Writer’s Life: Submission Strategies
Photo by Andy Hays, Creative Commons
Two weeks into the new year, and so far my resolutions are holding up for the most part. I’ve ridden my bike every day, usually just a mile, but I’m trying to build up to longer rides on a regular basis. (Especially once it isn’t freezing out!) I think I’ve finally figured out that I need to eat more food being a vegetarian, so I haven’t been as cranky these last couple days. Plus I’ve had fun experimenting more with veggies. Japanese is lagging behind, but I hope to pick things up this week. And I’m on track for Write 1, Sub 1, only I haven’t actually subbed anything new yet, which I hope to soon remedy. Which brings me to the subject of today’s post…
So theoretically, I’ll be producing a lot of fiction this year, and theoretically, I’ll be looking for markets to submit to. I know the general advice is to start from the top and work downward, which works pretty well if you’ve only got a handful of stories out there. From my experience, if you’ve got ten or more stories out at a time, it becomes a weird juggling game to get the right stories to the right markets at the right time. Sometimes you have a story that you think would be great for one market, but can’t send it because you already have something else submitted there, so you send the story to a different market instead, and then end up sending whatever story gets rejected next to the market you intended to send the last story to. Make sense? I didn’t think so.
So basically what you end up with is a free for all, and if I’m experiencing this with 15 stories, imagine how it will be when I’ve got 25, 35, 50 stories out there at a time. (Though hopefully I will be SELLING some of these stories, of course.) Clearly a submission strategy is in order, so here’s what I’ve go so far:
Send a story out to at least 3 pro paying markets
Let’s face it. Not every short story is created equally. A few will be great. Most will be good. Some won’t be able to see the inside of a drawer quickly enough. Problem is, the writer is probably the worst judge of which ones are which. So I figure every story deserves at least a shot at the big leagues.
Send a story out at least 7 times
This is just my own personal number. Out of my 19 short fiction sales, 17 of those sold in seven or less attempts. It can take a few submissions to hit the right market, so I don’t want to sell myself short by pulling a story prematurely, and I don’t want to get in the habit of editing a story every time a rejection comes back. It’d be impractical with a high volume of work. But after 7 rejections, for me it hints that there’s something wrong with the story. It’s a good time to step back and judge if the story needs more work, should be retired, or sent out again as is.
Don’t overlook semi-pro markets
A big paycheck is always nice, of course, but there are a lot of semi-pro markets doing great things with fiction, and some of them are just as tough to get into as pro-paying ones. Editors that actively promote their authors and are active in positioning their magazine and stories for awards are a big plus. Plus a nicely laid out magazine always catches my eye.
If a story doesn’t sell after 7 attempts, consider running it through my critique group
I can’t afford to send every story to get critiqued, so some of these stories are just going to have to stand on their own. But if there’s a story that’s good and I think it could be great, I’m going to offer it up to my critique group for comment. This can be a considerable time sink if I’m not careful, so I really only want to revise stories I can stand firmly behind.
Anything else I should be taking into consideration? Do you have a submissions strategy of your own?
Having a lot of stories and submitting them actively is the best strategy possible, because hardly anyone manages to do that. So congratulations!
But then again, there’s no substitute for sending the right story to the right market. The only time I would hold onto a returned story for a while before re-subbing is if there’s a good market that currently has a sub in it. But it’s not worth waiting to resub for more than a couple weeks.
I would also recommend sticking to esub markets. Snailmail editors are dumb and slow.
And 7 rejections is hardly a large number. But I like your idea of not putting something through a critique group until the story has gone through the ringer for a bit. Groups can kill the enthusiasm for a fresh story.
Esubs are a must for me. Only two of my submissions last year were snail mailed. I’m glad that Writer’s of the Future and Asimov’s went esub last year. Maybe more will follow this year?
I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my submissions. Each story gets its own tab. I rely heavily on ralan.com for market updates and log my results over at Critter’s Black Holes. I save zines with long RT’s (even e-subs can take a long time) for the end.
I agree that seven is not a large number. Double it. And if your critique group doesn’t find anything wrong, maybe it’s just a case of editorial tastes (they can be so fickle). Consider publishing them on Smashwords. They take short stories.
Good idea to save the zines with a long response time until the end. I might try to aim for those under 90 days first.
Hmm…And I smell a Smashwords experiment in the making. Maybe a project for the spring.