More adventures in publishing
In which I attempt to navigate the publishing maze.
I’ve put in some work to get a few of my pieces published. The more I learn about the process and ecosystem, the more I respect the people who slog through it.
Stats so far:
- 7 pieces: 1 novella, 3 short creative nonfiction essays, 3 short stories
- 36 total submissions
- 14 rejections
- 2 of those were personalized, the rest were form.
- 1 of the rejects made it to the second round
These numbers are low. From what I’ve put together from Duotrope, most pieces take between 8-15 submissions before they get any bites, and that depends both on the form (flash vs. short story, etc) and the tier (higher tier venues have lower acceptance rates). If you’re targeting top-tier magazines or presses, 30+ rejections is not uncommon.
Some places charge fees. Some don’t allow simultaneous submissions. Some are super picky about format. Some only accept submissions on the 6th Tuesday of the 13th month. Some - XRAY, cough cough - have submission windows that last for 30 minutes every month before their Submittable budget runs dry.
I’m integrating all this into my system though.
I’ve tried to suss out fit as best I can to focus where I put my energy. It’s helpful that my style, voice, and chosen forms narrow down the avenues I can target, but that cuts both ways.
Style fit has been my biggest struggle. My writing tends to be very compressed and immediate. It can be claustrophobic and has high sensory pressure, because my ‘tism makes me hyper-tuned to those things. (I’m getting better at emotional contrast and letting readers breathe, but it’s taking a while to find a rhythm that I like).
I tend to be too weird and intense for the more mainstream magazines and presses and too coherent for the wilder ones.
I’m slowly finding the right niche, but it will take some acceptances to validate that. It would probably help to find a writing community to bounce some of my assumptions off of, but I haven’t found one that seems to be a good fit.
There’s logic to this maze - I’m starting to feel the patterns underneath - it’s just taking time to map and some recalibration to live with a longer feedback loop.