My third rejection in a row this year as a "finalist". Always something like this: "Thank you for submitting X. Unfortunately we are going to pass. This is not a reflection of the quality. We really enjoyed this story, enough to give it to our final editors, but we decided to pass this time." Getting to be frustrating
Rejection, rejection, rejection...
- Thread starter Naomasa298
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I've had a story with Ashton House for 40 days now. It looks like they only respond for acceptances.
I don't think I can be bothered to query them.
Same with Gavagai. Been with them for 30 days. I'll give that one another 12, then mark them as lost.
I don't think I can be bothered to query them.
Same with Gavagai. Been with them for 30 days. I'll give that one another 12, then mark them as lost.
6-day form rejections from Brilliant Flash Fiction and Centaur.
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Got a few more this week. Two agent form rejections, a 79-day from the Tales of Steel and Sorcery Anthology, and a 105-day rejection from Strange Pilgrims. They mentioned that they received over 7000 submissions for their first issue 
Up to 14 now.
Up to 14 now.
My advice about cover letters (for short stories) is - keep it simple, and neutral. Don't signal anything about the story, just include the genre and word count. Try to address the editor by name if you can find it.
I got badly burned in one by mentioning the author who I was pastiching. Turns out the editor really, really didn't like him.
Include *relevant* publishing credits. If you're submitting dark fantasy, no point in mentioning that you're had comic erotica published before. If you haven't been published, just omit it, and keep it short.
I have nothing to offer on query letters though.
I got badly burned in one by mentioning the author who I was pastiching. Turns out the editor really, really didn't like him.
Include *relevant* publishing credits. If you're submitting dark fantasy, no point in mentioning that you're had comic erotica published before. If you haven't been published, just omit it, and keep it short.
I have nothing to offer on query letters though.
I agree with keeping it simple and not mentioning one is unpublished. I'd still mention any credits regardless of genre, because that tells the readers/editors you can write at a professional level. That's about it for my unsolicited advice for now 
defaux
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Winner: January Short Story
Winner: December Short Story
Winner: August Flash Fiction
Winner: August Short Story
Thank you both. I may take you up on that offer, as I am stumbling around a bit. The Dark have a 48 turnaround, which was pretty spot on. It was a fairly generic
I managed to get something in to Strange Horizons during their open window, and still looking around at others. Part of my trouble is in classifying my own work, since I don't really do genre fiction.
I'll take on the advice about cover letters. I was already pretty brief, but I did include a one sentence synopsis of sorts.
This might be an odd question, but does anyone submit to venues that charge a reading fee?
I managed to get something in to Strange Horizons during their open window, and still looking around at others. Part of my trouble is in classifying my own work, since I don't really do genre fiction.
I'll take on the advice about cover letters. I was already pretty brief, but I did include a one sentence synopsis of sorts.
This might be an odd question, but does anyone submit to venues that charge a reading fee?
I got plenty more unsolicited advice. But you can't ask for it, otherwise it's no longer unsolicited. 
Nightmare is also open, if that fits your story.
Sometimes. If I submit to literary markets, like Ploughshares, or The Georgia Review, I do, because it's expected in that ecosystem. It's not like I'm ever going to make any money from it anyway.
But not genre venues that charge a submission fee, no.
I don't, for a couple reasons. One is that there are so so many magazines that do not have fees. The other is that my acceptance rate is something like 2.5%, and I consider that a success
I suppose it's true that the field will be much smaller for markets charging submission fees, however the writers submitting to these markets may be of a higher skill level than the free submitters.
There was one market I came across, whose name I forget, where you could pay an optional fee to basically move yourself to the top of the submission queue. I didn't take that option, I have no desire to pay to get a quicker rejection.
1-day resubmission request from Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
Or rather, Scott Andrews responded to my submission saying I'd sent it in .docx format, which they couldn't open, and if I actually wanted them to look at it, to resend it in .doc or .rtf.
Or rather, Scott Andrews responded to my submission saying I'd sent it in .docx format, which they couldn't open, and if I actually wanted them to look at it, to resend it in .doc or .rtf.
Marked 3 submissions as lost today, at the 42 day mark, all to Gavagai. I don't know what their deal is, but it looks like they're not going to respond now. I'm not even entirely sure I did the submissions properly. Oh well, not going back there again.
