Almost Success - The "Mixed Feelings" Thread

@morgan-broadhead

I'm sure they read at least part of it. They probably have lots of slush readers and/ or skim the beginning to see if it hooks them.

I once didn't get a rejection for 4 days from CW and got very excited but then the form rejection came 🙁 

At FFO, totally diff beast but still, we get hundreds of submissions per month. We have slush readers who must read the full story but as I do guideline checks and check over comments, I can usually tell in first 3 sentences (I still read the whole thing) if the story is going to be good or not or a fit for the zine 

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

Has anyone ever published a story with Clarkesworld? I keep submitting there, and it's usually a flat form rejection within a single day or two.
I appreciate the rapid response times, but I'm like, "Did you even honestly READ my story?!?"

Just so you know there is hope, I know Neil says he doesn’t have time to send anything but form rejections due to the volume of submissions, but I have had two personals from him. Keep sending.

Wait, there is a place where responses are sent back within a week? I’m used to 1.5 to 5 month cycles.

Posted by: @craydimensional

Wait, there is a place where responses are sent back within a week? I’m used to 1.5 to 5 month cycles.

I can beat you there, with a 3-year final round submission which ended in a form rejection. Super annoying.

But yeah, Clarkesworld's story turnover is ridiculously quick.

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

Has anyone ever published a story with Clarkesworld? I keep submitting there, and it's usually a flat form rejection within a single day or two.
I appreciate the rapid response times, but I'm like, "Did you even honestly READ my story?!?"

I know how you feel. Just got another single day form rejection. The weirdest part is the duality of it: half of me loves that I get to find out so quick, the other half is very sad I can't live in the delusion of "maybe this is the one!" a little longer.

@morgan-broadhead Last night I was thinking that maybe I’d be the one to get into Clarksworld. I was sitting at 18 days, so I went back to my confirmation email so I could click through to check status.

Nope. The reject came SO FAST (36hrs) that I’d thought it was the submission confirmation email and filed it without reading. *sigh*

Keep trying. One of us will get in eventually. 

@craydimensional There are a few of them under the multi-month cycle. Run a search on Submission Grinder and it will show their average response times. So long as a story is a fit to the market, I’ve been picking markets based on price paid, then response time. 

Posted by: @craydimensional

Wait, there is a place where responses are sent back within a week? I’m used to 1.5 to 5 month cycles.

I almost always send to Clarkesworld, F&SF, Apex, and Escape Pod first because the responses are so quick AND they pay pro rates.

This submission to Clarkesworld was my Semi-Finalist for Q4 V 38, so I had hoped for more than just a fast form rejection. Oh well. On to the next market!

@morgan-broadhead I am at HM level not quite ready for pro markets, but I did send to Podcastle. I’m new to submitting.

@craydimensional, don't self-reject! If you're ready to submit to WOTF you're ready for pro markets. Go get some!

@craydimensional I ended up selling my first HM to an anthology in England after very little editing. I started submitting way before I felt I was ready because I realized that there is nothing to lose. More often I get a form rejection (10 hours later from Clarksworld) but occasionally I get a well thought out  message about why the story was rejected--what they liked and didn't like--that has helped me tighten up the story and get it sold elsewhere. 

So, like @ease said, don't self-reject. That's what editors are for and you never know who might love your story.

@morgan-broadhead @craydimensional I've found that how a story does at WotF isn't an indicator of how it will do elsewhere, and vice versa. I've had rough luck selling finalists and semi-finalists, whereas revisions of R's and HMs have gotten me multiple sales. My winning finalist had gotten something like 7 to 10 R's before I sent it to WotF. As such, I'm definitely an advocate for not self-rejecting and instead sending stories as many places as makes reasonable sense. You never know what could happen!

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

Has anyone ever published a story with Clarkesworld? I keep submitting there, and it's usually a flat form rejection within a single day or two.
I appreciate the rapid response times, but I'm like, "Did you even honestly READ my story?!?"

I'm like scribblesatdusk - I had a 5 day one once and was soooooo excited and hopeful because it is one of my better stories - but alas no. Right now I am sitting on one from somewhere else that has been waiting on a reply for just under 200 days and is held for consideration. I have to say I'm going to be absolutely devastated if I get a form rejection on that one.

@morgan-broadhead Like other pro-rate markets, Clarkesworld has multiple slush readers to sift through the slush pile. Their slushers are required to read 5 stories a day, so they don't read all the way through. Some 90% of the stories are not passed up to Neil. What happens most of the time is that a slusher stopped midway because he thought that the piece wasn't suitable for the magazine, and slushers don't write personal rejections. There's an editorial from a year ago where Neil explains the reading process.

Oh, and I see that people are impressed with Clarkesworld's and other pro mag's quickness. They do are quick, but they aren't the quickest. That would be a magazine called The Dark; they're famous for 5-minute rejections. I'm not making this up. 

I've subbed to the dark. Agreed - super fast return.

Posted by: @scott_m_sands

I've subbed to the dark. Agreed - super fast return.

Ditto. Two days max for me. They obviously know what they want and a quick glance is enough.

Posted by: @pdblake

Posted by: @scott_m_sands

I've subbed to the dark. Agreed - super fast return.

Ditto. Two days max for me. They obviously know what they want and a quick glance is enough.

Same. Two day max, and a 0.8-day average.

Posted by: @alexvss

@morgan-broadhead Like other pro-rate markets, Clarkesworld has multiple slush readers to sift through the slush pile. Their slushers are required to read 5 stories a day, so they don't read all the way through. Some 90% of the stories are not passed up to Neil. What happens most of the time is that a slusher stopped midway because he thought that the piece wasn't suitable for the magazine, and slushers don't write personal rejections. There's an editorial from a year ago where Neil explains the reading process.

Oh, and I see that people are impressed with Clarkesworld's and other pro mag's quickness. They do are quick, but they aren't the quickest. That would be a magazine called The Dark; they're famous for 5-minute rejections. I'm not making this up. 

Just submitted my first story to Clarkesworld and got a rejection from Neil and a note to fix my formatting, can I interpret that as it got through the slush readers?

@cube Hard to say. Neil reportedly also reads slush from time to time, and I take it he didn't comment on the story itself but just the formatting? So maybe he was the first one to read your story. A story with poor formatting probably wouldn't go past the slush pile.

I've been comfortable with the revision process for a long time, but I realized last week that we all eventually have to publish.

I already have two rejections under my belt and am excitedly moving forward with more stories.

I just submitted my first story to WotF. My last round of beta readers all gave me the type of feedback I hoped to hear. Hopefully, if the story isn't any good for this competition, I can at least sell it somewhere else.

Posted by: @g-l-bertram

I just submitted my first story to WotF. My last round of beta readers all gave me the type of feedback I hoped to hear. Hopefully, if the story isn't any good for this competition, I can at least sell it somewhere else.

Congrats on your first contest submission! May the odds be ever in your favor.

A story I wrote initially for wotf was held for ages for Fantastic Detectives anthology but ultimately rejected. I've yet to submit it to wotf. Maybe next quarter. 

Today I got an email saying my straight R from Q3 vol 38 has been held by a magazine. They'll let me know by the end of December. I won't start twitching yet.  

Bit of a heartbreaker today - got a 224 day very lightly personalized rejection from Strange Horizons. Probably jinxed myself the other day when I was told I had some good news incoming and so I jokingly posted wondering if good news comes in threes. Well instead the good news I was told to expect was NOT that and now this. I suppose I have at least one more bad news to come (although since I have 5 stories out on sub right now I guess I'm expecting at least one bad news out of the group)

@alexvss 5 mins? I feel much better about my 15-minute rejection from The Dark.  

@czing sorry to hear that! I know you're bummed about coming so close, but a personal rejection, light as it may be, means the story's a fantastic one, particularly given the quality of the mag.

Just had a form rejection from Interzone. They got the title of my story wrong. A moment later I got an apology which rejected the correct title instead.

My email client got these the wrong way round so I got the apology first, which was odd. 

Anyway, it just goes to prove that even a form rejection can end up personal and that the person on the other end is not necessarily an evil AI robot. They might have even read it.   

Posted by: @jeschleicher

@alexvss 5 mins? I feel much better about my 15-minute rejection from The Dark.  

When I heard they respond to all submissions within 48 hours I thought it sounded awesome. When I got my 12-minute rejection I liked it less. Though, after a few minutes and the burn had worn off, I realized that it was much better than waiting three months for the same form rejection from somewhere else.

I've had a story submitted for four months at a place with a response time of "a few months."

With great hesitance and anxiety, I chased them three weeks ago. They apologized that they'd held it so long and would respond in the "next couple of weeks."

Still radio silence. I really don't want to chase them again, but they've got one of my more marketable pieces AND they're a dream magazine, so I'm desperate to get either a rejection or an acceptance.

What would you do?

@ease I'm in the same boat with one of my own dream magazines. They've had one of my stories since the beginning of April and held it since mid-June. I have not reached out because if they love it, I REALLY want it with them. So I will wait another couple of months before I inquire. I think in this case, it's good to give editors grace and patience. There is no time limit on selling a story, unless you are looking at a specific anthology call. Anyway, that's my plan. Fingers crossed for us both.