Rejectomancy

defcon6000

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Count me in with the Buzzy R massacre as well. :tongue My story was absurd fantasy about a crazy Rapunzel (my fractured fairy tale for Penumbra).
 

Sai

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I got a personal rejection from F&SF today. By 'personal,' I mean that there was one extra word added to their usual form, but still, that one word showed that they did in fact read (and like) my story, so, yay! Now to find another market to send it to.
 

alexshvartsman

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Congrats, Sai! What did they add? Did it come from Stephen Mazur or Gordon Van Gelder? How long did it take?
 

Sai

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Congrats, Sai! What did they add? Did it come from Stephen Mazur or Gordon Van Gelder? How long did it take?

It's a story about Stuart Sutcliffe, a guy who played base guitar for The Beatles but left the band before they went supernova. In the letter the editor (Stephen Mazur) did the usual 'thanks for sending in this story', but this time he said 'thanks for sending in this Beatles story', so yeah, nothing big but it's something. I don't actually have the letter in front of me, it went to my parent's house and I had my mom read it over the phone. It was an 18-day wait, which is impressive for a postal only market.
 

alexshvartsman

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It's a story about Stuart Sutcliffe, a guy who played base guitar for The Beatles but left the band before they went supernova. In the letter the editor (Stephen Mazur) did the usual 'thanks for sending in this story', but this time he said 'thanks for sending in this Beatles story', so yeah, nothing big but it's something. I don't actually have the letter in front of me, it went to my parent's house and I had my mom read it over the phone. It was an 18-day wait, which is impressive for a postal only market.

That;s very cool. And yeah, their turnaround is amazingly fast in general (unless the story is passed up to Mr. Van Gelder, then there may be a longer wait).
 

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Another form R from One Buck Horror.

Anyone know anything about McSweeney's? I know they are incredibly slothful, but mine just went In-progress and a batch just got R'd on DT. Are they slow before or after opening the file?



They seem to have gotten more reliable now that they're using submittable. Usually seems to be between 50 and 100 days, I got mine after 90 or so. Before, submissions were via email and I still haven't received a reply to my email submission nine months ago.
 

Marzioli

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A very stoic R from Lightspeed, 1-day. Just realized this piece has been rejected 16 times! I'm still fairly confident it'll sell, especially considering it's evolved along with me, bearing probably less than 25% of its original submission version. We shall see. I think it's experienced it's last tinker this morning. Once I exhaust the semis, and two pros, it's off to the trunk.
 
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Marzioli

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Weird Tales is open?! Nice. Sadly I have nothing finished for this theme besides a trunked zombie short that I'm not sure can be salvaged.
 

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Weird Tales is open?! Nice. Sadly I have nothing finished for this theme besides a trunked zombie short that I'm not sure can be salvaged.

Until today their homepage still read "Will open to submissions in mid April." They seem to be struggling under their new ownership and are running a leaky boat, to make a bad pun. Haha, ownership! Leaky boat!

The story I'd sort of written specifically for them was, naturally, just submitted to Midnight Echo, so my pockets are empty now. I got tired of waiting for Weird Tales' definition of "mid April."
 

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This is fate. I've been looking everywhere over the past couple of days for a market that might want my weird almost-about-the-undead-but-not-exactly story. Thanks for the heads up. It's off to Weird Tales.
 

defcon6000

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A very nice personal R from FFO; third time this story has made it the 2nd-round, only to be bounced back. Perhaps I'll check out one of those new markets.

Until today their homepage still read "Will open to submissions in mid April." They seem to be struggling under their new ownership and are running a leaky boat, to make a bad pun. Haha, ownership! Leaky boat!

The story I'd sort of written specifically for them was, naturally, just submitted to Midnight Echo, so my pockets are empty now. I got tired of waiting for Weird Tales' definition of "mid April."
Looking over at the comments left by many a disgruntled writers on their site, I wouldn't be too hard on them since they're still adjusting. Yes they underestimated how long it'd take for them to get through the slush, and it'd would've helped to mention it on the site--but, I could say that about quite a few markets.
 
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Sai

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Weird Tales opened back up today. An upcoming issue has an undead theme:

http://weirdtalesmagazine.com/2012/05/24/open-for-submissions/

Man, I just subbed something off to Midnight Echo too that might have worked for this. It's a vampire story, but I don't know if I should send it to WT if ME rejects it. It's the same story that I sent them last May, where they sat on it for a hundred and thirty days and then 'rejected' through a blog post when they changed editors and stated that everything in their queue was released back to the authors. Grrr. So I'm assuming no one ever actually read my story...it would be all right to send it again, right?
 

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Man, I just subbed something off to Midnight Echo too that might have worked for this. It's a vampire story, but I don't know if I should send it to WT if ME rejects it. It's the same story that I sent them last May, where they sat on it for a hundred and thirty days and then 'rejected' through a blog post when they changed editors and stated that everything in their queue was released back to the authors. Grrr. So I'm assuming no one ever actually read my story...it would be all right to send it again, right?

I would think sending it to WT would be a good idea. Chances are it was never read. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if they're closed again when (if) ME kicks it back to you.

And while I was annoyed with them the past 1.5 months, I do want WT to succeed. I'm rooting for them. There aren't enough horror markets as it is, and they have all that rich history behind them.
 

mrajotte

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Isn't that always the case? Waiting for a specific market only to send it off (then have that market open up again?) :)

I've had a few moments though when the "perfect" market opens back up just as one of my stories is rejected. So hopefully it all works out for you!
 

Marzioli

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Got an unusual rejection yesterday. I wrote three one-minute spec scripts for a couple of Nickelodeon artists doing a new show pitch to their execs. They told me earlier this month that the response seemed positive, but after almost two months of no additional info, they believe the ship is sunk. There were five hundred total pitches, and we didn't make the cut. So, no one minute cartoons written by yours truly will appear on Nick, website or otherwise. :(

:D Naw, can't feel bad about it. It was a long shot anyway.
 

W.L. Marks

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5-day from Clarkesworld. Totally expected. Don't you hate it when you write a story in one of those frenzied 3AM moments, read it through to check for punctuation issues, think you're a genius, submit it to a fantastic publication, and then sleep on it, only...

The next day: La-la-la-la-da-la, let me read my fabulous story again to give myself a boost. Hmmm...this isn't mine. What crazed sadist deleted my wonderful work and replaced it with this? Why is there a hurricane in a desert? Who are these characters, and why do they look vaguely familiar?

Lol...can you say revision?
 

Lillie

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No. I don't say revision.

I say never look at something I've written. Not unless I totally have to, and then do it at arms length with tongs, goggles and rubber gloves.
 

mhaynes

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Re: Weird Tales, I don't have a source for this, but I'm about 95% sure I've read somewhere that the new editorial staff is NOT carrying over submission/rejection history from past staffs. So, particularly for a story which was mass-rejected when the changeover occurred, I would think it would be fair game.
 

fihr

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5-day from Clarkesworld. Totally expected. Don't you hate it when you write a story in one of those frenzied 3AM moments, read it through to check for punctuation issues, think you're a genius, submit it to a fantastic publication, and then sleep on it, only...

The next day: La-la-la-la-da-la, let me read my fabulous story again to give myself a boost. Hmmm...this isn't mine. What crazed sadist deleted my wonderful work and replaced it with this? Why is there a hurricane in a desert? Who are these characters, and why do they look vaguely familiar?

Lol...can you say revision?

Heh heh, I like this. It's worse when you look over your really, really old stories, and laugh at them in pain. Problem being, you may be foreshadowing your future laughter at what you are writing today.
 

Sai

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Re: Weird Tales, I don't have a source for this, but I'm about 95% sure I've read somewhere that the new editorial staff is NOT carrying over submission/rejection history from past staffs. So, particularly for a story which was mass-rejected when the changeover occurred, I would think it would be fair game.

Sweet! Now, will Midnight Echo reject my story before Weird Tales closes it's doors? The submission game has never been so exciting.