Rejectomancy

zanzjan said:

Well, there's my 278-day R from Analog.

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Aw, boo. Sorry to hear that, I'm sure it'll find a home in hopefully less time.

fihr said:

I have had a story waiting at Bards and Sages for about 140 days now. I've heard nothing (no acknowledgement), and I think it might have just disappeared into the ether. Shame I can't tell if the email has just got lost or not. I've queried, but also not heard back yet. Don't know whether to 'withdraw' it (in case it did get through) so I can send it elsewhere, or just keep on waiting.

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How long ago did you query them? I'm not too sure how long is too long for a query to go unanswered, but I also have a story waiting with them at 70 days. They might be experiencing a lot of backlog.

fihr said:

I have had a story waiting at Bards and Sages for about 140 days now. I've heard nothing (no acknowledgement), and I think it might have just disappeared into the ether.

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Duotrope reports a couple of 150+ day responses earlier this month (one rejection, one acceptance). Of course it also reports some 20-ish day responses recently so...

I guess it depends on how anxious you are to get the story out somewhere else.

zanzjan said:

Well, there's my 278-day R from Analog.

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Ugh...

I hope that you got some encouraging feedback with it, at least. Getting close with a market is a good first step sometimes.

Boooo! Sorry to hear about these!

I got a 276 day R from Wheelhouse. I had honestly forgotten about them and that story. You can imagine my surprise to open the email and not remotely recall the story I had sent them.

Condolences to my fellow rejectees. Mine were from Strange Horizons and Apex this week.

A very encouraging 0-day rejection from The Colored L*ns. If I wrote more in the genre they accept I'd submit to them more often. Nevertheless, a very kind rejection.

Lightspeed R today. And I got a bunch of oldies (30-40 days) that are hitting the fan in the next few days.

zanzjan said:

Well, there's my 278-day R from Analog.

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Ouch.

278 days? So, to read a story and decide they don't want to publish it takes just a tad longer than it takes a woman to grow a whole new human being inside her womb and give birth.

Well, at least they don't do anything unreasonable like demand that you not send it to anyone else to look at while they take 1% of your life to read and reject it....er, um.

Just got my first less-than-24-hour rejection ever, courtesy of Lightspeed.

I will happily take it over a 278-day rejection, though. That's just awful. I suppose stories get lost now and then, but I do wish the industry in general would send "still under consideration" updates if they're going to sit on it for months. I realize it's a buyer's market, but that story might have value elsewhere.

19 day form R from Apex, signed by the E-I-C. All my prior rejections have been signed by a submissions editor. Wonder if that means this story made it past a first reader? (If so, I think this one would have made it past first readers so far at BCS, Shimmer and Apex...)

59-day form R from The Cincinnati Review

defcon6000 said:

How long ago did you query them? I'm not too sure how long is too long for a query to go unanswered, but I also have a story waiting with them at 70 days. They might be experiencing a lot of backlog.

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I queried them about a week ago. I might wait another month before deciding the query went nowhere also. From looking at her blog, I think Julie, the editor, got hit by Hurricane Irene, and I can't imagine what chaos could have arisen from that. (Which is why I felt a bit bad even sending in a query.) I guess I just wonder if I somehow failed to send the email correctly. I'd like to send the story out again, of course, but I don't want to sim-sub if they do have it.

Hugs to all for the recent rejections. (How do you put the little hugs in the comments?) Shadow - I too have had a zero day R from The Coloured Lens. They are remarkably fast!

I've got one at Bards and Sages. 109 days. No acknowledgement.

53 days at One Buck Horror and I haven't heard a peep.

It's a little encouraging that my submission is about 10-15 days older than most of the recently rejected. I feel pretty good about that.

Just subbed out to DSF per someone's advice.

1 day rejection from The Colored L*ns.

And there's my rejection from Apex. Thinking of sending this one off to Colored Lens next.

Feeling sad today.

Me too. Haven't had a peep from anyone all week! Not even an R! I have this big submission gap from when I was editing my novel so I am top and bottom heavy but etas are all miles off.

After last months acceptance-fest I was hoping for at least one more in April so I could add some skip to my walk. Three days to go...

Hugs for the rejections, folks. Nothing to report here. Just lurrrrking.

d.thomaswise said:

Ouch.
Well, at least they don't do anything unreasonable like demand that you not send it to anyone else to look at while they take 1% of your life to read and reject it....er, um.

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Put like that, it really does seem utterly unreasonable. I just don't see the point in subbing to markets like this unless you are willing to break their no sim-subs policy. Markets like this need to come up with a better system for managing their subs. If CW and Lightspeed can I don't understand why markets like this can't.

Rejections have been arriving slowly and almost reluctantly this month... I think I'm up to only 4 or 5 of them in April, and that's with 20 submissions out!

This must surely mean that the Rejectopacolypse for me is right around the corner. Especially now that I baited it with this post.

Project Deadlight said:

Put like that, it really does seem utterly unreasonable. I just don't see the point in subbing to markets like this unless you are willing to break their no sim-subs policy. Markets like this need to come up with a better system for managing their subs. If CW and Lightspeed can I don't understand why markets like this can't.

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It *is* unreasonable. "Hey, let us hold onto your story for, oh say a year, and maybe then we'll get back to you."

Even F&SF can back to you in less than 2 weeks, and that's by mail (they probably receive fewer submissions as well).

The publishers are behind the times, and also a tad arrogant. If they can't handle their slush in a timely manner, they should close their submission portal and get through what they do have, instead of making us all wait. Or, do something along the lines of Strange Horizons, where writers can only submit once a month (1 week turnaround + 2 week wait).

But yeah, either be swift or allow sim-subs. Managing subs is not that hard.

defcon6000 said:

It *is* unreasonable. "Hey, let us hold onto your story for, oh say a year, and maybe then we'll get back to you."

But yeah, either be swift or allow sim-subs. Managing subs is not that hard.

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Just to clarify, I think we agree here. It definitely is unreasonable.

*shakes head at the 278-day response.

That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. If you're going to make someone wait that long, at least give them a personal.

I am one of the most impatient people around, and only sub to markets with 6-week response times or earlier (and rarely that long).

I have a personal taste for The Colored Lens, Clarkesworld, and Lightspeed.

EDIT: Just discovered I could've queried One Buck about 20 days ago. I'm doing it now. I'll report back with results.

Project Deadlight said:

Just to clarify, I think we agree here. It definitely is unreasonable.

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I know, I was agreeing with you without using the word "agree." Though, my emphasis was on "is" rather than "seems."

Got my R from Dark Faith 2. 88 days. Form, too, I was hoping for at least a personal since they were sending out so many personals.