Success!

Congratulations on your publication, angelslayah! 

My flash was published in Nature today. A very special journal for me. 

If anyone wants to read it, here it is: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01003-8

Congratulations on the published story (@scribblesatdusk). 

@scribblesatdusk this is an amazing flash! I am totally jealous! Well done and congratulations! 

@crlisle Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it!! You've always been so supportive of me. I think it was a message from you, back when the forum was in its old form, congratulating me on my first sale to flame tree. 

Posted by: @scribblesatdusk

My flash was published in Nature today. A very special journal for me. 

If anyone wants to read it, here it is: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01003-8

Great story. I really enjoyed the layered worldbuilding. Congrats!

Posted by: @rschibler

Great story. I really enjoyed the layered worldbuilding. Congrats!

Thank you, I'm so glad you liked it and the world building!

https://zooscape-zine.com/harolds-hook/

I’ve a story out today in Zooscape! Enjoy!

Harold is a lucky fish. Nice story Rebecca. Congrats on the sale.

Congrats @scribblesatdusk and @RETreasure- I enjoyed both stories very much!

Congratulations @RETreasure on your pub! I liked it. Harold's character arc was surprisingly both unexpected but expected, if that makes any sense.

@scribblesatdusk, that was a neat tale! Like the others, I found the worldbuilding interesting, quite compelling and with a lot of scope that greatly exceeds what you'd expect from a tale in that length. But the arc was also quite fun, and I enjoyed the ending, which I did not see sneaking up.

@rschibler, I really liked this one too! It has shades of an African folk tale to it, both in style and message, and it really came together well. I also didn't see the ending of this one coming, but it felt perfect once it was done, and looking back, I can't see how it could end any other way and still feel right.

These were both nice ways to help wind up a busy Friday for me, thanks for sharing!

@rschibler 

Cute story! That was a fun read. 

@rschibler very nice!

In the midst of this unending Thursday I'm happy to report that after 14 rejections, I have my first acceptance.  My latest honorable mention will be published in issue 26 of 4 Star Stories, possibly late this year.

Congratulations!!! Wonderful news and feeling. 

@chwalter congratulations 

Your persistence has paid off @chwalter. Congratulations.

I just signed a contract with Third Flatiron to publish my flash story “Amore for Life” in the After the Gold Rush Anthology.

This was my first sale to publisher.

@craydimensional Congrats! That is super cool.

How long did it take?

@zappey1 I think I held this story longer than it took me to write it. I was self rejecting this story for months. Then I decided to listen to advice from others here to not self reject. I saw a niche opening for flash in the anthology and entered.

I recently sold one of mine, an old horror piece that I had been passing over for a while, and which got picked up by the Dark Recesses webzine. In most ways, it's quite unlike a story I'd write today (it's nine years old!), but still, nice to find it a home after all this time!

Addendum to this--a couple of months ago, I started going through old, ignored stories that I hadn't been doing anything with, after reading some things people here had been posting about just keeping your stories out there. This little sale came out of my doing that. So if you have anything of your own kicking about, a story that you liked back when but that never quite found a home, could be worth just sending it back out into the world again to see if it might click this time. 

@doctorjest CONGRATS! ?

I'm working on my first novel, which is in the horror genre.  The idea blossomed from a story I wrote 25 years ago.  I have to say the idea was good, but there was a lot of dust on the prose.  The pace and how to keep the reader interested when you don't have action...action...action has been interesting.  The horror I seem to like (this is the first piece of work I consider horror) sets itself in our world (real world of reality-ish) having to do with something that 'could' happen (well, the reader does have to give me that there are demons and angels).  So how a detective investigates and then comes to terms with, the supernatural is a struggle.  I mean, you can't just go...brutal murder...oh that must be a demon...end of the novel.

Can you share your story title with me, so I can read it when published?   The horror I like to write and horror that sells could be different animals.

Loving all the great news this weekend! Congratulations, everyone!  

Posted by: @toddjones

@doctorjest CONGRATS! ?

I'm working on my first novel, which is in the horror genre.  The idea blossomed from a story I wrote 25 years ago.  I have to say the idea was good, but there was a lot of dust on the prose.  The pace and how to keep the reader interested when you don't have action...action...action has been interesting.  The horror I seem to like (this is the first piece of work I consider horror) sets itself in our world (real world of reality-ish) having to do with something that 'could' happen (well, the reader does have to give me that there are demons and angels).  So how a detective investigates and then comes to terms with, the supernatural is a struggle.  I mean, you can't just go...brutal murder...oh that must be a demon...end of the novel.

Can you share your story title with me, so I can read it when published?   The horror I like to write and horror that sells could be different animals.

Well, its title is "A Homespun Embrace", though as I noted, it took a long time to find a home--so I would probably hold off on considering it a fine example of "horror that sells", per se! It was exactly what you're doing--horror that, at the time, was just an idea that I wanted to write. By and large, I think that the stories that excite us, the ideas we love, are the ones we'll also usually do the greatest justice to. And in being the stories we loved and wrote best, they'll often end up being the ones that have the best chance of selling, too. There's definitely no hardship in learning what the market wants, mind you--David Farland was a master at that, understanding what the market wanted, and what categorized stories that sell well. But you'd need more data points than one webzine sale to help you define that!

For the above story you've described, I might suggest taking a look at The Outsider, by Stephen King. I've not read the novel (my wife has, and enjoyed it), but the adaptation is on HBO Max, and was a pretty interesting story concerning how a grounded detective, who doesn't have any belief in the supernatural, comes to terms with something that their instincts scream they shouldn't believe at all. It deals with two major aspects that come up in that, which is how a person can get into a place where they must go against their own nature and instincts in order to have any hope of success, and also, how people--normal people, with normal powers and abilities--can deal with something that is, by its nature, far more powerful and dangerous than them.

My own story is short, coming in under 3k--good webzine territory. I toyed with writing it out longer, but to be honest, I like the snippet, and I think it may work better as a kind of horror RPG interlude anyway (I've drafted pieces of that so that I can throw it into the mix some of my players if I can manage to get them running into a long enough campaign).

I'll share the link to the story once there's one to share! 

I think this goes here. I just got an email from a YT channel that wants to feature some of my stories on his channel. He will add a link to purchase my book! 

Says he gets 250k views a day. Hopefully a few of those will translate to book sales

https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatLurksBeneath

I know this thread is mostly people talking actual sales but one of my HMs just got held for consideration by a professional market and for me that is a success!

So, I know the standard is to not reply to rejection letters even to say thanks, but am I okay to send an enthusiastic thank you message in response to a held for consideration? 

And it's posted now!

A HOMESPUN EMBRACE – Dark Recesses Press

I find this story interesting in some ways, because it's rooted in what--today, at least--I would think is an incomplete idea. But I like it for what it is, and I'm glad it found a home!

@czing Honestly, I think it depends on the market. I know some of the bigger ones ask that you don’t reply to rejections as it clogs up their inbox, but I’ve also seen comments from smaller presses that they appreciate the professionalism of a well-worded response. They did consider you, so you must have something they like, and they will likely remember your name the next time it comes across the pile. I personally send replies to personal rejects to help build that professional relationship for future submissions. 

@doctorjest Congratulations on the publication!