Thursday, December 15, 2005

Old rejections

This post is for those who are planning to send something to
Amazing Stories in the near future. I just received a rejection :-(
from them with a note that they have all the stories planned and
purchased for the year and are not accepting unsolicited materials.

Now, this could be a slip rejection of a really bad story or
one that doesn't fit their needs or it could be sincere and they
are all booked for the year. I don't know which is the case, but
I hope it is the latter. I would hate to think my story was
terrible. Anyway, this brings up an interesting point.

I want to send the story to more than one editor, but I
tend to have patience and have waited for a reply before sending
it somewhere else. Because I have a half dozen short stories and
a near complete novel, this could take some time and I'm not getting
any younger (so I'm told). Should I send this story and others to
several different editors and let them know or should I continue
to submit to one editor at a time? Here is something else, I will
be finished with my novel by the end of June and want to send it
out right away. Yet, a part of me wants to wait until December
when I finish my second novel and send them out as a set or
individually to several publishers.

After December, I will be starting on my third novel and will
not have the time to track the previous two novels progress without
distracting my writing. At the pace I am writing, I will have a
novel completed and ready to go every six months and at some point,
I will have to stop and start marketing what I've written. So,
from one point of view, I am thinking of submitting directly to
book publishers, but on the other hand, I would like to have an
agent do the work for me. Either way I will have to stop and do
some marketing. As for the short stories I've kept to myself for
the past year or so, should I treat them any differently and send
them as a group or individually?

J.L. Campbell --- A troubling childhood is no excuse for entering
politics.

Originally posted May 9 1994, 10:36 am

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I use a spreadsheet to track my submissions. At present, I have about 10 short stories out--and I keep the stories all out to a single market at a time.

As I write new stories, or they are accepted, I update my spreadsheet.

I don't think you need to stop writing in order to submit pieces.

Here is a of good article on submission tracking:

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/apr98/gak4.htm

Cheers and best of luck!