submissions manager?

I managed to sign up without problems but I had trouble submitting; bizarrely, in the end, I had to remove all punctuation from my cover letter before it would submit. In combination with the Comic Sans MS they've chosen for the submissions page (urgh), it made it look like an eight year old's English homework. Make sure you put your word count and genre in the opening paragraph, little Timmy, and don't forget to mention your publishing history...

I messaged the editor (Fran Eisemann) on Facebook when I was having trouble, as I couldn't find any contact details on their site: https://www.facebook.com/fran.eisemann

Thanks, Mat!

In the meantime, an email address magically appeared on the guidelines page as I refreshed it, along with the lines: "There is a small percentage of people who may find that the spam filters on their email host don’t allow them to register. If you can’t get your filters to accept contact from us, email us and we will manually input you into the system — [email protected]" -- so it seems other people experienced problems as well. So I tried that, and if they don't reply (it's still early morning if they're US based) I'll try the FB link you provided.

Fran replied to me in the same circumstances George.

I want to read it.

Actually Dustin, you were in on the very beginning of this when we did a 450 exchange way back. It's one of my Russian stories.

Fran replied to me in the same circumstances George.

She did reply to me, too, quite early in the (US) day. So I logged in and submitted without any further problems.

2 new markets to submit to; I wasn't aware of either one. Thanks for the (inadvertent) tip, George!

2 new markets to submit to; I wasn't aware of either one. Thanks for the (inadvertent) tip, George!

My pleasure! But I suggest you check the Grinder (or Duotrope) often. There are a lot of markets coming and going, or temporarily opening to submissions, and of course many new anthologies all the time -- so if you don't check you'll miss a lot of opportunities.

I managed to sign up without problems but I had trouble submitting; bizarrely, in the end, I had to remove all punctuation from my cover letter before it would submit.

I had the exact same problem, although I left in my periods and commas. Apostrophes and ampersands were the big culprits, so I'm guessing they aren't sanitizing their database input, which is Not A Good Idea (TM). Hopefully things will smooth out a bit as they get more established.

I managed to sign up without problems but I had trouble submitting; bizarrely, in the end, I had to remove all punctuation from my cover letter before it would submit.

I had the exact same problem, although I left in my periods and commas. Apostrophes and ampersands were the big culprits, so I'm guessing they aren't sanitizing their database input, which is Not A Good Idea (TM). Hopefully things will smooth out a bit as they get more established.

I'd suspected the same, and removed an ampersand, but the apostrophe in an "it's" was invisible to my eye and I didn't clock it to try without.

It looks like they're using an off-the-shelf submissions manager, albeit an older version of, so really not good that the database input isn't being sanitised, especially given that all it boils down to is $input = mysqli_real_escape_string($input). Not exactly rocket surgery.

Of more immediate concern to me is the Comic Sans MS though. The font choice on their main site is fine, what in blazes possessed them to use such a horror in the bit the professionals will see when considering to submit or not?

I agree. Comic Papyrus would have been a much more rational choice...

2 new markets to submit to; I wasn't aware of either one. Thanks for the (inadvertent) tip, George!

That goes for me too. I will have to check them out.